Sigma 18-250 HSM - first pics and a few thoughts...

Started Jun 30, 2009 | Discussions thread
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Keith Schmidt Veteran Member • Posts: 7,142
Sigma 18-250 HSM - first pics and a few thoughts...

As many of you know, I've been a big fan of the Sony 18-250mm lens - the combination of IQ and versatility makes it a wonderful walk around lens. My one and only real complaint is with focus speed - it's not the fastest lens to AF, although its much better on my a700 than on my old a100.

So when the new Sigma version came out with HSM, I decided to pick one up to see how it compares.

I received the lens yesterday afternoon, and only had a short time to try it out yesterday, so I won't make too many comments yet. First impressions are that it's well built, it's bigger/heavier than the Sony/Tamron (I'll post some comparison pics eventually), the zoom mechanism is backwards compared to the Sony (and is a bit stiff in the middle of the zoom range), and the AF is nice and quiet. Is it faster? That's hard to say, as it was quite windy outside yesterday, making it hard to shoot anything that wasn't cemented to the ground. I'm hoping to try the lens out tonight at my son's baseball game to see how it does with youth sports.

I think it's a bit quicker than my Sony, especially if it nails the focus (the focus turn is quite short). But, if it misses, it is not blazingly fast to find focus. Hope that makes sense. As I said, I'll test more in the next few days and hopefully provide better info.

Anyway, here are a few quick test shots - nothing artistic in these. Just wanted to see how the lens performed in a few situations. All are straight out of the camera, shot as jpgs (fine). The full size versions are on my smugmug site.

250mm, f6.3, ISO 200, 1/250:

250mm, f6.3, ISO 200, 1/500:

120mm, f5.6, ISO 3200, 1/8 - testing the OS of the lens - works pretty well I'd say! (I'll try to do some comparisons between it and SSS when time permits):

250mm, f6.3, ISO 400, 1/20:

 Keith Schmidt's gear list:Keith Schmidt's gear list
Olympus E-M1 Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14mm F4 ASPH Panasonic Leica Summilux DG 25mm F1.4 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm F1.8 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm F1.8 +4 more
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