Is the sigma 17-70mm lens lousy for distant subjects?

Ok,first up ,sorry for the potentially provocative sounding title.In truth it seems that most cheap zooms have great difficulty giving sharp landscape images .

However the results i've seen posted so far suggest that while this lens gives very good closeup shots (flowers to people look mostly great),most of the landscape images are just ....not good.
-Maybe even slightly worse than the kit lens?

Any thoughts,experiences or (hopefully!) direct comparisons with similar lenses?
I know there is currently a sigma 17-70 'archive' thread going but it doesn't really address this issue

Hey Ron,

I presume you mean at 17mm?

I'd like to see a landscape comparison with other roughly 17mm lenses too.

Ron, I haven't heard/seen problems with this lens and landscapes. I found my test copy to have very good sharpness stopped down with generally nice colors. And I would say it's easily a few notches up from the kit lens. Do you have links to these "not good" images?

ron chappel wrote:
Ok,first up ,sorry for the potentially provocative sounding title.In truth it seems that most cheap zooms have great difficulty giving sharp landscape images .

However the results i've seen posted so far suggest that while this lens gives very good closeup shots (flowers to people look mostly great),most of the landscape images are just ....not good.
-Maybe even slightly worse than the kit lens?

Any thoughts,experiences or (hopefully!) direct comparisons with similar lenses?
I know there is currently a sigma 17-70 'archive' thread going but it doesn't really address this issue

the 28-135 is the same and so was the 24-85 but better than the former. i used to hike several times a week and how a lens performed for landscapes was a big deal to me.

i'm talking about about hills and dense foliage in the california sunshine.

the first lens that did very well for me was the tamron 28-75 and then i got the 17-35, which was also excellent.

the 28-135 was the worst. brown, mushy, crappy landscapes no matter what i tried. but this lens was excellent for close up stuff and its nominal macro was a great feature for butterflies and such.

ed rader

I have a heap of links but there is not alot of use posting them - what i'm after is proof that it can take GOOD landscapes.Do you have any?

*edit -had alot written on the possible variables that effect the images we see on the web but decided to keep this simple for now)

I guess the point i'm making is that there are precious few good crisp landscape images out there from this lens.Yet i do see heaps of dodgey ones -the 'muddy brown, mushy, crappy' images that Ed talks about above.
Is this just because few good photographers have posted landscape images yet ,or because the lens is generally no good at this?

That's a good point Evan .Looking though the images i've found ,the wider end definitely does seem worst

These don't look too bad:

https://photography-on-the.net …hp?p=1827841&po​stcount=38