New lens

The Wriggler

The Wriggler

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Simon
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Just beginning to think about replacing my kit lens for my canon 400d, lots of options around (clearly) but was thinking sigma 17-79 f2.8. Has anyone any experience with this lens, good? Bad? Indifferent?

Thanks S
 
Do you mean the 17-70mm f/2.8-4 ?

I've not had any experience of it but I'd also be interested to see what folk think of it.

Slight shame it's not f2.8 right through.
 
Question is: what do you want different from the kit lens? And, how important is image stabalisation to you?
 
Hi,

I once owned the Sigma 17-70 lens and it was superior to the kit lens, colour, contrast was excellent, in particular it handled blues and greens very well and put a polariser on it and oh boy ;)

Only thing I didn't like was the motor turning the AF in your hand ( unless you buy the HSM version with full time AF ).

I rated it above the 18-55 AND the 17-85 Canons.

Mike.
 
Take a look at the Canon 15-85, it's now become my most used everyday lens. The range is just about perfect for a crop camera, 15mm for landscape and 85mm for portraits and even closeups.
 
Thanks everyone,

The reason for looking by at the upgrade was to replace the kit lease and hopefully improve the shots I take (clearly increase of skill required too!). I was thinking the f2.8-4. How important is it to get something that goes down to these apatite setting as opposed to staying in the f3.5-5.6 for the canon alternate?

Thanks S
 
I have the 17-70 as I wanted it for greater range and a faster lens than the kit lens. I've been very happy with it and have no plans to change. I hope to upgrade my body to a 70D in the next few months, but will stick with the Sigma lens as it does all I want it to.
 
If you can afford f2.8 then go for it, significantly faster than f3.5 and upwards. At the end of the day it comes down to what you want to get from the lens, and more importantly budget. I use the Canon 24-70mm f2.8L lens which is fantastic, but comes with a high price tag. It also has limitations at the wide end on a crop sensor - it is not nearly wide enough. When I need wide, I use a Canon 10-22mm f3.5-4.5, again a fantastic lens.
As suggested, I think the Canon 15-85mm f3.5-5.6 IS may be a good option, but I think this has a rotating ring during focus, if it does, then this is a negative.

My recommendations would be:
Canon 17-55mm f2.8 IS USM, or (and I'll probably get slated for this) at slightly less of an angle, but makes up for it with zoom and should be a half decent 'walkabout' lens until you out-grow it, would be the Sigma 18-250mm f3.5-6.3 DC Macro OS HSM.
 
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Since the 10-22 has been mentioned - another option is to go with the 10-22 and get a 24-105 F4L (which is amazing VFM at the moment). Then in future add a 70-200 F4L IS and pretty much everything outdoors is well covered :)

Don't get too hung up on having f2.8. I've just moved from a 2.8 standard zoom to an F4 but with IS - and for me that combination is working better. If you want a properly fast lens, get a 50mm 1.4 or one of the shorter primes.

JMHO :) I've not connection to any of the links btw.
 
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Thanks everyone, plenty to think about here
 
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