Advantages: Excellent field of view
Disadvantages: none that I have found in months of use

...Sigma Wide Zoom Lens. If you want a panorama of a landscape then you should try this lens. Described as 12 - 24mm f5-5.6 EX DG Aspherical HSM Technical details first. To fit Sigma, Canon and Nikon (D) Lens construction Groups/elements 12 / 16 Angle of view (degrees) 122.0 - 84.1 Diaphragm blades 6 Minimum Aperture (wide) F22 Minimum Focus (cm/in) 28/11 Filter size (mm) Rear Mount gelatin filter Dimensions diameter x length 87/100mm / 3.4" x 3.9" Weight (g/oz) 615/21.6 Fitted with Hypersonic motor. Comes with its own carry case with a belt mounting attachment and template to make the gel filters. This is a lens designed for a digital camera. It is an ultra wide angle lens (122 degrees) at 12mm along the diagonal axis and is ideal for both indoor and landscape photography. The lens itself is made of special low... Read review

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Advantages: Fast autofocus, Excellent quality for a low-ish end lens.
Disadvantages: Not that sharp at 300mm

...This is going to be a bit of a mixed review. I love this lens, dont get me wrong, but i had taken a long time to read up on these lenses because i knew i wanted a 75-300mm and couldnt decided between this and the Sigma version of the same spec (75-300mm f4-5.6). I saw a few reviews for Sigma lenses sayin that the sharpness just wasn't there at the long end (250-300mm). I fimally settled on spending a few extra quid and having the canon USM Lens. The build quality of this lens is excellent, and for a long-ish lens, its compact, and autofocusing is VERY fast (with my EOS 30 anyway). Optically, the lens is excellent from 75mm right up through 250mm, particularly for it's price. However at above 250mm the sharpness drops off... FAST. There's no problems at f32-f8... but f5.6 at 300mm is a no-no if what you want is razor sharp images. Ok so... Read review

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Advantages: Superb value for money, great image quality, good construction, high maximum aperture
Disadvantages: Noticable barrel distortion at 17mm

...This is a fantastic walk-about and general purpose lens for cropped sensor Digital SLRs -certainly for value for money, it's unbeatable. It does not feel cheap, the build quality is good, it feels sturdy and it comes with a zoom lock, which prevents the zoom sliding out when walking about. The body is susceptable to scratches and marks due to it's matte finish, but it's not really a big issue. Image quality is excellent for this money, especially when there are no other Sigma designated technologies associated - e.g. APO, EX, DG, etc. There is noticeable barrel distortion at 17mm, which is easily correctable in Photoshop, or using a corrector such as PTLens. Of course, you can only use the maximum aperature of f/2.8 at 17mm, so this is a small price to pay. The lens is also designated as a Macro, which achieves a magnification... Read review

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Advantages: Larege aperture, high quality glass, cheaper than Canon.
Disadvantages: It's still a big, pricey lens.

...with all the reflections and haze that go with it. The Sigma has not disappointed me with it's quality or clarity. This lens has a retail price of around £700 in most big photo dealers in the UK, so I was pleased to get mine at such a bargain price. There are other manufacturers who offer similar lenses, but I have long been impressed with Sigma's EX range of high quality lenses, the features are just that bit better and the operation just that bit smoother than other independant lens makers. A really good feature of this lens is the fact that when the focal length is changed via the zoom ring, or focusing takes place, the overall length of the lens does not change, all the movements take place within the lens barrel. This is important for several reasons, but one I'd like to mention is the resistance to dust and dirt. With no sliding lens... Read review

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Advantages: Fantastic zoom range, exceptional image quality
Disadvantages: Heavy to carry, difficult to hand hold at 500mm in low light.

...on to the positives. The flexibility of this lens is the key. At 50mm, you are pretty much at the magnification the eye naturally perceives. You then have a 10x optical zoom to take it to 500mm. Bear in mind that on a digital SLR with APS-C sensor, this is multiplied to a 75-750mm lens. I cannot state enough how flexible this allows you to be. You can choose to fill the frame with something like a sheep, or zoom in and fill the frame with just sheeps eye and nose, while maintaining amazing detail, sharpness and clarity. You can even fit a 2x teleconverter from sigma to get a 150-1500mm f8-12 lens, the likes of which you cannot buy as a standard lens! You will be rewarded with stunning shots if you buy this lens, and i haven't regretted its high price tag once. If you want to try it out, pop to your local Jessops and see if they'll let you have a play... Read review

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Advantages: Excellent over all range
Disadvantages: Weight and possibly cost

...The Sigma 50-500mm F4-6.3 APO AF/HSM zoom lens is a medium sized, medium weight and rather expensive lens. It is not a lens for anybody. But if your interest is in wildlife photography or sports photography then this is the lens for you. First the Technical aspects. High Performance Will fit Sigma, Mintola, Nikon, Pentax, and Canon Group/elements 16/20 Angle of view (degrees) 46.8 - 5 No of blades in diaphragm 9 Minimum focus 100-300/39.4 - 18.1 Magnification 1:5.2 Filter 86mm Dimension diameter x length (mm/in) 95x216/3.7x8.5 weight (g/oz)1859/65.2 It can be mounted on a wide variety of cameras. Best to make sure that Sigma makes the lens for your type of camera. I understand that it takes a different chip for each camera. A very useful feature is a Zoom lock. This revents zoom creep when the position of the lens is changed. Also... Read review

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Advantages: Solid build, smooth operation and quality results
Disadvantages: Less adapted for action photography

...The Sigma 50-150mm ƒ/2.8 II is a solid, well constructed lens built with a metal lens mount and wide zoom and focusing rings. It is an update to Sigma's previous 50-150mm ƒ/2.8 although there's very little difference between the two lenses. Features The specifications of the two lenses appear almost identical although the update is a few millimetres shorter. Not sure if there's any real advantage to be had there. The new lens however, will mount on Pentax and Sony lens bodies and will now support auto focus as long as the cameras are not limited to mechanical (screw-driven) style focusing. Newer Pentax and Sony bodies will support the HSM standard. This digital lens has an imaging circle that only covers the APS-C sensor. As such it will provide a field of view equivalent to 75-225mm on a Nikon, Pentax or Sony body, and 80-240mm... Read review

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Advantages: Superb design, value for money and professional results.
Disadvantages: None

...Sigma EX 12-24mm F4.5-5,6 DG Nikon fit AF D. This a great wide-angle zoom lens offering professional performance, results and is a joy to use. It is suitable for both digital SLR's and 35mm Film cameras and focusing can be used manually or autofocus. This my first Sigma lens as I own only quality Nikon lenses so I was unsure at first about purchasing a brand and lens unknown to me. Any doubts or fears about quality were put to rest as soon as I took the lens out of it's box. It is as well crafted as any Nikon lens and a truly remarkable piece of design. It has an unusual appearance as instead of the usual glass flat surface lens it has a "bobble" or "ball" of glass which has a very alien look to it. I'm still not used to this and I feel that as it is sticking out so much that it may be a bit vulnerable to potential damage... Read review

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Advantages: Size,weight, fast max f stop, nikon quality
Disadvantages: non

...I have a 70mm to 300mm Sigma zoom and a 28mm to 80mm sigma zoom and this small standard 50mm lens. The lens costs about £90 new or around the £50 on E Bay. For everyday photography, I don't think it can be beaten. The two main advantages are its size and its maximum aperture of f1.8. For the peeps that don't know anything bout photography....the smaller the no. on the lens, the more light it can let in...hense f1.8 being better for available light photography indoors than the f5.5 on one of my zoom lenses. The small/lightweight standard lense on your camera will drastically reduse the risk of blurred pictures due to 'camera shake' because a zoom lense makes the camera more unstable and magnefies any camera shake..the bigger the zoom the worse it is. This smallness coupled with being able to use the high aperture to let most light... Read review

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Advantages: cheaper than manufactuers own flash, compatable with digital cameras
Disadvantages: basic functions

...I've had the 500 DG ST for about a month now and so far I’m impressed with it. The main reason I bought it was after upgrading to a digital SLR I found my TTL flash was incompatible with my Canon DSLR which uses E-TTL Flash technology. The canon 420EX was to expensive for the amount of use it was going to get, I found the sigma was fully compatible with canon digital SLR’s although with out the extra wireless settings of the canon for some £50 - £70 cheaper depending where you get one from the RRP of the sigma is £120 but I picked mine up for £99, The flash is also powerful, as the canon had a guide No of 42m at 105mm setting using 100 ISO material where as the Sigma has a guide No of 50m with lens/flash set at 105mm using 100 ISO. The sigma 500 DG ST is an ETTL flash for canon but is also available in Nikon and Sigma... Read review

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