[JJ_SO]

What is so frustrating with "a short throw"? All lenses between 10 and 24mm do have that. Does it mean, all get out of focus images?


Do you actually know how little a degree (1/360 of a full circle) of turning the focus ring is? I don't think so, otherwise you wouldn't have posted it that way. On the 35/1.4 it's nearly 4° scale's turn. And because the manual focus ring is transmissioned, I'd say, between infinity and 2 m it's a turn of 7-8°, pretty easy to focus manually. Especially because Sigma was clever enough to damp the manual focus ring - it's more a "all manual, no AF" lens than one of those easy slipping rings.


I've no reason not to assume Sigma did a transmission of the focus ring to the distance scale as well with the 18-35. Of course, with a max. aperture of f/1.8 and high resolving DX sensors, together with a tiny misalingment of the AF sensor the tolerances are ridiculously small. But I had two Nikon bodies adjusted for reasons of misalingment. So, I'd be very careful to blame Sigma for AF malfunctions as this lens brings in some specifications the main manufacturers of the cam bodies don't seem to face in their own lenses.


The same with 14-24: the same 8° but now from infinity to 1m. Mysteriously, I get sharp images anyway...


Why don't you people try to judge a lens without even using it? I'm not talking to anyone particularly. It's just tiring to read those hypothetical posts... Not much of you tried the dock, few have a new Sigma lens but nearly all do know perfectly well why it has to be a bad thing... boring, really. I wished I had a dock from Nikon working as useful as Sigma's!

[Guest]

Why don't you people try to judge a lens without even using it? I'm not talking to anyone particularly. It's just tiring to read those hypothetical posts... Not much of you tried the dock, few have a new Sigma lens but nearly all do know perfectly well why it has to be a bad thing... boring, really. I wished I had a dock from Nikon working as useful as Sigma's!

 

Well, I owned the recently updated Sigma 30 f/1.4 (Art) lens as well as the Sigma dock. The lens is incredibly sharp at f/1.4... when it focuses accurately.

 

I can tell you from first hand experience that the lens and dock behaved exactly the way DPReview described.

 

Nothing hypothetical about my experience or DPReview's detailed review.

 

Useful docking station? Ever tried to use it? It's a major pain.

 

I have since then gotten rid of both lens and docking station. I don't need the stupid docking station when I can use Magic Lantern's dot tune auto calibration... let the camera do all the work on its own.

 

Just say NO to third party lenses that cannot AF reliably.

[JJ_SO]

This argumentation has sort of weak spot: Magic lantern will only calibrate to one fine tune pararmeter, this is for each lens only one distance. Done with the dock, there are four different distances. on my copy, it turned out that -1, -1, -1, +1 gave the best sharpness - some Nikon lenses go over -10. Of course, for ergonomics it would have been cool to plug a cable to the lens instead of mounting and dismounting it. But while I used the dock twice, this socket would always be there as costly to make but weak point for weather resistance. Given the price, each Nikon /Canon 35/1.4 should have such a possibility.


The dock is useful and I can't recognize the pain you suffered from. On the contrary, I'd be more than happy if some genuine manufacturers took the courage and the trouble to make one by his own. But it is kind of work to get reliable parameters, if I don't want to believe only one shot but make a couple at each adjustable distance.


The firmware update is also very nice for users who get their copy early - with each other manufacturer there's no possibility to adapt a lens to a newer body (in case there are improvements necessary).


As for the rest of your post - I read a similar opinion or observation in another forum about the 35/1.4: "razor sharp if it focusese accurately" (which always includes the sentence "but it doesn't always" So I think that can be an issue, that some Sigmas do have a failure, although they're controlling 100% of the A, C and S lenses. In my experience, my Sigma might have slightly more sharp shots than other lenses I own and of all for f/1.4 I have, this one is the best and most reliable if it comes to sharpness by AF accuracy. Maybe it has something to do with being my always on a D800. Maybe it's because that body is a challenging thing for my AF skills. Maybe it's because I know I can make crops down to 30% of original size, if my skill and the AF worked nicely together. But - I don't believe the phase AF is always 100% reliable. Especially if it comes to continuous shooting in AF-C mode I use to get the sharpest shot at the beginning of the row, the others are not bad but not as good as - always talking about aperture wide open, so close to zero tolerance. It's not always the lens. And it's not always the genuine lenses are better as given fact.


On the other side, sometimes it's not lens or skill but just a confused AF. I trash quite a bunch of pics just because the big square of the AF indicator box is sometimes too large to get the exact branch of a tree with a bird sitting on it and prefers the tree's needles or leaves behind the bird - hard to discover while shooting and concentrating on the subject. I admit I'm biased: I didn't expect so much sharpness at this price, I didn't expect this reliability and I din't expect the love for details Sigma's engineers put in their first "A" lens which hit the market and blew more people away than left impressions like yours. I agree that's not a nice impression. But if I have such an impression I tty to counter check with a trusty person's findings. Too often it was my mistake or my need to improve my skills.

[Guest]

But if I have such an impression I tty to counter check with a trusty person's findings. Too often it was my mistake or my need to improve my skills.

 

In my case, I counter checked with (i) other lenses I own, e.g., Canon 50 f/1.4 and Canon 35 f/2 IS... both of which AF perfectly on the same camera bodies (ii) DPReview's review of 18-35 f/1.8 lens which, like I said, behaves exactly the same way as my 30 f/1.4. I also had lots of painful experiences with 3rd party lenses in the past, but was willing to give the 30 f/1.4 a try because it belongs after all to a 'new' series of lenses from Sigma. My hopes were high but they were unfortunately dashed.

[stevenb]

Sigma says here in Germany they will start delivery of the 18-35 1.8 for Nikon next week. Hope that my dealer will get one!

Speculations and rumors spread by those who will never use it should come to an end soon.

[JJ_SO]

Here in Switzerland also. Dealer told me, they should receive it on Monday. I'm very curious about this lens and I'm not sure if I will sell the 16-85 afterwards. But if I can get crops as good as I need... well, I'll see.

 

Rumors and speculations will not end soon - Sigma has a history which is not only glamour and a lot of people will remember if they once had a bad copy. What I find a good thing, people remembering and staying critical.

[stevenb]

 

 

 What I find a good thing, people remembering and staying critical.

 

Me too. But annoying are those who love to be critical instead of being open minded. I don`t know whether i will be happy with the 18-35 1.8 but i give Sigma a chance since the 150 2.8 macro os convinced me.

[JJ_SO]

Same here, just different lens. I'd be glad to be surprised positively, but after all, it'd be hard to get a 18mm/1.8 prime for APS C. So, my expectations are not beyond the clouds. Price is the same as for the 35 prime, don't know if that's a good thing. Hope to know more next week.

 

Just thought about: this will become my seventh Sigma. 4 I've sold with the Pentax bodies. One because I found the turning focus ring of the 17-50 distracting, but so far I can't complain about Sigma.

[JJ_SO]

Two days ago I got it.


Impressive piece of optics. Zoom and focus ring are a big pleasure to use (better than Nikon, I'd say), sharpness and contrast are great and usability in low light photography with a zoom is something I'm happy with, especially because there are no flares. Now, as for the AF... I think this lens will face the problem, that the AF focuspoints in APS C cameras of Nikon (can't speak about Canon) are just a bit huge. In height, the AF field of a focus point already covers 1/16 of the whole height. Didn't measure it in width. But with such a huge box, this is covering 50cm in a distance of 5m at 18mm FL (or 10cm at 100cm distance). In 50 cm, there can be a huge distance when shooting at open aperture. Somewhere in those 50 cm height the the phase AF is working and tries to catch some focus. But where exactly? That's something I also have to deal with any other f/1.4 lens: if I'm very close to the subject, it sometimes is hard to guess on which point the focus will be - no matter how exact the adjustment of the lens is.


I had problems to get the target of Spyder lenscal properly at some of the distances necessary to adjust the lens via USB-dock. In real life, the challenge is not so much for the camera's AF but for the photographer to guess on which point the camera will hit the focus.


I'm sure there are already tons of pictures available, but I dare to post this link to some original size pics anyway. Camera was D7100 for which I bought that lens.


Ah, nearly forgot: What do you think about it's bokeh?

[Kodachrome 25]

"this link" seems missing its target url, leads to a 404 error page.