Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 II EX DG APO Macro HSM

i have a few more lenses now
a
canon 35 1.4
tamron 180 2.5 macro

i plan to get rid of my tammy 17-50 and the siggy 70-200
they are def. decent lenses but ultimately i dont think you can beat canon L!
i want a 16-25LII 2.8 and 70-200 2.8 L IS

good luck!

The Canon L's are nice indeed but I have to say that SOME (not many) third party lenses definitely give Canon a run for their money! I just received my Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 today and although my previous Canon 17-55mm f/2.8IS was not an "L", it was considered by many to be on par with them.

I for one am more impressed with the Tamron I have now then I was with the Canon! So far after taking about 75 pics and testing it handheld and with tripod in various lighting I am thoroughly happy and mine is quite sharp at f/2.8 already but stopped down to f/4 and especially f/5.6 it is tight!

I am not knocking Canon, I love their glass! Especially the f/2.8L IS which I wish I did not sell last year but lesson learned! I will be testing the Sigma which shall arrive tomorrow and I am having a Canon 70-200 f/2.8L non-is sent to me as well to compare both and will decide which I shall keep. Photos will be posted here shortly of the Sigma. I am a pixel peeper so I plan to run this baby through its course!

Cheers!

Well I just got one of these lenses today and I'm not too sure whether I have a good one or not. I have taken some standard 'brick wall' and ruler shots and it looks a bit soft wide open at 200mm and front focuses by about 10mm from about 1.5m. However, for 'real' photographs it may be OK. The bokeh at 2.8 is superb..

Here's one from today..

Nice shot! My Sigma is on its way ... out for delivery somewhere between UPS and home

I'm stuck now as I can get a used Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L non-is for just $150 more then the Sigma! And I hear a lot about focusing issues and the Sigma being far too soft at the 200mm range.

I will give the EX II a shot today and if I am not thoroughly happy then it may just go up for sale or be returned by the weekend.

I'd love to see some test shots with your new lens and I myself will also be posting some here once the lens arrives and I can test it out. Today is very cloudy however so my shots may be indoors unless it clears up later

Well my Sigma came in today but the weather has been overcast all day and night. So my samples are not the best but overall I can say the lens is pretty good. HOWEVER, I find it soft at f/2.8 and extremely soft at the 200mm mark! Perhaps too soft for me at least at f/2.8 When stopped down to f/4 and beyond it is very nice and sharp. Great color and contrast.

Compared to my Canon 70-200mm f/2.8IS that I owned, the Canon was better IMHO. I will still give this lens a shot and use it for an event I have coming up but my initial feeling is that I may get the Canon non-IS instead.

I will try some better shots tomorrow as it will be nicer weather and get some candid shots of people and whatever else I come across. For now I have some samples here at f/2.8, f/4 and f/5.6 (after this aperture there is not much change, it is very sharp). They are shot in RAW and straight converted to Jpeg with no PP at all.

ALL HANDHELD FOR THESE SHOTS

F/2.8
ISO 400
@ 70mm
1/2500 s

These samples are all at 200mm and ISO 1600 (VERY cloudy day sorry!) and they were shot on the tripod. Focus is on the E in AHEAD.

f/2.8
1/4000 s

Young boy fishing. The sun tried to break through here but didn't last long! Post processing done here - Auto adjusted the color and contrast, nothing else. Shot on tripod.

f/2.8
ISO 400
1/2500 s
@ 200mm

These two were shot indoors on the tripod. NO post processing at all. Just converted straight to Jpeg from RAW and compressed to fit here.

f/2.8
@200mm

Ok after testing this lens outdoors and in and at all apertures ( mostly 2.8 ) I can say that I at least have a nice copy of the lens!

I'm impressed! At first I was worried but that was before I actually took it out and did some real testing in all kinds of conditions.

These photos are all at f/2.8 and different focal lengths except the last one at f/3.2 as I must have hit the dial when shooting. Some were in AIservo mode, others were just One Shot. Just to test HSM on my 40D.

ISO's were not above 400 either and there was no sharpening of the images, if anything was done it was just to adjust lighting in curves (CS3).

f/2.8 @ 118mm

TDF Thanx for posting these shots.

The one I have is sharp as a tack at f5.6. It's still acceptably sharp at f2.8 if I use manual focus, but not autofocus.

I can never manual focus that sharp. Nice work.

Acceptably sharp? That's awesome at f/2.8. But what good is it if it can cant get auto focus?

V8Rumble wrote in post #5742077
Acceptably sharp? That's awesome at f/2.8. But what good is it if it cant get auto focus?

The thing is the lens front focuses by 10-15mm at a range of about 1.5m. With f2.8, the DOF is so shallow at this range and at 200mm, that the label (in this case) is OOF. Stopping down to f5.6 gives a bit more DOF, so the problem goes away.

For subjects further away from the camera, it seems to focus OK even at f2.8. It's probably still slightly front-focusing, but the slight increase in DOF at the longer range covers it.'

I may get it re-calibrated at some point, but there's no guarantee it'll come back any better than it is. So because the lens overall is sharp, I think I can live with this problem for the time being.

Cheers!

This is a shot taken on a walk Sunday afternoon. I had deliberately set the camera to settings that would push things, so ISO 100, lens wide open, centre focus only, single-shot AF. This Heron appeared a very quickly and flew right by us, so this is very much a reactive shot without much time to plan, just point and shoot.

I am highly considering this lens, but I have some concerns and was hoping you all here could help me alleviate them.

First of all, I heard this lens has focusing issues. I've read quite a few posts of this lens front focusing, were these just bad copies, or is this common?

Sharpness @ 2.8 I hear is softer on this new version then the older versions of this lens.

Does this lens only work with the sigma TC? Or will it work with kenko/canon ones as well?

How is the macro on this, and what is the magnification?

I only have a 50mm prime, and a 17-50mm zoom lens, so I need something to cover the 70-200 field. I may just save some more, play it safe, and get the canon 70-200 2.8 instead.