The iris diaphragm has 9 diaphragm blades to obtain beautiful out of focus image. It incorporates the floating focus system and the use of two aspheri
The iris diaphragm has 9 diaphragm blades to obtain beautiful out of focus image. It incorporates the floating focus system and the use of two aspherical lens elements to minimize distortion, spherical aberration and astigmatism. Internal focus system of the lens eliminates front lens rotation, thus allowing the use of a Perfect Hood and easy use of polarizing filters. The lens also incorporates a dual-focus mechanism.
I bought this lens for my Canon 300D/Rebel. Usually I used the cental AF point to focus, and I noticed, that this lens is wonderful from f/4-16. It's sharp sharp. But at f/2 has serious front focus problem, the picture was totally unsharp. At f/2,8 the focus was better, but not sharp enough.
Because I bought this lens as a wide low light lens, I was not satisfied with it. So I made tests, and I saw, that if I use another AF sensor from the 7 possible to focus, I have anoder focus result for each.
Now I know, that the nearest AF sensor on the right side from that central (nr. 2 from right) works the best. At f/2 I have the sharpnes of the f/4 central AF sensor focusing.
Strengths:
Sharp, sharp
well made
design
price
Weaknesses:
I must change the AF sensor for low light focusing
Similar Products Used:
Canon 28/1,8
Canon 5/1,4
Sigma 75-300 APO Macro
Customer Service:
Here in Hungary not good (I had a rechip problem and they could not solve the problem)
I got this lens on EBay while I decide if I want to break the bank and get the Nikon 1.4. This is really a nice lens and I think think I'll hang on to my money now and stick with this for now.
It is a little soft at 1.8, but 2.0 is just fine, 2.8 and above is excellent. I feel this lens is best in lower light conditions, and bright sun photos had weak saturation. Well, a polarizer fixed that. When the light drops this lens starts to really perform with wonderful colors and saturation on my D70.
It is very sharp, probably near the best Nikon zooms but not as sharp as the best Nikon primes. I'm sure the Nikon 1.4 would be sharper, and it has an extra stop, but it is also 8-10 times the price.
For regular low light pictures, the D70 can use ISO 1000 and above just fine, so f2 gets you a long way. I took some pictures with available light inside a very dimly lit hotel using f2 at 1/20 sec hand held and they came out really nice. That's the wonderful thing about the 28mm prime - the ability to handhold at slow shutter speeds. Depth of field is also very good with this focal length, and the hotel shots were well focused throughout the room even at f2.
Strengths:
Superb color and saturation in lower light. The images are very strong. Sharp enough, with a very usable f2. Even at the new price this lens is a bargain.
Weaknesses:
1.8 is slightly soft on mine and seems to have a some front focus at shorter distances at 1.8. I'm considering this lens an f2 and am very pleased with the performance. Soft at 1.8 is a realative thing too - it is still usable, it is just not superb at that aperture is all.
This lens is a great performer when closed down to F8-11, Wide open it has a nice soft focus effect but it becomes very difficult to focus since the DOF is so shallow. Find the Sigma SD9 not being able to focus correctly at infinity correctly and usaly go manual focus when used wide open. The lens startes to lose sharpness a bit when closed more down then F11 but still very usable.
Strengths:
Excelent sharpness
F1,8 very brigth
Not so expensive
build
Rating Reviewed by: Roy J(Unregistered User)
(Intermediate)
Review Date September 26, 2003
Overall Rating 2 of 5
Value Rating 2 of 5
Used product for Less than 1 month
Visitors rate this review 1.00 of 5,
12 votes
Review 4 of 7
Price Paid:
$0.00
Summary:
Just received this lense. Have a 10d and was very disappointed with the performance of the lense on my camera. I’m sitting in my office snapping some pictures and there is no sharpness. Grabbed my canon 24-70l, and old canon 1.8 50mm and both significantly outperformed the sigma at same f-stops. I wanted a wide angle for 10d given the 1.6 factor so I purchased this. Im returning this in the morning, after reading the solid reviews im wondering if I received a lemon.significantly outperfromed the sigma at sam f-stops. I wanted a wide angle for 10d given the 1.6 factor. Im returning this in the morning, after reading the solid reviews im wondering is i got a lemon.