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bryants1
2nd of February 2005 (Wed), 22:08
I'm looking for a lens to shoot my daughter's indoor volleyball games. I'm using a 20D that my wife just got me (us);) Anyway, I was thinking about getting a Sigma 28-70mm F2.8 EX DG (due to budget constraints), but I've never used Sigma equipment before. Does anyone have any feed-back concerning that choice of lens?
CyberDyneSystems
2nd of February 2005 (Wed), 22:17
Maybe look at the Canon 85mm f/1.8?
bryants1
2nd of February 2005 (Wed), 22:33
I was looking at that lens also, but I wasn't sure of the aperature range that is available. I tried looking on Canon's website, but there isn't a lot there. The Sigma lets me go from F22 to F2.8.
wolf
2nd of February 2005 (Wed), 22:57
For about the same price as the Sigma 28-70 you can get a Tamron 28-75 (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?ci=1&sb=ps&pn=1&sq=desc&InitialSearch=yes&O=SearchBar&A=search&Q=*&shs=tamron+28-75) which is a awesome lens that has great reviews.
pcasciola
2nd of February 2005 (Wed), 23:27
I'll second the 85mm f/1.8, or even the 50mm f/1.8 if you can get close enough to the court. The 50mm is only $75 too, so it's a cheap way to find out how you like primes, and figure out how to use f/1.8. It's a good lens to have anyway for portraits and low light shots. Both of these go to f22 as well since you mentioned you were concerned about the minimum aperture.

If you have to have a zoom, I'd agree with wolf, and suggest the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Xr Di over the Sigma.
mdr
3rd of February 2005 (Thu), 03:44
It all depends how far you'll be away from the court/net. For pro and semi-pro games you'll find the 28-70 or 28-75 too short, even with the 1.6x 20D factor, due to being too far away from the court, unless you are the second ref.

What lens have you got now? How does it fare with taking volleyball shots?

Personally, I would go with a f1.8 or f2 lens in the region of 85mm to 135mm. The 70-200mm f2.8 L would be your dream buy though.
Jon
3rd of February 2005 (Thu), 10:47
The chiefest issue I have with Sigmas is that, having used Canon zooms for umpty-ump years, the Sigmas zoom backwards (same as N*kon). A small point, but the less I have to think about the trivial, the more attention I can pay to what I'm doing. If you've only got the kit lens, then you haven't got any ingrained habits to deal with and this won't matter to you.