By Hopeless Romantic from Anaheim, Ca on 7/23/2008

I do a lot of live band photography. I thought this was a great focal range for me. Defenitely was. Good saturation, sharp photos, contrasty images...all a plus. Now for the bad. This lens hunts like no other in low light. It was pretty terrible. Had major front focusing issues in low light as well. Sure I could manually focus, and I do, but I buy AF lenses for a reason. If you're outdoors or in a studio, this is a fantastic lens i would surely reccomend. If you're shooting in low light, despite the fast 2.8 aperture, look somewhere else.

[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]

By Alaina! from USA on 1/22/2008

My fave thing about this lens is that, well it was pretty inexpensive, but it also stays at a 2.8 stop all the way through the zoom range! I take alot of live band photography and I love the lighting at shows, so not having to use a flash for every shot is great!It's also nice and wide so you can get some great scenery shots!I really love this lens, I haven't regreted buying it for an instant. If you are sub-pro and looking for a great upgrade you can't go wrong![...][@]

[2 of 2 customers found this review helpful]

By ReXT Nate from Perkiomenville, PA on 4/17/2007

At ~$600 less than the comparable Canon model, this lens is tough to beat! After several hundred shots, it's a keeper for me. I debated between this zoom range and 24-70mm, but found that 24mm was just not wide enough for my 1.6x crop Rebel XT, especially for crowded rooms and landscapes. 50mm (80mm FF equivalent) has been fine for most portraits and that zoom combined with large aperature produces nice bokeh. F2.8 makes it terrific for existing light use, though I do still find my 430EX flash necessary sometimes. I find the lens to have good sharpness at f2.8 throughout the zoom range, and at f4.0 and above it's very sharp. Colors are great. I have had no trouble with flare, or fringing, though I haven't pushed it hard in this respect. Sigma seems to have corrected the flare and CA issues with the first version of this lens. Though it's not a true 1:1 macro, I have found the macro function very useful and lots of fun. That said, the extremely small depth of field with f2.8 and macro has exposed my need for a good tripod! Build quality seems to be very good; zoom and focus are well damped. Autofocus seems accurate to me. Highly recommended.

f2.8, 1/40, 50mm, handheld, no modification

Tags: Made with Product

[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]

This was a tough choice since there aren't many reviews out there for this new lens. I am very satisfied. It's very sharp. Autofocus is very fast. The build is very solid, it feels like a tank. I only wish it had HSM, but totally not a con. I bought this as an upgrade from my kit lens and can tell a big difference.