| Latest Review Posted | Sigma DC Macro OS HSM 17-70mm F2.8-4
This will not be the most technical review ever - I didn't spend days photographing brick walls and test charts. I just walked around and took photographs.
The most likely reason to consider this lens is as an upgrade to the 18-55mm kit lens and as such, this is a solid all-round performer, being both wider and longer and two thirds to a full stop faster across the entire range. It also competes well against the Pentax DA 17-70mm, being both less expensive and brighter at most focal lengths.
Image quality looks to be excellent at most focal lengths, although 17mm shows quite severe purple fringing. Colours are vibrant and the bokeh is really rather splendid. The build quality is excellent - very solid with a nice texturized rubber grip on the zoom and focus rings. The black / white with gold highlights colour scheme is quite tasteful too. Because of the width of the barrel, you'll get a shadow with the onboard flash at focal lengths below ~28mm.
Autofocus is quite excellent - very fast and near silent. Manual focus is OK, although you need to disengage AF using the switch on the lens barrel - there is no quick shift focus here. Another minor handling issue is that zoom direction is the opposite direction to the Pentax norm. I can confirm that at the time of writing there is no optical stabilization in the Pentax mount version of this lens so it shouldn't waste batteries.
Despite the "Macro" in the title, this lens doesn't manage 1:1 magnification but the close f... |
