Sigma/Tamron DSLR lenses

[Phil Hall]

Does anyone have experience or comments on the Sigma EX DG; Tamron XR; Tokina AF PRO lenses with Canon digital SLR's? They are all supposedly redesigned for the digital market.

[David Lawson]

I always used Tokina 28-70 f2.6-2.8 ATX pro with film. Really good lens, exceptionally well built. Tokina pro series lenses are solidly made. On digital I am impressed with sigma 24-70 f2.8 the extra 4mm helps on general work, not as sturdy as Tokinas. Maybe I have been lucky with my sigma as I have heard negative reports, I just have to watch flare. No personel experience of Tamron but heard good things about 20-40 and 24-135.

[SteveCliff]

I have a Sigma 15-30mm EX DG on my D60 which is working great for me! Very sharp :-)

[Tony B]

I also have been using the Sigma 15-30 and am quite pleased with it.

[Longwatcher]

When I recently purchased my D60, I purchased the Canon 75-300mm IS lens and the Tamron 28-80 3.5-5.8f lens. I think I can condense it to.. I replaced the Tamron lens with the Canon 28-135mm IS lens...I am much more content. Background: I got the D60 because the Kodak DC4800 I had been using just did not do everything I wanted (although it is a great camera for web site work). Namely in the telepohoto range and it the kodak has slightly inconsistant white balance. The D60 was the first camera I came across that I could marginally afford that was a "real" digital camera (I learned about the D30 after I bought the D60). So running up against a money wall I took the recommendation of the web vender as to the Tamron. It should be noted, my dad who is a professional photographer (unlike my semi-status) gave me the advice that it was a 50/50 with a Tamron. But at the price I figured It would work for me until I could afford another lens. The first time I used it, I thought it took horrible pictures indoors, but figured it was more me then it, The 75-300 Canon lens I also bought at the same time is not really suited for indoors so I took it outdoors and it took great pictures, so it was not the camera. On my second attempt, I shot with both outdoors at a local beach, I found that both produced close to the same quality (although I liked the Canon telephoto better for outdoors), So again I figured it was me instead of the lens. On my third shoot though with a friend of mine as model, in studio, with lighting, it took even worse pictures; by this time I had noticed that its autofocus point seemed to be a foot behind what it should have been, so several of the shots were on manual focus, which while slightly better were still horrible. So I went and got the Canon 28-135 IS lens and it takes great pictures under the same conditions, so my conclusion is in this case it was actually the lens, not me that was causing the bad pictures. By bad pictures there were some to me noticeable distortions in the images and the resolution did not appear to be as good. Also both Canon lenses auto focus correctly unlike the Tamron, so in the end I can not recommend that particular Tamron lens to go with the Canon D60, waste of good money. As an aside, I could use a recommendation for the best of the under $1000 studio lenses that go with the D60. Especially since I had to back up 5 feet from where I took pictures with the Kodak DC4800.

[Paul Smith]

>>They are all supposedly redesigned for the digital market.

Is there any reason why an older non-Canon lens might not work with a D60?

I have Tamron 24-135 and Sigma 170-400 lenses on my EOS 50E (both lenses are less than 18 months old) and when I hear things like "redesigned for digital" I'm worried they might not work fully with the D60 I'm looking at. Should I be concerned?

Thanks!

[torun2]

I have been shooting with the D60 since June and have logged around 9000 exposures so far. I own the following Canon lenses: 50/1.4, 85/1.8, 135/2.0, 70-200/2.8 and the 300/2.8. You'll proboaly not believe this but the 50/1.4 is about my favorite all-around portrait lens, and the price won't break you either. This lens is tack sharp, produces beautiful colour and is very underrated, in my opinion, so don't let it's simple looks fool you. For a great lens rating site, go to www.photodo.com and click on "products". You'll see what I mean. They're a little scarce on eBay, probably because nobody wants to part with theirs.

[Kevin H]

I bought a 17-35 EX aspherical Sigma to use with my D60. Normally I use Canon lenses exclusively but I was having some issues with the camera. I decided to run in depth tests on the camera and lenses. To answer your question, the lens is useless with the D60 unless you are planning to shoot @f16. Even that's not so great. Now if you are using the D30, I suspect that your results will greatly improve.