List Price: $690.00
Sale Price: $569.00
Today's Bonus: 18% Off
First, lets establish a few things about me, the reviewer, before you go on to read my review. I am a full time professional photographer. fine-art portraits, high school seniors and glamour is where I specialize. I own two Nikon cameras; D300 and D700. I own a total of 5 lenses for use on these camera bodies; Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, Sigma 70-200 f/2.8, Sigma 85mm f/1.4, Sigma 70mm Macro and this lens, Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8.
Immediately, this should tell you a few things. One, I make money doing photography -full time. I'm a professional and as a professional, I do not take short cuts when it comes to equipment. I need quality and dependable equipment and my gear needs to work hard. My results must meet high standards for my clients. Secondly, if you look at the various lenses I own, you should be able to ascertain that I do not hold loyalties to BRANDING. Yes, I own Nikon cameras and I love Nikon; but contrary to all the fluff out there by the brand using die-hards, you can get great quality pro lenses from the likes of Sigma, Tamron and Tokina for half the price of a pro lens from Nikon. In the end, I'm a consumer who requires quality for value; not quality for the sake of a name branded onto my lens.
My first experience with this lens took place at an on location photo-shoot with another professional. During the shoot, I was using two primes; a 35mm and a 50mm, but at this one particular indoor location, I couldn't get enough separation between myself and the model for a full length view and take in some of the setting. So, my buddy, who is also a Nikon shooter, reached into his bag and handed me his Sigma 17mm-50mm. I attached the lens to my D300 and focused in at 24mm. Just the right length to bring in the scene and my model at full length. I was so impressed with the results I was getting, that I ended up shooting the remaining session with this lens! It is solid, with a good weight to it, but not so much that it felt heavy on the camera. The auto-focus was slick and fast; unlike several other reviewers here, I did not note any abnormal noise in the auto-focus feature or the VC feature. But what really grabbed me was the amazing sharpness I got out of this lens at lengths 24mm to 50mm. I mean, this lens was tact sharp; impressive!
So, naturally, having a need for a lens like this, I went ahead and purchased one for myself. All I can say is that this is just a gorgeous piece of glass for the money you pay. I did not experience any of the issues other reviewers complained about with this lens. It is not slow, it is not noisy, no noticeable color fringing and it has amazingly fast focus. Vibration control is hard to evaluate compared to other lenses; however, the feature exists and works perfectly.
To enable this feature you need to depress the shutter button half-way. As a general rule, I tend to keep my minimal hand held shutter speeds at the direct inverse of the lens' focal length. However, for experimentation purposes and to check out the VC on this lens, I shot one of my models at 1/15s [hand-held] while at 35mm and her eyes came out crystal clear. I tried the shot again at 1/15s with my prime 35mm lens and I got no where near the same result. I mean, the image came out okay, but the eyes were not as sharp as they were with the sigma lens using VC. That tells me that the VC definitely works! I will say, that when using VC, you can hear the lens working, but it wasn't as predominant as others reviewers would seem to suggest; nothing abnormal. However, this is one notable area where Nikkor lenses with VR excel over Sigma.
The one other minor issue I had with this new lens, which went away after my third heavy photo-shoot, was with the zoom ring sticking a bit. And of course, there is some minor distortion at 17mm, but then again, show me a wide angle lens that doesn't have ANY distortion at one spectrum or the other and I'll show you a price greater than $3000.00. Again folks...value!
I can say without a doubt, that if I were to lose this lens, I would replace it in a second with the same lens. It is a pro-lens in my book and as of this writing, it has become my second favorite lens...right after the Sigma 85mm f/1.4!! BTW, I love all my lenses!
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