Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro DF Autofocus Lens for Canon EOS

I own 3 Canon lenses,
EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 that came w/ Digital Rebel
EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 V USM that came w/EOS Elan II
EF 75-300 f/4-5.6 III USM.
Since "quality" Canon glass is somewhat out of my price range this is the
lens I'm considering as my walk around lens.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=350973&is=REG
also considering...
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=284399&is=REG

Any thoughts or user testimonials, both pro and con would be appreciated, as
well as any other serious recommendations.

TIA
John

 

I own 3 Canon lenses,
EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 that came w/ Digital Rebel
EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 V USM that came w/EOS Elan II
EF 75-300 f/4-5.6 III USM.
Since "quality" Canon glass is somewhat out of my price range this is the
lens I'm considering as my walk around lens.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=350973&is=REG
also considering...
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=284399&is=REG

Any thoughts or user testimonials, both pro and con would be appreciated, as
well as any other serious recommendations.

TIA
John

If you can put up with a focus motor you can hear and one which is a triffle
slower than a Canon USM and you can handle the occasional miss focus. You
don't mind a Apochromatic lens producing chromatic aberrations on some
scenes. The Sigma is a product worth considering. I just sold one of these
(non macro) lenses after owning it for less than 6 months. Watch the line
wrap!!
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3880341130&ssPageName=STRK:MESO:IT

There is no difference in the sharpness of the image this lens and my new
24~70 f2.8 L series produces under circumstances ideal to the Sigma lens.
There is lots of difference in other areas and I really don't mind having
sold 2, Sigma lenses to get one "L" series of this type. I found the 28~70
f2.8 Sigma I had on my 10D to be better than the new Sigma for Digitals. If
you care to take some advise from a previous owner... Try the 28~70 before
making a decission.

Douglas

 

I own 3 Canon lenses,

I personally like the 18-55 as a walk-around: Not because of quality
(it's obviously not stellar), but because going as wide as 18mm is often
very helpful to me - even though it isn't terribly "fast". Unless you don't
find that to be so, you might want to wait until you can scratch up enough
for:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=351548&is=USA

In fact, that lens would make the 18-55 useless, meaning you could sell it
on ebay, making the cost difference between that and the Sigma not very
great.

steve

 

These links just take me to the B&H front page, I'm afraid.
Probably because of the quoted-(un)printable encoding. It would
be better if you posted your message as regular text rather than
multipart MIME with text and HTML.

Assuming we're talking about 20-something to 70-something f/2.8 zooms ...

Photozone.de disparages the Sigma 24-70 and talks up the Tamron 28-75.
Doesn't provide much detail though. Follow this link and look at
"Alternatives", underneath the table:

http://www.photozone.de/2Equipment/canonFAQ.htm#28L

They don't mention the Tokina 28-70, another competitor in this range.

 

From: "Ben Rosengart" <>

|
| These links just take me to the B&H front page, I'm afraid.
| Probably because of the quoted-(un)printable encoding. It would
| be better if you posted your message as regular text rather than
| multipart MIME with text and HTML.
||
| Assuming we're talking about 20-something to 70-something f/2.8 zooms ...
|
| Photozone.de disparages the Sigma 24-70 and talks up the Tamron 28-75.
| Doesn't provide much detail though. Follow this link and look at
| "Alternatives", underneath the table:
|
| http://www.photozone.de/2Equipment/canonFAQ.htm#28L
|
| They don't mention the Tokina 28-70, another competitor in this range.
|
| --
| Ben Rosengart (212) 741-4400 x215
| Sometimes it only makes sense to focus our attention on those
| questions that are equal parts trivial and intriguing.
| --Josh Micah Marshall

Those URLs are fine but are wrapped. You can't just click on them becuase they are
incomplete. Just copy them and the line below them into notepad, unwrap them, copy the full
URL and past into the Browser line.

 

No sir, that is not the issue. It's the quoted-printable encoding
applied by the O.P.'s newsreader. Thank you anyway.

 

From: "Ben Rosengart" <>

| No sir, that is not the issue. It's the quoted-printable encoding
| applied by the O.P.'s newsreader. Thank you anyway.
|
| --
| Ben Rosengart (212) 741-4400 x215
| Sometimes it only makes sense to focus our attention on those
| questions that are equal parts trivial and intriguing.
| --Josh Micah Marshall

Then blame your News Reader -- slrn/0.9.8.0 (NetBSD) ;-)

 

You waste your time dave. If there is one person you could find more
dissagable than a Linux user it just has to be a BSD user. NetBSD at that!

This guy uses an oddball (to be kind) reader and expects it to recognise
advanced, non-complying (because it is advanced) features of a modern day
news reader. When it won't, he blames not his historic reader but the one
with features all the rest of us are used to having.

It's one thing to use an alternative operating system but another thing
alltogether to expect it to be as advanced as a bought one. For years users
of Unix like operating systems have predicted the imminent demise of
Microsoft as the dominant OS. Maybe if the 'ix developers ever did agree on
one point and make it seem possible, the next point would be in disagreement
and the whole thing fall over again. SLRN is hardly a leading edge package.

 

It's true, don't try to sag me.

NetBSD isn't my choice, that's what my ISP (and employer) runs.
I'm posting from their machine.

Tsk, it would really be better if you weren't so snotty.

 

No. There's no good reason to post anything but text/plain to a
non-binary newsgroup.

 

You bring up a a valid point upgrading to the EF-S 17-85 w/IS, but it's
exactly the f/2.8 across the entire zoom range that attracts me to this
particular Sigma lens. A fair amount of my shots are of house interiors
taken before and after renovations so the ultra wide angle is definitely a
plus. But I have to adjust levels of nearly every image to correct exposure,
especially when interior designs are dark in nature. Since details are
important in conveying quality of work, moving to faster ISOs increases
noise, thus decreasing detail.

 

The Sigma lens to which I referred is a fairly new lens and really hasn't been reviewed or at least not that I can find.
http://www.sigma-photo.com/lenses/lenses_all_details.asp?id=3261&navigator=2
It's not the lens in the comparison at Photozone.
http://www.sigma-photo.com/lenses/lenses_all_details.asp?id=3264&navigator=2
That Tamron model however is the one I'm debating as an alternate to the Sigma.
http://www.tamron.com/lenses/prod/2875mm.asp

 

Are you sure? Look again at Photozone. They mention both the
"Sigma AF 28-70/2.8 EX DF" and the "Sigma AF 24-70/2.8 EX DF". Is
this latter not the lens you're considering? Sigma's site doesn't
list any other 24-70/2.8.

 

Yes I'm certain, the actual lens is a Sigma AF 24 -70mm f/2.8 EX DG MACRO <~~~NOTE DG not DF
here's the link to it on Sigma's site under Standard Zoom Lenses it's the second in list w/NEW designation,..
http://www.sigma-photo.com/lenses/lenses_all_details.asp?id=3261&navigator=2
Note that this lens has an 82mm filter size.
Since I have a 30 day window to return it, I think I'm going to take it for a test drive. I should know within a
day or so if it's going to do the job.

 

Actually both:

DF (Dual Focus) System

This lens incorporates a Dual Focus (DF) system that is designed to
make the lens easy to hold during autofocusing, and yet provides a
large focus ring for easy manual focusing.

Adorama lists just one Sigma 24-70/2.8, and mentions both DG and DF:

Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 EX Aspherical DG DF [...]

Hmm. So where in that list is the 24-70/2.8 that photozone.de talks
about? Is it discontinued?

 

--------------
Let me clear up some confusion about this lens having owned a number of
recent Sigmas and Canon 'L' series lenses of similar specs, I can probably
save you some heartbreak here as well.

My first Sigma "EX" lens was a 28~70 f2.8. I used it on a 10D Camera and
later on a Kodak with Canon mount. When I sold the 10D, I bought 2, 20Ds and
a Sigma 24~70 (not the Macro) f2.8 "Digital" lenses. I also bought a 100~300
f4.0 Sigma lens thinking it would go a way towards equalling my 120~300 f2.8
Sigma when the distance I hiked made weight a major consideration. I was
wrong and it cost me several grand to find that out.

I print and sell 24"x 36" and 48" wide posters which sometimes become
wallpaper photographs. Pictures from the 10D with the 28~70 lens easily
enlarge to posters and the image is sharp and distortion free. Not so image
from the 24~70. Even using a 20D with it's extra density, images taken using
the 24~70 Sigma lens are not a lot better than those taken with the plastic
element, 18~55 "kit lens" images.

Use RAW and a nice converter like DxO which corrects the lenses problems and
the kit lens starts to produce better quality images than the 24~70 Sigma. I
put this down to the fact that Sigma "designed for digital" lenses are
lesser quality than those they sell for 35mm. The 20D has some unique needs
from a lens which Sigma's digital lenses don't seem to provide.

Anyway, I recently sold the 24~70 Sigma (and the 100~300) and bought a "L"
series 24~70 f2.8. This is THE lens by which to compare others and whilst I
was happy with the 28~70 Sigmas and unhappy with the 24~70, neither of them
came within a cat's whisker of the real thing. Sure, I can show you dozens
of great pictures I took with the Sigma's but I also have hundreds more I
can't sell for one reason or another which all relate to the lens having let
the shot down.

If your work needs to be done in low light, buy a program called "Neat
Image" and a RAW converter called DxO with the 18~55 Canon module and leave
the idea of a 24~70 alone until you can afford the real thing. The Sigma's
don't cut it with digital, I'm afraid.

You can't get much depth of field at f2.8 anyway so you'll probably need
f5.6 to f8 just to have the interior in relatively sharp focus. The little
plastic kit lens works best in this range and the barrel distortion from
using it at 18mm is fixed with DxO. Don't be frightened to crank up the ISO.
20D's handle 1600 ISO better than Nikon handles 400 ISO and Neat Image will
fix the noise really well. No one will ever know you are using a plastic
lens unless you tell them and even then, probably won't believe you!

Some of my enlargement: http://www.tecphoto.com.au/examples.htm
and... http://www.tecphoto.com.au/examples2.htm

Douglas