J.A.F. Doorhof
28th of July 2003 (Mon), 14:44
Today I went shopping for some new toys.
Because I don't have the budget yet for L-lenses, although I'm checking the secondhand market closely. I opted for something within the $ 400,00 range to complement my Sigma 70-210 f 2.8 apo which should arrive here tomorrow.
The idea was to get a lens better than my Canon EF 35-105 f4.5-5.6 lens and the possibility to use it in bad light or with a 2x extender.
The sales person pointed me to the Sigma 28-105 and because the price was very low, arround $ 249,00, I did not bite and looked first at some other lenses.
After a while I decided to give the Sigma a chance and left the store with it.
It's outperformes the canon EF 35-105 with ease and is quite a bit sharper, faster and the pictures are more lively, although color saturation is a bit less (the canon was almost too much), Saturation +2 gives the same results as the canon in that department.
The tests were done inside with a wooden object placed on a table with a pen in front of it, focus was on the wooden subject in shot 1 and on the pen in shot 2.
Shots were done with flash, between F4 and F8 and in the same conditions (RAW).
On the LCD there was no real difference to see.
When downloaded into photoshop the Sigma had the edge over the Canon in 20%-30% more sharpness.
The real surprise came when using USM.
With the canon lens the preview did not change or changed only slight with settings below 1 pixel, on the Sigma shot a setting of 0.7 pixels still gave a rather good effect. This should mean the resolution of the lens is good (if I understood correctly).
Why this mini review.
I know a lot of people want L-lenses or more expensive than they can afford at the moment, to kill that time I think this Sigma is an amazing deal. I think that in about 6 months I can buy what I really want, untill that time this one will carry me everywhere.
Greetings,
Frank
Because I don't have the budget yet for L-lenses, although I'm checking the secondhand market closely. I opted for something within the $ 400,00 range to complement my Sigma 70-210 f 2.8 apo which should arrive here tomorrow.
The idea was to get a lens better than my Canon EF 35-105 f4.5-5.6 lens and the possibility to use it in bad light or with a 2x extender.
The sales person pointed me to the Sigma 28-105 and because the price was very low, arround $ 249,00, I did not bite and looked first at some other lenses.
After a while I decided to give the Sigma a chance and left the store with it.
It's outperformes the canon EF 35-105 with ease and is quite a bit sharper, faster and the pictures are more lively, although color saturation is a bit less (the canon was almost too much), Saturation +2 gives the same results as the canon in that department.
The tests were done inside with a wooden object placed on a table with a pen in front of it, focus was on the wooden subject in shot 1 and on the pen in shot 2.
Shots were done with flash, between F4 and F8 and in the same conditions (RAW).
On the LCD there was no real difference to see.
When downloaded into photoshop the Sigma had the edge over the Canon in 20%-30% more sharpness.
The real surprise came when using USM.
With the canon lens the preview did not change or changed only slight with settings below 1 pixel, on the Sigma shot a setting of 0.7 pixels still gave a rather good effect. This should mean the resolution of the lens is good (if I understood correctly).
Why this mini review.
I know a lot of people want L-lenses or more expensive than they can afford at the moment, to kill that time I think this Sigma is an amazing deal. I think that in about 6 months I can buy what I really want, untill that time this one will carry me everywhere.
Greetings,
Frank