moonheylor's reviews

Sigma 18-125mm f/3.8-5.6 DC OS HSM

I was surprised to see some of the negative reviews of this lens, but then realized people were comparing it to "L" lenses. It's not an L lens, but it's been extremely useful to me, and gives a lot of bang for the buck.

It's extremely sharp at the long end (rivaling the most expensive zooms around), and not as soft on the wide end as some would have you believe. At the wide end (18-35mm), its level of sharpness would compare to Canon's EF-S 18-55mm "kit lens" which isn't ideal, but still not horrible.

There are days when this lens will stay on my camera all day, mostly due to the excellent zoom range -- 18mm is wide enough for just about anything, while 125mm is long enough for most uses. No changing lenses here.

Focus: It doesn't have USM or Sigma's "HSM" equivalent, but it's about as fast as you can get without those extra motors. I use the lens for basketball shots (with flash), and it focuses quickly and accurately. Yes, it's loud, but that doesn't mean it's slow.

Softness: When using this lens wider than 35mm or so, it's still sharp, but only if your subject is relatively close. Farther away than 10 feet or so, the lens seems to hunt for focus at times, but will take the shot anyway. This accounts for the "softness" at wide angles -- it's actually just the lens being slightly out of focus, in my opinion (because it's really sharp if the subject is up close).

Bokeh: At the long end (80-125mm), this lens can produce great bokeh (out-of-focus circles in the background), depending on subject.

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