Sigma 884306 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC OS HSM for Nikon, black

I've got to pretty much reiterate what some of the other reviewers have put up. This lens is great.Ever since I bought my first DSLR, I've been hoarding various bits and bobs, without knowing too much about what I was doing. This included lenses. At any one stage, I've had three lenses, often I would disregard two of them and stick to the first.I've also been a bit of a lens snob until I've bought this; I've had both Tamron and Sigma lenses in the past, but only briefly to opt for the Nikon equivalents, so coming to this lens was a big leap for me (it really shouldn't have been).I contemplated long and hard and after a recent holiday where I'd got some very good (IMO) photos, I decided that I wanted a lens that would bring out a better result.I sold my Nikon 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 (which for anyone first starting off, I would wholly recommend to replace your kit 18-55mm lens with) and my Nikon 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6 to fund this.The lens is constructed beautifully, the grip is rubberised and soft to touch and the movement to zoom in and out is smooth. Note, the direction of the zoom is opposite to the Nikon lenses I've had, anti-clockwise as opposed to clockwise. The same can be said of the manual focus ring. It truly does bring a whole new level of pleasure to taking photographs. I'm glad Sigma have updated their lens designs, frankly the older ones looked dated and cheap.The autofocus is quick and works really well with the Nikon D5100 body, in this respect, you cannot tell it apart from any Nikon branded lens.The lens is generally quite quiet, with the motor making a satisfying sound before focusing (in AF mode) and the optical stabilisation (OS or vibration reduction in Nikon's world) again works well, reducing the chances of blurry images. Of course this is also down to how steady you are and using a tripod for long exposures.The main attraction of this lens has got to be the f/2.8-4 aperture. I compromised on focal length coming from the Nikon 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6. Photos come out with a great depth of field effect, no matter what the focal length, for me giving far more intriguing results. Couple this with the 0.22M macro on this lens and close up photos become that much more interesting.I've given this lens a 5* rating as I would highly recommend this - it is well built, looks the part, you can get very good results with a fast aperture and to top it off, there's a macro too. Definitely my favourite lens that I've bought to date.

I have tested most of the mid-range zooms for my Sony a99II and have found this to be the most preferable... the Sony/Zeiss 16-80mm isvery good if you can get a good copy and the Sony 16-50mm is also good if you aren't concerned about the moustache distortion at wide angle.Sorry, this is meant to be about the Sigma... all in all I'm very pleased, it isn't at its best between 17-20mm so I just do as I always have done... I zoom myself back.Distortion is acceptable and fairly easy to fix and set at optimum apertures, edge and corners are fine depending on how big you're going to printof course.Using the macro I have found that the a99II won't allow 'manual focus magnification mode' (ditto for Tamron 60mm macro)... perhaps I'm doingsomething wrong... it would be nice but not essential.I rarely use any zoom at its 'extremities', it's just a personal preference but I use the Sigma between 20mm and 60mm if I'm wanting to get the best out of it, similarly my 70-300mm is never set at 300mm.Focussing isn't lightening fast but I have found it to be accurate, the lens has a nice solid feel and a good weight, well balanced on the a77III found that it didn't need any 'focus fine-tuning' at all and the macro is really very useful. It's built pretty well, nicely designed and seems pretty 'tight' finished and all-in-all, I consider it an attractive looking lens.The 72mm filter size is not uncommon so filters are varied and lower priced than the 77mm and 82mm... as with the few Sigmas I've owned, filters seem to stick tight so I'd recommend a light touch when changing filters. The hood is well designed but benefits from a little light workon the 'lugs' with some wet & dry... it's a bit stiff.Obviously this is a personal view and the likes of photozone.com and lenstip.com will provide an expert view with graphs and sophisticatedevaluation techniques... this is just my impression of the lens as I find it in general use, there are other individual views at dyxum.com as well.I hope my personal experience will be of interest to potential buyers and at the price of £185:00 from Amazon Warehouse DealsI consider I got a real bargain, even at list price, it represents good value.I have yet to test the focussing performance in movie mode.

Purchased for a Canon 600D - it's a great lens. I bought it to replace the 18-55mm kit lens and it's in a whole different league, the quality of images is far superior - depth of field, sharpness, colours are more vibrant - it beats the kit lens in every aspect. The macro ability is very impressive too, especially with being able to zoom in at 70mm.I spent a great deal of time researching and reading reviews, considering Canon 24-70, 24-105 L lenses, as well as the Sigma 17-50. I ruled out the Canon lenses due to their price and not wanting to lose the wide angle of 17-24 - better on a crop sensor, despite having a wide angle lens 10-18mm. I ruled out the Sigma 17-50 as I didn't want less focal length to play with and although it has a constant aperture of 2.8 I was happy to give this up. Part of the decision was due to my other lenses a Canon 50mm 1.8 and the Canon 10-18mm. Knowing I have the 50mm 1.8 helps make up for the varying aperture of this 17-70.The lens comes with a lens hood and front and back caps. I read lots of reviews saying this lens isn't sharp at the edges, but have seen no such issues - compared to my 50mm 1.8, 18-55mm kit lens and 10-18mm this appears to be producing the best photos overall.