Sigma lens on 20D = really soft focus?

[elbirth]

I was wondering if anyone else uses a Sigma 28-80mm lens at all? In particular, on the 20D.

The package I bought with my 20D included this lens, and so far the results with it have been less than astounding, to say the least. So far VERY few pictures I've taken have been very sharp. I've tried full auto, and full manual and nothing I've been able to do has been able to get this lens to focus more sharply. My friend who owns a 300D let me borrow his kit lens and WOW... the difference in sharpness is amazing. He tried my Sigma lens on his camera as well, and the same thing... extremely soft focusing.


I'm wondering if it's this lens model that isn't very sharp? I would hope not, but I don't know. I called 47th Street Photo in NY (where I ordered the camera from) and they first of all started giving me all this really technical information about macro mode and then tried to tell me it was because wearing glasses can cause this and I should mess with the diopter adjustment (I don't wear glasses) and then finally that it's just the view finder that's grainy... when I finally got the guy to calm down with his technical babble and get him to realize I was talking about viewing the picture on my computer screen, he acted like he had no clue and suggested I call Sigma and request an exchange of lens.

My questions are, has anyone used this lens? What kind of results have you seen with it? Has anyone had to RMA a lens with Sigma? If so, how good are they to work with?

Thanks....

[phili1]

No but I had three Sigma lenses and my 28 to 105 wad always out of focus. I had to buy the Tamron 28 to 75 F2.8 and then sent the Sigmas back to them. They rechipped them and Canon came out with a firm ware update and it works fine now.

[elbirth]

Do you mean the 1.0.5 firmwware update for the 20D? I haven't upgraded my camera, mainly because I haven't had the lockup problem and have just been wary of the problems people had with the 1.0.4 upgrade of it killing their cameras.

If it won't make a difference for me, I don't really want to upgrade... but if it will, I'll go on and go for it (and pray my camera doesn't die).

[phili1]

If you follow directions to the tee it wont die on you.

There are three things you have to make sure of.
1- You connect to the ac adaptor or have a fully charged battery.
2-make sure ther mode dial is in P program.
3- do not turn Camera off or remove media Card.
4- and most important. REMOVE all lenses from the camera.

When you down load the file to your computer, set up a seperate file for the 20D.

Put your cf card in the camera and format it.
Next put it in your card reader and delete all the folders.
Now unzip you firmware down load directly into the card in the card reader. If you do not do that it can't find the firmware up date.

I never did it before and fumbled around but it easy, I had no problems except I tried to do it without removing the folders.

Canon says that if your camera is ok for now you might have a problem in the future and they reccomend doing it. your choice.

[elbirth]

I may give it a shot later today.... I got my 50mm f/1.8 lens yesterday, and there's a HUGE difference in the sharpness of pictures, even if I just hold the camera in my hand, let it focus and snap the picture randomly...
Maybe somehow the firmware upgrade will make the Sigma lens perform better, I don't know... I dread having to go through the trouble of trying to get them to fix/replace it.

[ron chappel]

Well...honestly the sigma is a sh*ty lens.
But it shouldn't be that bad :shock: .
It does sound like a comunication problem between the camera and the lens.Have you tried manually focusing?Take a bunch of shots of the same thing with manual focus,then take several with autofocus.
Be sure to switch the camera to center focus point only and make sure there is something consistant to focus on.

The AF pics should all be in focus
The manually focused ones will likely be all over the place when viewed full size but the best pic should be little or no better than any of the AF pics

[elbirth]

I've tried both manual and autofocus, but the quality of focus is just horrible... I'll go try to take some sample shots and post for comparison so you can see how bad it is.

[AzzKicker]

Here is a pic of my sister with my 20D and a Sigma EX 24-70 f2.8

http://panam4.panam.edu/~rzamora8/SISTER.JPG

[elbirth]

AzzKicker, that's a really good picture... my 28-80mm just doesn't seem to be up to par with that....

This first shot I took 3-4 days ago in a restaurant... I had it sitting on the table, and the AF point was focused on the top rounded bar of the chair

http://www.heycubed.net/pics/chair.jpg


And this one was taken just now, sitting on a mini tripod on my kitchen table, focused on the watch face

http://www.heycubed.net/pics/watch.jpg


Every once in a while the lens will a slightly sharper photo, but it never gets all that great... here's an example of one of the better shots it's taken, and handheld, at that

http://www.heycubed.net/pics/cat.jpg


Using a flash helps a little, but not always...

[davidwegs]

that's about the worst i've seen anywhere. If this is not the camera (and you shoud test that first) then..

Get rid of that lens as fast as you can!!

[phili1]

I had the same problem with my sigma 28 to 105 lens. I sent it to Sigma on wed and had it back friday fixed, The 20 D has issues with certain lenses including some Canon. I found that with the new update they operated better or it was my imagination. In any event I bought a Tamron 28 to 75 F2.8 and my pictures are awsome.

[elbirth]

that's about the worst i've seen anywhere. If this is not the camera (and you shoud test that first) then..

Get rid of that lens as fast as you can!!

yeah, seriously.... I tried the Canon kit lens on my 20D and it works a lot better. I also got my friend, who has a 300D, to try my lens on his camera, and he got very similar results with the almost blurry "focus".

I actually went ahead and updated the firmware on my 20D (thank God it didn't kill it :o) and like phili1, I'm not sure if it's just my imagination, but it does seem to perform slightly better... still nowhere near where I'd like it to be though...
I think I'm going to call Sigma and see what they'll do. I've had the lens a week and a day as of today.

[phili1]

they are pretty good like I said I sent three lenses back on a wed. they fixed 2 and had then at my door by friday. no charge for the return freight. They make a good product but everyonce in a while like everyone else a bad one gets thru.

Elbirth if you want a super lens for a great price then get the Tamron 28 to 75 F 2.8. I like it because it is also a close focus lens.. Here is a shot from it at F4. the price is around $399.

http://www.pbase.com/phili1/image/34856769

[elbirth]

That looks like a good lens, thanks for the suggestion.

For now I think I'm going to just try to find out what Sigma will do about this lens I've got and see where I can go with it. If it'll end up working out well, then I'll be good for a while... otherwise I may look into that one.

[ron chappel]

Ok,it's a dud lens for sure.
There's nothing in focus anywhere!! :shock: :shock:

Sigma will replace it for sure
...and if they don't,let us know :twisted: :twisted:

Once you get a good example of this lens you will be quite happy with it i'm sure.It is a cheap model and won't be as good as azzkickers EX model sigma but you should be getting pics equal to the canon kit lens :)

...and if you do want to spend more on a great lens one day,the tamron phili1 suggests is *the* pick of em all :D

[elbirth]

I do plan on getting some better lenses down the road (I don't want a huge collection, though)... I've considered eventually looking into the 17-40mm L from Canon for landscape shots... I may go for the Tamron 28-75, though, to save some money, and plus I don't see a dire need for the extra wideness of 17mm.
I'll also be looking for a better zoom lens later (the Sigma 100-300mm I also have seems to work quite well, though I can see it's not the sharpest one out there.

[kraterz]

Sigma's EX series lenses are pretty good, but my experience with their consumer grade lenses is that they are all garbage. I haven't seen one consumer grade sigma which has given me sharp pictures, among other things. There have been focus problems, camera lockup problems and numerous others. Your pictures indicate that the lens is rotten :) Get rid of it.

[elbirth]

Ok, so I updated the firmware over the weekend but didn't really have time to sit there and try it out.

I took some pictures earlier and took a couple just now, and WOW, after the firmware upgrade, the quality of these pictures actually seems to have improved A LOT.

For both pictures, click on them to get a larger size

Here's a crop of a landscape type shot of a building:

http://www.heycubed.net/pics/CarrBuilding.jpg


And here's a shot of something closer up like the pictures I posted before:

http://www.heycubed.net/pics/butterflyknife.jpg


All in all... I'm going to mess around with it some more over the next couple days, and if it continues to perform like this, then I won't worry about getting it replaced. But if it acts kind of sporadic or goes back to being extremely non-focused, it's going back.

[alan sh]

Not all Sigma lenses are bad. I have the SIGMA dc 18-125 and it does this (warning 3mb file) .... View it at 100% to see the detail. No post processing done at all.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan.sharkey/photos/IMG_0211.JPG

I focussed on the 2nd leg of the spider. Note the small DOF but the focus point was exactly where I aimed (using the centre focus point only)

I have the 1.0.2 firmware - do I need 1.0.5 ?

Alan

[drisley]

:shock:
Alan, that freaked me out. I hate spiders.
Elbirth, those pictures look MUCH better.
And since you aren't the only one to notice an improvement with sigma lenses on the 20D with firmware 1.0.5, I don't think it is a coincidence.

[dorkn]

Well I was having a little soft issue with my 20D and 70-200mm f2.8 L lens and I updated my firmware to the latest and it seems to have helped. But I am still new to this all so ic could be user related. But here is a shot I took with the 70-200mm Sunday and it seems sharp. This was hand held too.

http://webpages.charter.net/dorkn1/zoo4.jpg

[drisley]

Ouch! :shock:
I cut my finger on that picture!

[phili1]

Thats much better and the zebra is an awsome picture.

Everybody thought I was nuts when I said that the issue was not only lock up but focus. The incompatabilty with lenses effected it, when I saw my sigma become sharper with the up grade I new there was a comunication problem, but Canon did not tell us that.

Drisey did you order the Tokina 19-24 yet, I am interested in your opinion.

[alan sh]

Oh well, I've upgraded to 1.0.5 anyway. Sorry about the spider - but I did warn you.....

Alan

[elbirth]

Thats much better and the zebra is an awsome picture.

Everybody thought I was nuts when I said that the issue was not only lock up but focus. The incompatabilty with lenses effected it, when I saw my sigma become sharper with the up grade I new there was a comunication problem, but Canon did not tell us that.

Drisey did you order the Tokina 19-24 yet, I am interested in your opinion.

Yeah, I saw you mention that before in one of the lockup threads... guess there really was something to it as you were suggesting.
Thanks for the idea to upgrade the firmware, I probably wouldn't have tried it otherwise... I'm glad I did

[KennyG]

Checking the Exif on that first shot, it was taken at 1/3 of a second and looking at the detail most of the problem is motion blur, not focus. The later outdoor shot is sharp because the shutter speed is higher.

That lens is not one of Sigma's better lenses to be sure, but taking a shot hand-held in low light at slow shutter speeds isn't how it should be evaluated. I don't think this has been a firmware issue at all.

[elbirth]

You must have misunderstood or not seen my comment above the first picture. In the picture with the chair, I had the camera sitting on the table and used my other hand to put pressure on it to keep it in place in an attempt to not let the shutter jar it.
It wasn't handheld- the last batch, though, WAS handheld, and looks better than the one that wasn't.

Besides, nearly all of my pictures before looked a lot like the first picture, and not very few are like that. I haven't altered the way I take pictures or anything.