First impression Sigma 17-70 -- WOW !!

Had the Sigma 17-70 for a couple of hours & although limited to a few "garden plant" shots & the neighbours cat I can honestly say that on first impressions I'm very impressed

Sharpness & contrast are vastly superior to the 18-55 kit lens, can't wait to get into the mountains & get a few landscape shots !!

simon

--
http://www.landscapephotographyuk.com/

North Wales photographs - Snowdonia & Anglesey

simonkit said:

Had the Sigma 17-70 for a couple of hours & although limited to a few
"garden plant" shots & the neighbours cat I can honestly say that on
first impressions I'm very impressed

Click to expand...

That was my first reaction when I got mine a couple of years ago. The impression didn't dull with time either, it's a pleasant lens to use quite apart from its optics.

I'm sure you'll show us some proper pictures in due course, but tomorrow's forecast is not looking good for landscape :-(

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

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Congrats on the new lens. I've certainly enjoyed mine.
I'll be looking for some pics from you in the near future.

DD

Hi Simon.
I have had mine for only a couple of weeks, and my reaction was the same.

Fantastic lens for the money. As it is so good it has ment that I am now not in so much of a rush for the DA*16-50.

The DA*50-135 is looking more like the one to go for next!!

I got mine a few months ago and use it with my K100D. I should never have bought my camera with the 18-55mm kit lens. The Sigma 17-70mm is now almost a permanent fixture. I also just bought the 50mm FA 1.4 lens ... this one is great for low light and shallow depth of field. As for the kit lens, I put it some place I won't bother remembering.

avicenanw said:

The Sigma 17-70mm
is now almost a permanent fixture. I also just bought the 50mm FA
1.4 lens ... this one is great for low light and shallow depth of
field.

Click to expand...

Have you (or anyone else) compared the two @ 50mm and eg. f5.6? I'm looking for a good, sharp portrait* lens and are considering a few Pentax and Sigma lenses.

The portraits are to be taken of old and young Tibetans in the Himalayas, and the wrinkles are not supposed to be hidden!

I have shot both lenses at 50mm on the same subject. While I am pleased with the Sigma 17-70 mm, the one shot with 50mm FA 1.4 is in a different league of its own. Both are sharp but the 50 mm FA 1.4 has better overall tonal quality and more life like. You cannot compare a zoom with a prime lens. If you are shooting portraits where control over depth of field and detail really matter, you have to go with the primes. But I still go with the Sigma 17-70 for versatility, and it stays on my camera most of the time.

avicenanw said:

field. As for the kit lens, I put it some place I won't bother
remembering.

Click to expand...

Don't be too hard on the poor old kit lens... sniff... it's pretty good of its type.

Having said that, reading this thread (and others like it) make me want one of these sigmas as my next purchase
--
Mike

avicenanw said:

I have shot both lenses at 50mm on the same subject. While I was
pleased with the Sigma 17-70 mm, the one shot with 50mm FA 1.4 is in
a different league of its own. Both are sharp but the 50 mm FA 1.4
has better overall tonal quality and more life like.

Click to expand...

I agree with this. There's not a lot of difference in absolute sharpness but as I regularly re-state there's a lot more to a lens than simple sharpness. In this case the 50/1.4 is better in all respects - smoother, sharper... just better

avicenanw said:

You cannot
compare a zoom with a prime lens. If you are shooting portraits
where depth of field and detail really matter, you have to go with
the primes.

Click to expand...

Now I have to disagree

Don't write off the Sigma for this task, it's better - IMO - than some prime lenses for portraiture; in particular the background rendering ("bokeh") is rather smoother than lenses like the (very sharp) Pentax 50/1.7 for example. The 50/1.7 is actually rather sharper than the 50/1.4 but it leaves a lot to be desired as a portrait lens.

The Pentax 50/1.4 has a unique "look" for portrait work and blows any zoom clean out of the water - but I don't believe you can generalise that into an assumption that any prime lens will be better just because it's not a zoom.

--
John Bean [BST/GMT+1] ('British Stupid Time')

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Congrats on the lens. I was originally waiting for the 16-50 2.8 but i can not justify spending that much especially as i do not need the weather sealing and whatever else it offers and have decided to replace the good old faithful kit lens with the Sigma. Picking up next week from SRS
Have fun with it.
--
Tony

John Bean (UK) said:

That was my first reaction when I got mine a couple of years ago. The

Click to expand...

Hi John,

I was thinking that this lens was introduced in the end of last year! Or is this a reintrduction from an old lens?

regards Walter
--
Missed a photo posting from me? Look at my website, it's free!
~ http://www.foto-hobby.nl ~ my new website

ToXiQ said:

ToXiQ said:

That was my first reaction when I got mine a couple of years ago. The

Click to expand...

Hi John,

I was thinking that this lens was introduced in the end of last year!
Or is this a reintrduction from an old lens?

Click to expand...

I think you must be mistaken. I bought mine in early June last year (it seems longer but I looked it up) and it had been available in other mounts for quite a while before that. I'd even read magazine reviews months before I could lay my hands on a Pentax version.

So amend my "couple of years" to "a year and a bit"

--
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In defense of the "poor old kit"......

Maybe I have a very good copy of the kit, but when I have closely compared at a medium FL - say around 35mm - at a medium aperture - say f5.6 or f8 - I was hard pressed to tell the difference in sharpness between the two. My copy of the kit lens is that good.

It is at the low and high extremes in Fl as well as wider aperture that my 17-70 noticeably outperforms the kit in sharpness.

It is a bit faster and provides a wider range, of course.

DD

I too have a very good kit lens that i have posted pics with on this forum in the year i have had the k100d. The kit is small and light and uses my present filters but i still want a teeny bit more reach, speed and sharpness.....without having to stop right down.

Daddy Dan said:

In defense of the "poor old kit"......

Maybe I have a very good copy of the kit, but when I have closely
compared at a medium FL - say around 35mm - at a medium aperture -
say f5.6 or f8 - I was hard pressed to tell the difference in
sharpness between the two. My copy of the kit lens is that good.

It is at the low and high extremes in Fl as well as wider aperture
that my 17-70 noticeably outperforms the kit in sharpness.

It is a bit faster and provides a wider range, of course.

DD

Click to expand...

--
Tony

I will post a new thread on this when i can supoply images as examples.

I bought this lens a few weeks ago with no time to test it and after using it in a Provincial park this week i am sorely dissapointed.

I used it mostly at f/8 for wide landscapes at around 19mm and it's quite soft, wide open or close to wide open is just depressing.

The one caveat is that i have no real idea if i am focussing correctly or not for landscape's but right now i am so dissapointed as i visitied some beautiful area and images are so soft.

--
***********************************************
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Updated July 2007