Sigma 28-70 f/2.8

This lens was one of the finest independent manufacturers' zooms of the early 1990s. For outdoor (landscape) photography with natural depth-of-field settings, it delivers excellent results even with today's best, sharpest slide films. Since lead- and arsenic-containing optical glasses are environmentally obsolete today, this lens has been discontinued.

Excellent image quality stopped down to f/8 - f/11 gives clear, crisp images. Constant speed through zoom range favors manual exposure mode (I have bought a Nikon AI-S MFversion). Inexpensive to get used. Neutral color rendition.

Flares a bit in backlit situations (no wonder, with 13 lens elements...). Rather bulky, but this is normal for high-speed zoom lenses. Quite short focusing throw. Noticeable distortion at 28 mm. Maximum focal length is 65 mm (according to Popular Photography test).

AF Nikkor f/3,3-4,5 35 - 70 mm; AF Nikkor f/3,5 - 4,5 28 - 85 mm; prime lenses at 28, 35, 40, 50, 58, and 75 mm.

Not needed.

I bought this lens based on the strength of two Sigma primes that I own and on the f/2.8 max aperture and weight, which indicated that it might be a nice near-pro lens. I've shot about 100 pictures with this lens and will be returning it immediately. I don't know if I got a defective unit or if this is a flaw in the design of this lens, but it is not really usable to me. Many lenses are a little "soft" wide open. However, this lens exhibits a kind of green-white "halo" around bright items when wide open. It's not really flare and it's definitely not chromatic aberration because depending on the brightness of the object or highlight in question, it the halo can be centimeters wide... I've never seen it before and have no idea what to call it. if I were shooting portraits of nuns, it would make them look all lovely and heavenly at f/2.8... but of course it just looks wrong anywhere else. The effect diminishes as you stop down and is gone by about f/8 but I shoot a lot of wide open and near-wide-open shots, and hardly ever make it as far as f/8. The ultimate test for me was to shoot a stack of books at multiple different stops in the sunlight and find them "glowing" so strongly with a green-yellow haze at f/2.8 that it looks like I've run the shot through a pile of Photoshop effects. The effect is reduced at f/4, looks like chromatic aberration at f/8 and is gone by f/11... but that's far too big a limitation for my shooting style.

Haven't used it long enough to discover optical strenghts. Fairly inexpensive for such a heavy, rugged f2.8 zoom.

Very prominent green-yellow haze artifacting surrounding bright objects at f/2.8, diminishes as you stop down but doesn't completely disappear until f/11 or so. Very heavy and somewhat slow to focus compared to my other Canon EF lenses.

Various "Non-L" Canon zooms, various Tokina AT-X and AT-X Pro zooms.

Won't use Sigma customer service for this one; I am still within my return period and will just return it to my dealer.

Actually this 28-70 lens is my second Sigma lens, the first one was manual focus APO 70-200 f 4 - 5.6 for Pentax K-mount (the focusing ring couldn''t be rotated when i took picture of my friend''s graduation day). After that accident i was afraid to buy Sigma lens anymore, and i changed my system into CANON EOS 100. Two months ago, i found very great price for Sigma 28-70 f 2.8, so i decided to try again another sigma lens. But the day before yesterday when i was taking some photographs of my cousin''s wedding party, my EOS100 jammed. I replace the lens with canon ef 28-105, it''s work normally! The Sigma lens was malfunction!!!!!! For today I will not buy Sigma lenses anymore for the rest of my life!!!!

Bright, sharp

Only 2 months work properly!!!!

Canon EF 28-105/f 3.5 - 4.5 USM

Not available in Indonesia!!!!

When you focus manually, the end of the focusing ring pass the infinity, so you can't just turn it to take far away object, you should focus it like you focusing a nearby object.

Sharpness

Focusing ring
Distortion

Nikon:
28-200, 18-35

I used this lens with my present Canon EOS 50 and EOS 10QD. A very good lens in my opinions. But care have to be taken in humid countries like Singapore, I have it cleaned once because of fungus.

1) Bright
2) Sharp
3) Cheap

1) AF Slow
2) Heavy

None