Print This Page
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
from mcminnville, Oregon on 5/10/2007
Lens this caliber is always on the heavy side. What you get with this lens make you forget how heavy this lens is.
A really good bargain compare to Canon L series sans "weather proof". It has sharp lens and really good bokeh. Perfect lens for portraiture. The focusing is very quiet and fast. Well worth every penny. Invest in a good tripod.
Daddy let's get me a ponny...
Tags: Made with Product
Tags: Made with Product
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
from Perkiomenville, PA on 5/9/2007
First, the lens is solid and feels very well-built. Zoom and focus rings are well-damped. HSM is fast, quiet, and accurate. I bought this lens despite a souple "soft" reviews in the hopes that maybe those reviewers got a bad copy. Indeed, the non-macro version of this lens got very good reviews. And being black, the lens is also less conspicuous than its Canon counterpart. Well, it seems Sigma has taken a step backwards from the previous version, as I found this lens to be unacceptably soft. My main use for this lens would be under low light at full zoom, so I tested the lens tripod-mounted on my Rebel XT using mirror lockup at 200mm at f2.8 and f4.0, first at about 3 meters, then at about 1 meter from the subject. Images were soft at f2.8 at 3 meters and very soft at f2.8 at 1 meter. Things sharpened up quite a bit stopping down to f4.0 at both distances. I was then able to purchase a refurbished Canon 70-200 f2.8L from Adorama (for nearly the same price as the Sigma) and do the same test with the Canon lens. The Canon was sharper at f2.8 than the Sigma was at f4.0! The difference was stark at 3 meters, but even more dramatic when comparing the lenses at ~1.5 meters. Though the Sigma is billed as a closeup lens, the Canon was massively sharper at this range. The Sigma has been returned and the Canon will stay with me. I'll get used to the white color...