Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM Lens for Nikon Mount Digital SLR Cameras

well tis lens amazed me... not just because i came from the kit from the t2i, is everything! the build quality, great shape and weight in your hand, the quality of your bokeh.. ok in order... first the good things first is a truly walkaround lens. great weight (not too heavy, but not too "kit" neither). the zoom and the focus ring is as smooth as you can get but very accurate. for the ones who have the Canon Zoom Pack 1000, the lens does fit. i guess it wont fit any longer one. the quality of the pictures really amazed me, and you know that the ones you get from the kit lens are great ones! the bokeh is really beautiful (7 rounded blades aperture), the zoom range is the right one for walking with it.. no chromatic aberration at all ( at least compared with the kit lens) but when is in 17, at 2.8 you can see some at 100 % crop so.. HSM is REALLY quiet.. I mean, the only way to listen this baby running is in your room at night with the door closed! and is fast.. not as fast as an L series, but is fast. the price is great too.. i guess that the equivalent from canon is the 15-85 and is almost 300 bucks more :s the macro function is a plus very welcomed for me :) now, the bad ones no full time autofocus... this is annoying... you still have to be careful to not turn the focus ring when you're in autofocus and that's crap.. :s the OS stoles some battery power.. so just don't expect the same amount of pictures that you had with the kit lens.. 72 mm filters are kind of expensive.. but after all, this is an expensive hobby (this lens is not an expensive one, but is still 100$ more than a s90) so.. guess is not a problem.. when you have the OS on and turn off the camera, there a weird noise in the lens.. nothing to worry about but is there so... this is something weird and unexpected, and i'm going to try to explain it (sorry my english by the way) I think this lens is "darker" than the kit... how is that?? well, if you take a picture with the kit lens, and put this one on the camera, and you don't move anything (aperture, exposition, etc) the picture will be darker... you have to move up a little bit the exposure compensation.. so I don't know why is this, and i'll be glad if someone could explain it.. overall a 7 stars lens (not 8 because the lack of full time autofocus) but amazon only allow me 5 stars so.. you know what? BUY IT! P.S.: i know is not important, but the looks of this lens in the camera is also veeery good! :)

I just got this lens yesterday and tested it a number of different ways. I bought this lens primarily for the faster 2.8 aperture and the close focus of 8 inches plus OS. The close focus delivered as promised with no need to refocus after zooming in ou out (it held focus and sharpness). Color rendition was natural and pleasing and the OS seems to be doing the job promised. Images are sharp at all focal lengths (I have not noticed any serious image degradaton based on focal length. I uploade a photo showing two shots at close focus changing the zoom and maintianing the close distance. The shots were hand held. using daylight/ambient through a window and no flash. The shutter speeds were 1/60 and 1/30 sec, single point focus and center weighted exposure using auto focus. My camera is a Nikon D300s. * Close focus is great. * The lens holds focus through the zoom range without having to refocus. * color rendition including saturation is natural with and without flash. * having a max aperture is a definate plus. another review mentioned that you loose that quickly after leaving the shortest focal length (well of course) but that one stop gain is progresive through the zoom range. * the OS is a little noisy but you know that it's working. * focus is as fast as my Nikon 18 to 105 but you can get a lot closer to the subject. I have purchased a lot of glass for my camera and was really wondering if i needed to take this step. I'm glad I did. I have lensed that claim close focus and or macro.... this one is better. AFTER THOUGHT.... One review menioned that it was to easy to accidently grab the focus ring and accidently turn it while zooming. This has been a problem for me in the past. Note that I do this more with my Nikon lenses that with my Sigma's. Nikon has there focus ring closer to the camera body (your face). Sigma has there's in front of the zoom ring. I prefer this (it's not as easy to accidently grab). It also has a stiffer action so you notice it sooner. I like this design better. THANX for listening.

I had a Canon T2i and a Canon 17-85mm f/4.0-5.6 IS USM lens and decided that I wanted to upgrade to a better lens. I looked around and this seemed to be the perfect fit. It was not extremely expensive but was relatively fast at the wide end. I read some reviews and decided that it fit my requirements and went ahead and ordered it. This lens is fantastic on the wide end, even wide open. Add that with the OS and you get a very good low light lens. The images I've gotten at 17mm and f/2.8 are amazing. Very crisp and with great color. Stopping it down a bit makes the images even sharper - past f/4.0 it doesn't really seem to help much though cause it's already so good at that point. However, the trade off of this lens is it's performance zoomed in. The aperture falls off to f/4.0 which isn't especially slow but isn't fast either, and the image quality also falls off a bit. This is not to say that it's terrible, but it's nothing like the wide end of the lens. Stopping it down helps quite a bit, but still doesn't make it as sharp as it is when zoomed out. So far I've only spoken of the two extreme ends of this lens, and the easy summation is that the middle focal lengths are kind of in the middle. So if you want an all around lens that you primarily use wide open but want the option of having a little reach, then this is the lens for you. If you are one of those people that usually is zoomed in a bit, then you may want to look at the Canon 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens.

Best lens I have purchased. Excellent quality bokeh, used it for shooting candid portraits at an event, I took other lenses just I case, but didn't need to swap it once. Great purchase, it probably going to be my most used lens. Buy now

OSの性能がとても良いです。 また、明るいしとても気に入って使用しています。 AFも普通に速いですし、お勧めです。 純正のEFレンズには、この値段でこのスペックは望めませんからね。

Me gusta la velocidad de enfoque y su luminosidad, manejable e intuitivo, puede que pese algo mas de lo necesario pero se suple con su estupendo manejo

Adepte Nikon depuis bien des lustres, j'ai passé le cap du Sigma et je ne regrette en rien mon achat ! Un objectif complet et pratique pour toutes situations, même s'il est un peu lourd ( normal vu le modèle ) il vous suivra partout en vacances ! son ouverture à 2.8 est un vrai bonheur, je recommande les yeux fermés !

This is my fifth lens for my 400D, only after trying so many I decided what I really needed. I'm using it for 2 years now, and took about 30,000 pictures with it. My first lens was obviously the kit lens, then there was Tamron 70-300 (the old one), followed by Canon 50mm 1.8, and Tamron 28-75 f/2.8. Finally I got this Sigma and Canon 70-300 3.5-5.6 IS. This lens is a compromise (as is every lens for that matter). The main advantage of this lens over lenses like Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 is the additional 20mm focal length range, whereas the 35-50mm range is not that much slower (roughly 3.5 compared to Tamron's 2.8). The lens is roughly the same size and weight, but offers added range. Also, the Sigma is much much cheaper than the Canon's offering (18-55 f/2.8), so an obvious choice for an amateur. I use the lens as my main lens, for taking pictures of my family and various trips, and it's a rare occasion that I bump into the lens limitations. Overall, the image quality is very good, apart from a few compromises: - when set to 17mm vignettes and displays barrel distortion (easily fixed in Lightroom) - when set to 70mm and full open at f/4 - the image is quite soft. As the lens offers built in Image Stabilisation (Sigma calls this Optical Stabilisation, or OS) you can get away with stopping it down and you can still get a sharp picture. Compared to the kit lens, the Chromatic Aberration is much less visible, construction much more robust (metal mount), and a great finish (matt effect plastic). The only downsides are the weight, which is considerably more than the kit lens - but a good lens needs to have lots of glass in it, so it's nothing to complain about. Also, when using a Circular Polarizer, you need to put the lens hood into your bag, or reverse mount the hood on the lens. When you do reverse it, it becomes a bit difficult to operate the zoom ring, as the hood obscures it a bit. Again - more of a feature than a drawback. Besides - at least with Sigma you do get the hood (and a carry bag) included in the price. I ended up using the carry bag for my Canon 70-300, which fits quite well :-) For sample pictures please refer to my Photostream on Flickr, my username is brzezinskinet. I take pictures mainly with this lens, or alternatively, a Panasonic G3 - there's always metadata to help you out ;) So - is it for you? If you: - appreciate the additional range over the kit lens, - need good image quality in good light, - don't want to spend millions on a brand name lens, - you don't mind a third party lens Go for it :) It's not for you, if: - you need perfect image quality, - you need a lens perfect wide open - you appreciate the macro functionality (this one is not quite there) - have lots of dough to spend :D - you care about street cred