Bruce writes:

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

Bowser writes:

That's OK. Most of us rarely take Sigma seriously. Except for the
occasional good lens, most of their stuff is crap.

Sigma is one of the most aggressive lens companies lately, and has made
some outstandingly good lenses. I've never had a bad lens from them.
(Then again, I've chosen all my lenses, from them and others, after
considerable research.)

(Happy owner of Sigma 105/2.8 macro, 12-24/4.5 full-frame,
120-400/4.5-5.6).


The first two are excellent lenses. I have never used the 120-400mm
so cannot comment.

It's pretty good. Not as good as the Nikon 200-400/4, but I got it for
1/5 the price, that Nikon wasn't on the list. I haven't owned both, but
many reviews say it's better than the Nikon 80-400. I have a friend
with that one, but we haven't done a side-by-side test.

But all Sigma lenses, no matter how good they are optically, are
afflicted by poor build quality. The use of double sided adhesive
tape to hold components in place is unforgivable. The frequent lack
of proper collimation means that even very good lens designs and well
made lens elements fail to realise the potential of the designs,
except of course in the case of magazine review samples which are
always supremely well built.

Yes, build quality is one of the things that the way photo products are
"tested" gets us no information at all about. The lensrentals.com
report on their attempt to rent out high-bucks Sigma lenses is rather
depressing, due to a very high level of issues such as you describe.

The 105mm macro and 12-24mm DG lenses appear well designed and
reasonably well made, at least outwardly. I will take your word for
it that the 120-400mm is too. It is just a pity that those standards
do not extend to the whole Sigma range.

I got stuck losing both my short and my long lenses when I found myself
unexpectedlly going to full-frame after a couple of DX DSLRs (the D700
was more aggressively priced than I had anticipated any time soon, and
had more of the D3 goodness than I had anticipated). Had to do
something fairly drastic, and hadn't budgeted for it. Hence the 12-24
and the 120-400; the 105 macro I got for film back around 1999.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/
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Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info