[Guest]

If someone is not satisfied with the AF he may try to improve the setups by using the USB-Dock.

Lenstip says: "When it comes to the accuracy of the autofocus, our assessment is very positive. The number of misses in studio conditions reached less than 4% which is a very good result. What’s interesting, most of these misses were registered at 18 mm."

 

Imho this lens is worth a try. Try means using it on your own camera not only reading about the lens.

 

Jenbenn, are you using APS-C cameras? I took a look at your fascinating pictures but didn`t manage to find some taken with the APS-C Sensor. If not the lens is indeed useless for you.

Hm, dpreview writes that the USB dock fixes the problem only partly. The lens still misfocusses  at distances between 0.5m and infinity because the USB dock software does not offer any calibration steps for distances in between.

 

 From experience I can tell you that AF misfires are the biggest detriment to good photos.  I once shot a Sigma 70-200 2.8. In the end I used it  only at f/5.6 or smaller because it was impossible to know if and when the lens would focus accuratly wide open. Your only chance was to shoot 5-6 photos and hope that one of those would be focussed correctly. Micro adjustment or Sigma-Service did not help as the degree of misfoucs greatly varied between focus distances and focal length.

 

This is why I recommend to people who shoot ouside a controlled studio environment to better go for the less stellar but more accurate lens rather than buy the "sharpest" one,  only to end up with unsharp photos because the lens does not focus properly in real life.

 

 Since I shoot only canon lenses I never had a misfocussed image that I couldnt blame on my own improper technique (one shot AF-mode only, of course). I am not a a brand loyal but this is just a fact.

 

 And yes, I still have an Aps-C Eos 50D (all of my Burma images have been shot on this camera). Nowadays I mostly use a 5D3, however.