Originally posted by jbrowning What do you all think of this lens. I am thinking about getting for macro shooting but also highschool indoor basketball.?
Thanks
Jim
It does well enough for macro (though not a "true" macro), and is impressively sharp generally speaking, some say it rivals some primes. I can say that it is very satisfying for me, and is my everyday lens.
You can visit the Pentax Lenses database here and view other's opinion about it. You fill see that almost everyone who tried it loved it.
However, it might not be fast enough (fast as in wide aperture) for indoors basketball. Even though your eyes will tell you that lighting is good enough, in fact that is a low light environment. The Sigma is fast at the wide end of the zoom, but not so much at the tele end that you are likely to use. You could compensate by increasing the ISO value, but you can only increase so much... You would be better served by a faster lens (maybe a prime?) for that particular scene.
Another option would be the Tamson 24-75, also highly regarded and a constant f2,8 through the range. It,s not as wide as the Sigma, however, and I'm not sure about macro with this lens.