Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 Art DC HSM Lens for Canon

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Great low light lens. Photo was taken with a Nikon D7100

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I love this lens. Love it, love it, love it. I own a Canon 24-105, 70-200, a Zeiss 50mm Makro, Sigma 30mm, previously owned a Canon 24-70, Tamron 24-70, and Tokina 11-17. This lens is amazing, built rock solid. Sharp as a prime, and wide enough that it doesnt look super distorted like my Tokina did when filming indoors. The zoom and focus ring are buttery smooth, just like my Zeiss prime. It works fantastic on my 550D as well. If you shoot video - this lens is honestly a must have. I do like my Zeiss more, as it is an amazing lens, but I use this one 10x as much due to the focal length. I wish it had IS - but hey, cant have everything.

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This is my new everything lens. Ive got a 70D that Ive been using on an off for a year. Recently I just lost my job and began picking up freelance work and I needed a much faster lens for the new work I was doing. I bought this baby and I love it. Im able to get very good indoor low light shots and still keep a substantial amount of bokeh. Its got a great build quality and wonderful feel. I still havent gotten used to the lens zoom which is opposite of Canon lenses but its a small problem Im sure Ill soon adjust to. Im sure you can find a million reviews on this lens out there better and more in-depth then mine but I thought Id give my two cents. Ive never broken away from buying Canon before and and there are many out there like my old self. If you are one of those people you cant ignore this beauty. Its a GREAT lens and you wont regret picking one up. *Update*: So a few weeks after writing this post I shot a friends wedding and I found that when taking pictures at around 20 feet or so away I had very soft focus. I learned that day there were a few sweet spots with this lens but the further I got from my subject the softer the focus got. I initially thought it was my 70D camera was at fault after reeding that they had an inherit flaw when shooting in apertures above 2.8. I learned later that this did turn out to be an issue with my camera (not all 70Ds do this by the way but its worth checking out if youre in the market for a fast lens). I decided to keep my aperture at a minimum of F2.8 but my images were still soft. I thought Id always have issues and was contemplating selling the lens then I discovered that Canon recently came out with 80D and I wondered if this might fix my issues... it sadly did not (but dont get me wrong, the 80D did fix the inconsistent autofocus at shots greater then F2.8). I dug back into researching and found a docking device that Sigma sells that allows you to update the firmware of the lens from your computer. I dug a little deeper and found it also allows you to make micro adjustments to the auto focus. Now before you go out and pick on of these up ($60 by the way) let me tell you a few things. It takes FOREVER to micro-adjust your lens. There are a few video tutorials that tell you how to do it but let me tell you now, set aside about 4 hours or more and do it right. Youll need to buy a lens calibration alignment ruler (there is a paper one sold on Amazon for $6 that works fine) and get set up on a tripod with a computer near by. There are 16 adjustments that need to be made on this lens and each adjustment takes multiple times of undocking and redocking the lens from the computer. Also for the infinity shots, find something very very far away like mountains or a water tower you can focus on with good contrast. This one will be a bit more trial by error but do your best and you should get it pretty close to sharp. After multiple times of calibrating. taking a day to shoot, and recalibrating this lens now shoots AMAZING!!! Its like I have a new lens and its finally trustworthy. It is razor sharp especially in the 2-10 foot range and the images that are coming out of this lens are down-right stunning. I moved my rating from a 5 at first (until I really got to know the lens) down to a 3 as a result of the year of uncertainty it put me through and wedding images I found to be sub-par (glad my buddy wasnt paying me and was fine with the quality otherwise I would of been furious). If you buy this lens buy the USB dock and a lens calibration ruler first thing and get it set right and youll love this thing until the day you die. Ill add a photo of my dog that I just shot yesterday. This is what Im getting at F1.8 from about 3 feet away.

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I bought this lens mostly for my landscape photography mounted to my Canon 70D. Very impressed with this lens, heavy and I love it.

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This lens is astoundingly sharp! Im using this with a Canon T6i and the resulting picture quality is nothing short of amazing. That said, you will most likely encounter focusing issues when shooting wide open. Then, why a 5 star review? As other reviewers have mentioned, dont buy this lens unless you also get the corresponding SIGMA USB dock for your camera mount. I have to say, at first, I was unhappy with the prospect of spending another $60 for the dock after dropping $900 for this lens. However, the truth is that any fast lens is going to require some level of microadjustment. And, lets be honest, what does Canon do in this situation? Send your body & lens off for "repair" to Canon, waiting weeks for them to return, with a chance of being damaged/lost in transit, and to top it off, no guarantee that the problem will actually be resolved to your satisfaction? I dont know about you but the savings in time and lost opportunity cost more than makes up the cost of the dock, and furthermore, I can ensure that the focus meets MY specifications. In my opinion, EVERY lens manufacturer should provide a way to microadjust their lenses in this way (at least until stupid body manufacturers like Canon dont provide a mechanism to do it in camera, shame on you!) Short answer, if youre looking for a great wide to normal zoom range lens for your crop sensor body, with image quality surpassing even the name brand prime lenses in this zoom range, you have to make the investment. You wont regret it. Swingset photo taken at f/2 @ 18mm, spin-a-letter photo was a focus test I took wide open at f/1.8 @ 28mm.

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First off know what youre buying...but if you do, you wont be disappointed. This is by far the sharpest lens Ive shot with. I plan on shooting with this far more extensively but wanted to say Im impressed. This is not a "macro" lens but I used it to shoot small objects and got far more detail than I had expected. Im posting a picture blown up to double so you can see some of the detail rendered. On a moth I could see every crease and wave on its wing. I knew this lens would be good, but I had no idea it would be this good. Beware and this isnt the lenses fault but if youre too close to an object this lens will focus on the closest spot it can. It seemed initially like it was misfocusing but it was human error. Most lenses will continue to hunt. Truly a phenomenal lens!

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A very sharp lens, with a very fast and usable large aperture, f 1.8. It is sharp at f1.8 and just gets sharper until f8 when diffraction begins to set in. It is still very usable at f16 for greater depth of field. It is sharp across the field of view, center to corner. It has the focal length equivalent on a full frame camera of 27mm to 52mm. Not a huge range, but a useful one. It is reported to be sharpest at 18mm but it is sharp at all focal lengths. It is a somewhat heavy lens, but very well built. It does not have vibration reduction. But it is very hand holdable in the 1/25 of a second to 1/100th of a second depending on focal length. Higher shutter speeds are of course better. Highly recommended for Nikon and Canon crop sensor cameras.

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The Pros: This is an excellent lens with really good picutre and video quality. I took a few pictures and asked a few of my friends to guess the camera setup and nobody imagined it to be a crop sensor. The wide f1.8 aperture is awesome for bokeh and low light performance. Also the focal length basically covers 3 prime lenses! The zoom and focus rings are sleek with an overall build quality of a boss. This is the closest youll get to full frame on a crop sensor body. Its crazy sharp! Now for the drawbacks. This lens is very heavy considering. I have the Canon 200d and 77d, and the lens almost feels heavier than both the cameras together. Make sure you have the correct tripod or Gorillapod if you plan to mount it. At times Im even afraid to not hand cradle the lens as it just doesnt feel right with my hands on the camera body alone. Second is the focus motor, its not the quietest and a tad slower than the canon stm lenses. In fact, its so loud that I can hear it even with my on camera Rode mic in auto focus. Just something to consider if you shooting an interview or a video where you require auto focus. Shoot in manual focus instead. Thirdly, lack of IS. Yep, no IS. Ultimately its wide-ish focal length makes it acceptable. Lastly, this lens only works on crop sensor cameras. So for the price, many believe it to be a bit limiting. So weigh your options and decide if you willing to stick to crop sensor bodies. Conclusion: If you willing to deal with the drawbacks like I was, then its an excellent lens. Its fast aperture with a versatile focal length makes its almost impossible to pass up if you have a crop sensor camera.

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The sigma 18-35mm is both sharp and frustrating to use. The autofocus is not reliable. But after making adjustments with the USB dock I could get it working well except when shooting objects at infinity with the focal length set to 35mm. I use the Pentax k3 which has a fine adjustment for autofocus. I have managed to more or less get it working at all focal lengths except 35mm (when the object is very far away). This lens is unbelievably sharp for a zoom lens. I have 35mm 2.4, 40mm 2.8, and 50mm 1.4 prime lenses, and it is as sharp or sharper than all these primes. It is amazing in low light too, and sharp at f-1.8. If only the autofocus was more reliable! Live view is always sharp, and that is why it is so frustrating. l will keep adjusting the autofocus to see if I can get it working at all focal lengths. I will update this review in due time.

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I would like to begin with stating that I am not a professional, there is so much that I still have to learn about photography. However, I decided to take a leap and make this purchase. First, I received the item three days sooner than expected and that made me super happy. I was impressed with the quick arrival of the product. Second, upon opening up the package and pulling out the lens I was impressed by the weight of it and the feel of it. Again Id like to state that I am not a professional, however the item did not feel cheap by any means. It has a very solid feel. Is a complete amateur but I love, love, the effect that this specific lens give. I did only receive the lens and played with it for about an hour but still I am super excited to see what this thing can do, OH! yeah one thing that is noticeable is the AF feature, you can hear the lens trying to focus but the lens is pretty awesome I can live with it. Anyway, I will be updating my post after a couple months of use. Anyway hope that helps from an amateurs perspective.

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