Features:

  • F1.8 maximum aperture
  • F16 minimum
  • Ring-type ultrasonic-type AF motor with full-time manual focusing, 72mm filter size
  • Minimum focusing distance 28 cm/ 11.0 in. USB Dock compatible, MC-11 compatible.
  • Available in Canon EF (EF-S), Sony Alpha (dot), Nikon f (DX) mounts
  • 0.23 optical Zoom
Amazing image quality! Focus issues easily fixed via USB dock.

This lens is astoundingly sharp! I'm using this with a Canon T6i and the resulting picture quality is nothing short of amazing. That said, you will most likely encounter focusing issues when shooting wide open. Then, why a 5 star review? As other reviewers have mentioned, don't buy this lens unless you also get the corresponding SIGMA USB dock for your camera mount. I have to say, at first, I was unhappy with the prospect of spending another $60 for the dock after dropping $900 for this lens. However, the truth is that any fast lens is going to require some level of microadjustment. And, let's be honest, what does Canon do in this situation? Send your body & lens off for "repair" to Canon, waiting weeks for them to return, with a chance of being damaged/lost in transit, and to top it off, no guarantee that the problem will actually be resolved to your satisfaction? I don't know about you but the savings in time and lost opportunity cost more than makes up the cost of the dock, and furthermore, I can ensure that the focus meets MY specifications. In my opinion, EVERY lens manufacturer should provide a way to microadjust their lenses in this way (at least until stupid body manufacturers like Canon don't provide a mechanism to do it in camera, shame on you!) Short answer, if you're looking for a great wide to normal zoom range lens for your crop sensor body, with image quality surpassing even the name brand prime lenses in this zoom range, you have to make the investment. You won't regret it. Swingset photo taken at f/2 @ 18mm, spin-a-letter photo was a focus test I took wide open at f/1.8 @ 28mm.

Sigma 70D

I bought this lens mostly for my landscape photography mounted to my Canon 70D. Very impressed with this lens, heavy and I love it.

Sharp at every focal length.

A very sharp lens, with a very fast and usable large aperture, f 1.8. It is sharp at f1.8 and just gets sharper until f8 when diffraction begins to set in. It is still very usable at f16 for greater depth of field. It is sharp across the field of view, center to corner. It has the focal length equivalent on a full frame camera of 27mm to 52mm. Not a huge range, but a useful one. It is reported to be sharpest at 18mm but it is sharp at all focal lengths. It is a somewhat heavy lens, but very well built. It does not have vibration reduction. But it is very hand holdable in the 1/25 of a second to 1/100th of a second depending on focal length. Higher shutter speeds are of course better. Highly recommended for Nikon and Canon crop sensor cameras.

Five Stars

Great low light lens. Photo was taken with a Nikon D7100

Sharp Fast Heavy

This is my second favourite lens to use overall and my favourite lens to use for landscapes. I own a Canon 80D and I love how sharp my photos look. I'm not too technical when it comes to lens specs but as a casual photographer I usually have this and my 24-70 in my bag. I tried using it for portraits and I kept it at the 35mm focal length. (For me 18mm is a bit too wide for APS-C. I think its a 28mm Full Frame equivalent). The only downsides to this lens are its weight. It is a brick. There also is no image stabilization. Those 2 things dont affect me that much. I only notice the weight of the lens when I go on long hikes, but maybe I just need to get stronger. I love this lens and you won't be disappointed if you purchase this.

First lens where I actually noticed a significant difference!

Without a doubt the sharpest lens I now own for my 7D Mark II. Putting this on actually made me feel like I upgraded the camera body itself! I just wish it had a wider zoom range and I am still swapping it for my 24-105 L. Update There was a slight flaw on my copy which appeared like a slightly darker curved band on the left side of the photo. It is only visible in something like a bright sky shot and after adjusting the contrast. But it is in every such photo. Other than that the edge to edge detail was phenomenal. Hopefully my new one will be just as sharp minus the lens flaw. Here is a photo showing the slight dark curved band on the left. Update I did end up returning it and got a new copy of the lens in today. After a couple of test shots it is clear (pun intended) that this one does not have the slight dark band aberration that my first lens had.

My second favorite lens for my Canon C100

I love this lens. Love it, love it, love it. I own a Canon 24-105, 70-200, a Zeiss 50mm Makro, Sigma 30mm, previously owned a Canon 24-70, Tamron 24-70, and Tokina 11-17. This lens is amazing, built rock solid. Sharp as a prime, and wide enough that it doesn't look super distorted like my Tokina did when filming indoors. The zoom and focus ring are buttery smooth, just like my Zeiss prime. It works fantastic on my 550D as well. If you shoot video - this lens is honestly a must have. I do like my Zeiss more, as it is an amazing lens, but I use this one 10x as much due to the focal length. I wish it had IS - but hey, can't have everything.

As good as it gets!

First off know what you're buying...but if you do, you won't be disappointed. This is by far the sharpest lens I've shot with. I plan on shooting with this far more extensively but wanted to say I'm impressed. This is not a "macro" lens but I used it to shoot small objects and got far more detail than I had expected. I'm posting a picture blown up to double so you can see some of the detail rendered. On a moth I could see every crease and wave on its wing. I knew this lens would be good, but I had no idea it would be this good. Beware and this isn't the lenses fault but if you're too close to an object this lens will focus on the closest spot it can. It seemed initially like it was misfocusing but it was human error. Most lenses will continue to hunt. Truly a phenomenal lens!

couldn't be more pleased!

I would like to begin with stating that I am not a professional, there is so much that I still have to learn about photography. However, I decided to take a leap and make this purchase. First, I received the item three days sooner than expected and that made me super happy. I was impressed with the quick arrival of the product. Second, upon opening up the package and pulling out the lens I was impressed by the weight of it and the feel of it. Again I'd like to state that I am not a professional, however the item did not feel cheap by any means. It has a very solid feel. I's a complete amateur but I love, love, the effect that this specific lens give. I did only receive the lens and played with it for about an hour but still I am super excited to see what this thing can do, OH! yeah one thing that is noticeable is the AF feature, you can hear the lens trying to focus but the lens is pretty awesome I can live with it. Anyway, I will be updating my post after a couple months of use. Anyway hope that helps from an amateurs perspective.

If you shoot low-light events like dance, performance, or sports you DEFINITELY want this lens

This is a review I expect to update as I continue to use my brand new Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 lens. I am not a super-technical pixel-peeper kind of guy but I am a pretty experienced photographer and I'm writing this with a similar audience in mind. I bought this lens because I do a lot of event photography, especially dance (doing volunteer work for a ballet company) and while I've done pretty well with my trusty Canon 24-70mm F2.8 lens, I've felt a bit (sometimes more than a bit) limited when I photograph fast moving dance sequences in the low-light environments stage and dance very often are. That's because the 24-70mm F2.8 simply doesn't do as well on an EOS 7D with its 1.6x (APS-C) crop that it does on a full-frame like my EOS 5D Mark III. That's what's one of the very nice things about this lens. You get the same performance on the crop body with it that you get with the 24-70mm on the full-frame. And that's important because my crop body with its 8 frame per second burst capability is the best camera for catching action (as opposed to the significantly smaller burst capability of the 5D Mark III). 07/17/2013: So let's start with the first impressions: 1. The price on this lens is great. If it had been Canon or Nikon, I would have expected paying far more than what Sigma is charging for a game-changer lens. 2. The build quality is very nice. Holding the lens in my hands, it feels solid and well-constructed. 3. Although the lens is not a macro, I was impressed by how close it could focus...I actually was able to get good, sharp images of my parrot's face when I focused in below the ten inches that the specifications say it can do. 4. The lens focuses very quickly and the small number of images I've captured with it appear good and sharp. When I open it up, the bokeh appears very nice as well. 5. The lens is very quiet...I could hardly hear it while it moved to focus. 6. I also think that the lens is fairly low-profile...one wonders if Canon had made it whether they would have made it white which could draw unwelcome attention when doing street photography. As far as negatives go, nothing leaped out at me. Some might not like the fact that you can only stop it down to F16 but who is going to use a lens like this for landscapes? *** 07/28/2013 I'm writing to update this review now that I've been out with my Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 on an EOS 7D body to two events I photographed. My subjects were both the same...the "Nat Pack" entertainers that give t-shirts away and dance on the dugout roof during breaks in the game. I can't figure out how to upload photographs to the review site here (I'd welcome any help on that). In the meantime, you can see the photos from one game that I took on my flickr account photostream. Just go to that website and add after the .com suffix "maskirovka77/sets/72157634795619485/" to see the shots. Frankly, I'm delighted with the lens. Even shooting with it opened all the way up, it was easy to get nice sharp, vivid pictures of the Nat Pack with good bokeh. The lens focused rapidly and I didn't wind up with very many blurry shots at all. I won't even call this a drawback of the lens, since I'm sure that it's a result of optics and mechanical limitations, but the focal length range of the lens is not as good as the 24-70mm F2.8 lens but that's life. One other thing I've realized is that I can pretty much put my old 50mm F1.4 on the market because the Sigma gives me so much more flexibility with its zoom.

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