Sigma 10-20 Quality issues...

Punt1971

Punt1971

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Jonathan
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Hi

I'm looking to get me a Sigma 10-20 (Pentax) in the next few weeks.

I've been doing my research and have learned that there have been some poor samples of his lens. Is this still the case or have they sorted out whatever the problems were?

The reason I can ask is I can get one from HK a lot cheaper but if it's a bad sample the returns could be a bit of a pain so would rather pay the extra and buy from here (UK).

Cheers!
JP
 
personally, i'd buy a 2nd hand one in the UK so you can at least go back to the seller if there's a problem, which i'm sure there won't be. i got mine 2nd hand, no problems with lens quality, etc. and then you can avoid the duties/vat which will be payable on one from HK, that combined with the pricey shipping from there makes buying one in the UK just about the same price, and alot easier.
 
I can't help thinking these fears over sigma quality control are a bit over-blown. A few lenses slip through the QC net and the people who buy them make a lot of noise, but you don't hear anything from the 99.9% who buy one and are happy with it.
 
StewartR said:
I can't help thinking these fears over sigma quality control are a bit over-blown. A few lenses slip through the QC net and the people who buy them make a lot of noise, but you don't hear anything from the 99.9% who buy one and are happy with it.
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:agree:

I've often wondered how many of the threads complaining about third party lenses / accessories etc are started by the OEMs.

It reminds me of the PC games market, there were allegations that one of the main game producers started a rumour that pirated games had virus / trojans in them :naughty:
 
Agreed again:)

Buy it in the UK, and get the reassurance of the extended EX warranty etc, or buy it from HK, and take the chance? Unless I was going to save a significant amount (like I did for my 100-300mm f/4), it's not worth it IMO
 
Don't know how the prices compare for the Pentax mount, but when I bought my Nikon one the difference between ordering one from HK with basically no warranty (forget the 1 year international Sigma warranty, it only applies if you take it back to the original country of sale) and walking into Calumet and picking one off the shelf with full UK warranty, was £15.....
 
StewartR said:
I can't help thinking these fears over sigma quality control are a bit over-blown. A few lenses slip through the QC net and the people who buy them make a lot of noise, but you don't hear anything from the 99.9% who buy one and are happy with it.
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How have you faired with your Sigma rental lenses, Stewart? I would think that would be a good benchmark for the amateur snapper.

I've certainly had no problems with either of my Sigma lenses, but then both were UK-sourced.
 
I've bought two tamron lenses from HK and had fantastic lenses. I used ebay and asked the seller to make sure and send me a good copy as I didn't want to hassle of sending it back, he promised me a sharp one and voila! Communication for the win!

Can't remember who I used but it was one that promised to pay customs tax too if it got picked up (which neither did)
 
As everyone said in earlier posts, buy in the UK. You are not covered by Sigma warranty if you buy from HK unless you can show proof that you have paid TAX.

I have sent my 3 month old sigma 10-20 back to Sigma UK as I have just seen a bit of left sided softness with my 2 Cameras (note this is my 3rd copy of the same lens as the previous 2 had back focusing and very soft on left upper corner). After 2 days, I received a letter stating that after they (Sigma) have done some tests, they decided to send me a Brand New lens but have to wait a bit as they don't have stock.

I suggest you buy from a shop.
 
strobemonkey said:
As everyone said in earlier posts, buy in the UK. You are not covered by Sigma warranty if you buy from HK unless you can show proof that you have paid TAX.

I have sent my 3 month old sigma 10-20 back to Sigma UK as I have just seen a bit of left sided softness with my 2 Cameras (note this is my 3rd copy of the same lens as the previous 2 had back focusing and very soft on left upper corner). After 2 days, I received a letter stating that after they (Sigma) have done some tests, they decided to send me a Brand New lens but have to wait a bit as they don't have stock.

I suggest you buy from a shop.
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The obvious question here is, Why did you buy a 3rd lens? Everyone is entitled to a second chance, but 3? :shrug:
 
StewartR said:
I can't help thinking these fears over sigma quality control are a bit over-blown. A few lenses slip through the QC net and the people who buy them make a lot of noise, but you don't hear anything from the 99.9% who buy one and are happy with it.
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I have to agree with this, you will always hear about the bad experiences in forums, having said that you don't hear a lot of complaints about the Canon 10-22mm... apart from the price compared to the Sigma.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
How have you faired with your Sigma rental lenses, Stewart? I would think that would be a good benchmark for the amateur snapper.

I've certainly had no problems with either of my Sigma lenses, but then both were UK-sourced.
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We don't have enough Sigma lenses to constitute a statistically valid sample. Heck, We don't have enough of anything to constitute a statistically valid sample.

I mean, take for example the Canon 100-400L. You often hear about "bad copies" of this lens. It's our most popular lens by far. We have *fifteen* copies of it, and I have never had even a suggestion from a customer that there is anything wrong with any of them. But what does that prove? Nothing. If we had a hundred of them, I still wouldn't expect to have a bad one, statistically speaking.
 
An opportunity for me to pimp some of my pics. I love this lens. I thought that there were times it was soft but that turns out it was down to me still learning to use the lens properly.

There do seem to be issues with the lens but in general the majority are most likely fine.



 
It seems most of the soft reports are from Canon users.
 
That is a good point. Would be interesting to see some statistics on that, and perhaps would explain the lack of complaints by users of the Canon equivalent.
 
StewartR said:
We don't have enough Sigma lenses to constitute a statistically valid sample. Heck, We don't have enough of anything to constitute a statistically valid sample.
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Perhaps not, but you have more than most people here and your lenses, one would assume (hope!) get far more use than MOST privately-owned examples.

I mean, take for example the Canon 100-400L. You often hear about "bad copies" of this lens. It's our most popular lens by far. We have *fifteen* copies of it, and I have never had even a suggestion from a customer that there is anything wrong with any of them. But what does that prove? Nothing. If we had a hundred of them, I still wouldn't expect to have a bad one, statistically speaking.
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Valid point and a lot of the "defective" lens reports on t'internet are probably posted by people who simply don't know how to use them. This is particularly noticeable where the lens has a 1.8 or 1.4 aperture and the user expects the whole of the subject to be in focus at a distance of 30ft or more :thinking:
 
Snake Man said:
It seems most of the soft reports are from Canon users.
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Are they? Do you have any data? (I'd be amazed if there was enough data to be statistically meaningful, but it would be interesting to see whether there is any data at all...)
 
Flash In The Pan said:
...a lot of the "defective" lens reports on t'internet are probably posted by people who simply don't know how to use them.
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Ha ha. I learned a lesson about this very early on.

Our very first customer rang me a couple of days after he collected the lens (a Canon 50mm f/1.2L) to say that it was unuseably soft. So after I changed my underpants I retrieved the lens and gave him a refund, and I tested it thoroughly. I could not find the slightest trace of softness. Even at f/1.2, 100% crops from unprocessed images looked good: and from f/2.8 or so onwards it was amazingly good. To this day I have no idea what the customer was doing, but there is certainly nothing wrong with the lens!

So now I'm very skeptical indeed whenever I see a report of a "soft" lens or a "bad copy". Obviously there must be some out there - no manufacturing process is perfect - but I'd be willing to be that the majority of reports stem from user error.
 
Stew, in all probability his camera was out of calibration, resulting in back or front focusing which was super-obvious with the narrow dof at f/1.2

When you hear about people going through 3-4 copies of a lens to find the good one I imagine the same thing is usually happening. 3rd party lenses are going to be more sensitive to focus calibration since they reverse engineer the specs.

OTOH if you put lenses through rigorous testing then I expect 5-10% to fail from most manufacturers, based on the defects they find at photozone. They even managed to get two bad copies of the canon 24-70mm in a row. But without rigorous testing almost all of these problems are going to be ignored by almost everyone.
 
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