List Price: $499.00
Sale Price: $349.00
Today's Bonus: 30% Off
I bought this lens with a little trepidation, b/c of so much Sigma bashing going on out there, and its extended aperture to 6.3. However, I have other "good" lenses for specialized situations for my D7000, and didn't want to spend the money on Nikons 18-200 just for what I considered to be a general, walk around lens, so I tried the Sigma. (Just so you know I am not cheap per se when it comes to lenses, I also have the Nikon 16-35 VR; 24-120 VR; 105mm DC; 105mm VR macro; 50mm 1.4; 85 mm 1.8; and 80-200 2.8.)
The first time I used it was for a train event yesterday, which involved a whole lot of shooting variety: outdoor garden trains; train sets set up in basements; a toy train museum; a real train museum; and a real train ride. And I came home and pored over the images, trying to find fault. I did find a few minor faults in sharpness in some pictures, but, not having a Nikon 18-200 to compare it against, I don't know if those were any different than the Nikon would put out, or just the way it is with a 18-200 lens in that situation (for example, some of the shots were in a basement shooting at iso 6400, no flash. Some were of moving toy trains outside. So some of the lack of sharpness in some of the shots could very well be what you are going to get with a do it all lens zoomed out to 200mm in that situation.)
But, other shots, like in daylight, at reasonable iso's, were tack sharp. And going through the pics, there was not one that I could say was unusable (at least b/c of the lens).
Then today, I did a test shot against my Nikon 25-120 VR in the kitchen, with one of the Department 56 buildings above the cabinet, at 120 mm, no flash. And side by side in LIghtroom, I could not tell the difference. And even 100% zoomed in, I could tell only the tiniest difference, and only b/c I was looking for it (which I actually hoped I would, with a $400 lens vs a $1000 lens!)
So basically, I have looked for every reason to send this lens back and buy a Nikon, but so far, I just can't find one, other than that nagging feeling in the back of my mind of "missing out" by not having the Nikon. I seriously think that sometimes people, like me, get caught up in fretting whether a third party lens is good enough, and end up buying a Nikon just for peace of mind, if nothing else.
But I have had to remind myself, I only bought this lens not for absolute perfection, but just so I could have a decent lens without having to change lenses for basic shots, and that sometimes (and maybe even most of the time), when it comes to travel, family shots, etc., "good enough" really IS good enough. After all, once I send these pictures to Walgreen's to be printed out as 5x7 prints, and they come back and go into an album and they get looked at maybe 2 or 3 times in the next 50 years, does it really matter which lens I had? Probably not.
Also, this new found consideration. The D7000 was to replace my D700/28-300VR combo which was stolen a few weeks ago in Seattle. (BTW I hope the people who stole my camera, and anyone who buys it knowing it is hot, die a slow and painful death. But I digress.) But never again am I traveling anywhere with my very best equipment just for taking glorified snapshots. So if something happens to a $400 Sigma lens instead of a $900 Nikon lens, I know I will sleep much better that night than I did after I found thousands of dollars worth of equipment gone from the trunk of my car.
So bottom line to me is, is it perfect? No. Do I expect any 18-200 zoom to be perfect? No. But for a very good lens of convienence, I can't see spending over twice as much for the Nikon.
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