Sigma Lens Advice

R

RobbieW

Guest
Hi,

I am looking to buy a new Lens for my 350D. Over the past few years I have become fond of Sigma as they seem good quality and are still affordable.

I currently the 18 to 55 mm kit lens and a 70 to 350 APO Macro lens.

I am looking to buy one that would be in addition to the kit lens, but over time I may stop using that one all together. The two I have found are:-

Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 EX DG Macro (Canon AF) £290

Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8 EX DG Lens (Canon AF) £230

I would be using the lens for portrait / studio work (see yesterdays postings for more pics ;) ) and also for landscape and sunrises/setsets.

My 70-300 has a macro function so I am not sure if I need to spend the extra £60 getting that.

Can anyone offer any advice on these lenses? as a newbie to photography I don't have a fortune to spend so £300 would have to be my max.

Thanks

Rob
 
Well my thought would be that the 24-70 would be the better bet. Initially you still have the kit lens for covering the slightly wider end, but in the longer term if you wanted a super-wide then that one fits perfectly with Sigma's 12-24mm. This is the route I'm looking at taking....! You could also - assuming that you're looking at sticking with cameras like the 350D with the relevant crop factor - consider going even wider with the Sigma 10-20mm which so many on here use to great effect, and only have a tiny gap in coverage in the range.

Good luck with the decision.

:)
 
Thanks for your reply.

One question (sorry excuse my ignorance on this), I understand how depth of field on a camera works with the different F numbers. But how does this tie in with the F numbers on a lens?
 
The f numbers the lens can handle tell the camera what range you can pick from, i.e if the lens can't do f2.8 you can't pick it on the camera. The camera is merely an electronic verison of the old aperture ring that used to be / and still is on some lenses.
 
Have a look at the 18-50mm f2.8 EX DC MACRO, its a new release and should be here before x-mas. Well worth a look.

King.
 
I own the 24-70 f/2.8 EX DG Macro and found the focal length ideal for studio/portrait work on a 20D since the 1.6 crop factor of the smaller sensors meant I had an effective focal range of 39mm-112mm, a little little shorter than the typical 50mm used in film/full frame for full length body and a little shorter than the typical 135mm used for head shots. I've since upgraded to a 5D and tried the lens out properly yesterday in a long studio session. It performed faultlessly and if anything, gave even better results than I got when using it with the 20D. The only downside is that I now need to switch betwen this lens and a 70-200 for closer shots when before I could get them all using the 24-70 on the 20D

The only fly in the ointment is the filter size. I've got high quality UV and circular polariser filters for it but anything else is very hard to find.

I found that for me, 24mm on a crop sensor wasn't wide enough a lot of the time for landscapes and so added the excellent Sigma 10-20 f/4-5.6 lens. Having said that, I've also seen stunning landscape shots taken using a 70-200mm zoom lens and a 300mm prime lens.

I've no experience of either the 28-70 or the 18-50 though I do know that the non-macro version of the lens King_Boru mentions was also well regarded for image quality, however the effective focal length of this lens is 29mm - 80mm, meaning either a change of lens for closer shots or getting closer to the sitter than maybe you or the sitter would like.
 
Thanks for all your replies.

Need to save my pennies now
 
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