Questions Sigma 18-35/1.8 DC HSM Art

Been looking to add an ef wide angle lens to my arsenal, i have seen some youtube reviews on it, sounds good.
would this be a good option for taking pics of trees from 10-50 meters away? anyone have this lens with thoughts on it?

any other contenders worth mentioning?
i have 100-400 so i'm looking to for something in the sub 20mm
It is for my eos m50, ef mount preferred

 

Yes, I have one. I have owned it for three years plus, and I love it. Mine is in Pentax K mount and it rarely comes off my K3. I own a lot of lenses, and this one is pretty well at top of my list of preferred lenses. Some people will not like this lens as it doesn't have a camera manufacturers name printed on it.

I will try to give you my opinion on the lens.

So lets start with the negatives.

I have read that the auto focus is a little hit and miss, so on my K3 (a dslr) I use the camera in live view with focus peaking. I have never used it with auto focus through the viewfinder. It's just the way that I have used it.
The lens is big and heavy.
The lens has a limited zoom range. On a Pentax crop camera which is a 1.5 crop factor, you get a 27-52 or there abouts.

And that is about all the negatives for me.

The positives.

The lens is really well built. I am not so sure of Sigma lenses of old. They pretty well upped their build quality a few years back. My lens survived a 16 000 km bouncing around in the back of a 4wd trip around part of Australia. Parts of it were on pretty rough corrugated roads. I have no concerns about attaching my square filter holder to the front of the lens either.

The lens is sharp. Even wide open the lens is sharp. Have a look at the reviews on the Lenstip web site.

The lens is fast, and it is a constant f1.8 through the zoom range.

Optically it is very good. It is like a small bag of primes in one lens.

For me and my style, I love the lens. I don't use it on moving subjects. I like using it on low light subjects. I just wish that I could find a full frame equivalent.

Here are a few images from the lens.







And trees, well I don't go out of my way to shot trees. But this is about the closest I get to shooting trees.



Would I buy this lens if I never owned it? Yes, in a heart beat.

I hope it helps.

Gary

 

Thanks for your review, Gary. That looks like a really nice lens. I have a couple of recent Sigma lenses and their build quality is hard to beat nowadays. I had never seriously considered this lens but I have been looking at other reviews and LBA might be kicking in again.
If I find one at the right price I could be tempted. Having f1.8 through the whole zoom range is enticing.
Here we go again.

 

If you get the chance Ray, buy one. You won't regret it. I just wish there was a full frame equivalent. The Sigma 24-35 f2.0, or a handful of primes is my only option. It's really impressive the detail that you can pull out of the images from this lens, and for a zoom lens as well. It also shows some prime lenses a thing or two as well.

Gary

 

thanks Ray for the thoughts and samples, and sorry Gnd for the carrot!!
certainly sounds like the lens for me,
my go to lens reviewer on youtube is Christopher Frost Photography hi gives standardized reviews if anyone not seen his ones.

 

I have seen Chris's review of this lens on youtube. He pretty well hits the mark. I really don't think that you can go wrong with this lens on an aps-c camera. If you have an inner geek, Lenstip and Optical Limits do technical reviews on this lens.

Gary

 

Now you know that you are never going to be happy until you try this lens Ray. F1.8 and it is sharp. Blurry backgrounds, wide open you can use a lower ISO so less noise.

Is my LBA working on you?

Just one more lens.........

Gary

 

You aren't making it any easier, are you? My heart says yes, but my head says no. I know that it is an EF mount but it is designed for APS-C and I am really only interested in FF lenses and I already have the EF 17-40L which is f4 and, of course, f1.8 does appeal but I've got that FL range covered. I'm just looking at this stage and there aren't many around in my price range.

 

My sigma 18-35 1.8 came today.
Hand Held 3m indoor test:
so far my side to side test against the canon 15-45mm has not really been the step up i was expecting,
i've taken a few pics around the house and outside with the sigma just to get used to it,
The only real side by side purposeful test i've done atm is on a black leather bag with white stitching in a moderately dark corner of the room.
the main reason the sigma doesn't pull ahead of the canon kit on this test is the lack of image stabilization in the lens, the M50 body doesnt have it but the kit lens does.
after an hour or so trying to get the best clarity from the bag stitching and metal zip i would have to say the kit lens wins.
sigma best single image stats :
aperture 2.2
shutter 1/20
iso 640

sigma best continuous image stats :
aperture 1.8
shutter 1/50
iso 1000

canon kit stats :
aperture 5.6
shutter 1/4
iso 800

the sharpest image was the sigma at 1/20 but it took a lot of shots to get that rock steady hand held,
the sharpest canon image was at 1/4 which was easy to repeat and was pretty close.
the best repeatable from the sigma was not as good as i could get the canon.
testing the two lenses resting on the table allowed a longer shutter time from both negating the stabilization problem with the sigma
considering how good the 100-400 c is with is it would be a great addition to the 18-35.
Iwill cntinue to test the lens side by side with the kit see how it goes

 

Keep us up to date with how you go with lens. As I have said I use manual focus with this lens in live view with focus peaking.

Gary

 

yep very well explained, thanks