Sigma 15-30mm f/3.5-4.5 EX DG Aspherical 35mm Zoom

Sigma 15-30mm f/3.5-4.5 EX DG Aspherical 35mm Zoom 

DESCRIPTION

  • Aperture range: f/3.5-32
  • Internal Focusing
  • Min focus: 12 in.(30cm)
  • Mounts: Sigma SA, Minolta(D), Nikon(D), Pentax, Canon

  • USER REVIEWS

    Showing 21-30 of 38  
    [May 13, 2003]
    Anthony
    Professional

    Strength:

    Optical quality - construction and weight - clever hood design -

    Weakness:

    Too warm in color rendition

    Clever design + great performance. No distortion at all. Could not find better, tested Nikon lenses and found Sigma to be better suited for my needs.

    Customer Service

    -

    Similar Products Used:

    -

    OVERALL
    RATING
    5
    VALUE
    RATING
    5
    [Feb 25, 2003]
    Steve Bingham
    Professional

    Strength:

    Extremely sharp at f11. Image sharpness falling ever so slightly at f16. f8 and f22 were about equal. Wide open was of course a little fuzzy. Contrast was adequate, but not exceptional. Distortion was surprisingly very little. Perhaps due to the cropping factor. Beats out much more expensive lenses.

    Weakness:

    Some flare when shooting into the sun - like all the lenses I tested.

    As I am not a fan of Sigma, I took a very careful look at this lens. I tested it and 2 others in the same ultra wide zoom catagory. It was superior in all regards, especially sharpness. It is important to note that I was using a Fuji S2 Pro digital which has a 1.5 cropping favtor. I cannot speak to corner sharpness and distortion using a regular 35mm format. However, for my use it made one heck of a wide angle lens! (about 22mm equivalent)

    OVERALL
    RATING
    4
    VALUE
    RATING
    5
    [Nov 29, 2002]
    Casual

    Strength:

    WIDE!!! still provide 22.5mm after using with my D100. Really good price (HK$3500 with warranty) compared with other prime 14 or 15mm lens. The lens hood cap can be changed to part of lens hood when you use the lens for digital SLR, and give 82mm filter mount, really smart. The colour saturation is good and light in weight. AF speed is reasonable even this lens don't have HSM. The lens constriction is solid and feels good. Distortion is noticable at 15mm, but acceptable. No experience in flare control yet.

    Weakness:

    Sharpness drops quite significant in ~20% edge areas compared with Nikon 18-35mm at 24mm on my D100 test. But its price is only similar with Nikon 18-35mm and give even more 15mm, so such problem is acceptable for me. No filter cannot be added if use with film SLR.

    Actually, I am happy with my Nikon 18-35mm's optical quality, but it only provide 27mm wide when using with D100, so it is not wide enough for most landscape pictures. I found this lens is a good combination with my 28-105mm when hiking and not give much weight burden.

    Customer Service

    No experience

    Similar Products Used:

    Nikon AF18-35mm

    OVERALL
    RATING
    4
    VALUE
    RATING
    5
    [Nov 21, 2002]
    raimund stefaner
    Intermediate

    Strength:

    sharpness, contrast in the range from 15mm to 20mm are top. great colors - landscapes. the only way to get 24mm on a D60. price

    Weakness:

    performance at 24mm - 30mm (unsharp area in the lower left corner) flare

    best perfomance at 15mm (up to 20mm). ultra sharp pictures even at f3.5! a little r-stop-fault at 15mm-f3.5 with +0,5EV easy to correct. very good contrast and warm colors. when zooming to 30mm the picturequality is decreasing, stopping down is useless. (I am using this lens on my d60 so I need 15-20mm for most of the time). I have tested 2 of them and bought the 2nd which performed much better wide open at 15mm. So I would recommend testing exactly that lens you want to buy under the conditions you will take most of your pics.

    Similar Products Used:

    Canon D60 Canon EF 28-135 IS Canon EF 100-300 Canon Speedlite 380 EX

    OVERALL
    RATING
    4
    VALUE
    RATING
    5
    [Oct 11, 2002]
    Dave Scarallo
    Professional

    Strength:

    Sharpness, Contrast, Price, Angle of view, Low linear distortion

    Weakness:

    Not built quite like "L" series lenses, but the reduced weight was much appreciated. (The build quality is really very good)

    Excellent lens. I bought this lens for a trip to Italy. I wanted the zoom range for scenics and interiors. The focus speed was more than adequate for what I use the lens for. The sharpness is very good especially at 5.6 and smaller, and the contrast is very high. I could not justify the cost of a 16-35 L for vacation use so I chose this lens at less than half the price. After shooting 31 rolls of Fuji NPS with this lens and my "L" glass I found the sharpness to be compatible. Except for the angle of view it's hard to tell the photos apart.

    Customer Service

    Not needed with this lens, but needed twice to fix AF motor on 75-300 and it was first rate

    Similar Products Used:

    Canon 28-70 f2.8L, Canon 70-200 f2.8L, Sigma75-300 APO Macro

    OVERALL
    RATING
    4
    VALUE
    RATING
    5
    [Aug 07, 2002]
    mark1958
    Intermediate

    Strength:

    inexpensive. good for digital SLRs

    Weakness:

    less sharp at 24mm and above Not good for film cameras secondary to vignetting. no front filters possible

    THe images from this lens especially in the 15mm range are quite good. They are sharp for wide angle with nice color reproduction. I compared this to the Canon 16-35 and at the 15/16mm side, the sigma actually was sharper with warmer colors. At the 30mm end, the canon won out. I should note that on my film EOS 3 camera, there was substantial vignetting at 15 to 19 mm. THe multiplier on the digital SLRs did away with this problem.

    Customer Service

    na

    Similar Products Used:

    canon 16-35L canon 14mm

    OVERALL
    RATING
    4
    VALUE
    RATING
    5
    [Jul 10, 2002]
    defraggedMike
    Intermediate

    Strength:

    Sharp photos edge to edge, bright contrast in full sun and brown rocks, it picked out the details nicely. Since it uses drop in filters and I don't have any, I was worried about what the Negev Desert sky would look like, it looked great, it came out a deep blue as it appeared visually.

    Weakness:

    It is pretty large, there is not a way to screw in a UV filter to protect the big ol bug eye, HSM would have been nice also.

    I am working in Israel and decided to purchase this lense for taking photos in ruins where a normal is to wide, and my manual Sigma 23-35 is a tad to wide. So the old manual focus lense is my point of reference and this lense of course blows it out of the water, as it should as it cost 3x as much. The focus is sharp corner to corner, nice contrast shows in stones, sharp details of old stone carvings. The lense is easy to use, I like the way it manually focuses but have'nt used it on my FE2 yet, but that will be soon as the F4s is not getting any lighter and my girlfriend is getting tired of carrying it... I have only shot 2 rolls of 160VC and Reala 100 (This appears to be the better choice for outdoor shots) with the lense, and I am not a pro, so take the review with some grains of salt and some tequila.

    Customer Service

    I hope I never know

    Similar Products Used:

    An old Sigma 23-35 MF

    OVERALL
    RATING
    4
    VALUE
    RATING
    4
    [May 11, 2002]
    Tomm
    Casual

    Strength:

    1) Really sharp lense at all apertures above 3.5 2) Great color reproduction and contrast 3) Not too heavy 4) Fantastic price!

    Weakness:

    1) Build quality could be better (I would be willing to pay the extra for a more robust finish) 2) Gelatin filters? (guess I will have to learn how to use them!) 3) A little soft at wide end and f/3.5 (still usable however) 4) Changing to manual focus is a pain (although not too bad since I would hardly ever use it for wide angle shots anyway)

    I bought this lense because I needed a wide-angle for my D30. I am not disapointed with my purchase! I don''t want to take this lense off because it is soooo much better than my other glass (28-105, 50 1.8, 200 2.8L).

    OVERALL
    RATING
    4
    VALUE
    RATING
    5
    [Apr 29, 2002]
    mark1958
    Intermediate

    Strength:

    Sharp and good colors on D30 Very well priced Definitely a good lens for the digital SLR crowd

    Weakness:

    Noisy Vignetting on EOS 3 film camera

    I initially bought this lens for my canon D30 after reading so many positive reviews --even those who claimed this lens was better than the canon 17-35. I was very impressed with the optical quality on the D30. There was minimal (but some distortion) wide open but the colors and sharpness were reasonably good. However, on my film camera, EOS 3 there was horrible vignetting at about 15 to 19mm. I have not noticed bad flare that others have commented on

    Customer Service

    NA

    Similar Products Used:

    canon 20-35/3.5

    OVERALL
    RATING
    4
    VALUE
    RATING
    5
    [Apr 19, 2002]
    ahoisman
    Intermediate

    Strength:

    1. Low distortion threwout rqnge 2. crisp imaging at both ends of zoom range and at most f stops. 3. apprears to br robustly built.

    Weakness:

    Weight and miss an f2.8 aperture.

    High quality construction,excellent image, and reasonable pricemakes this lens a very good buy- especialy for Digital SLRs. Haven''t tried it on my EOS 3 yet.

    Customer Service

    never needed it

    Similar Products Used:

    Canon 20mm, Sigma 28mm

    OVERALL
    RATING
    5
    VALUE
    RATING
    5
    Showing 21-30 of 38  

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