Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 11 DC OS HSM Lens for Canon

Product Information

Canon don't supply lenses at this level with a lens hood, which is a shame as the optional EW-78D petal shaped hood would be a welcome addition. Even without a hood, this optic seems reasonably resistant to flare and loss of contrast caused by strong light sources just outside the frame although the lens does seem more susceptible to flare at 200mm than 18mm. Shooting into the light can cause a loss of contrast, especially at 200mm. Contrast holds up reasonably well shooting into the light - ISO500, 1/60, f/5.6, 40mm (35mm equiv – 64mm)

Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software.This is Sigma's version of the 18-200mm "vacation lens", competing against a similar model from Tamron, as well as against Nikon's 18-200mm VR design. Like its competitors, this is a reduced image-circle lens, designed for use on cameras with APS-C sized sensors. Because of this, it's relatively light and quite compact relative to its exceptional zoom range. With that said, this Canon lens is a keeper , and as it is optimized for EF-S sensor cameras , it is quite sharp on my 50D , maybe a bit sharper than the EF-S55-250IS at 200mm(this lens is sharp at 200mm even wide open) , so considering the range and size , it is a good lens , no doubt about it and it is not as slow AF ing as some might think even without the RING USM.

Also, compare the 18-200 images to the nearly-distortion-free Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II Lens samples for the same camera. This design works well in my opinion - it is very easy to find the part of the lens you will use most frequently. Shooting wide open at 18mm, sharpness in the centre of the image area already approaches very good levels, and clarity towards the edges of the frame is fairly good. Stopping down the aperture improves sharpness across the frame, peaking between f/5.6 and f/8, where sharpness in the centre is excellent and towards the edges it reaches very good levels. WYSIWYG score: More and more often when designing a lens, distortion, color separation and vignetting are consciously not optimally corrected. As a result, fewer expensive lens elements or exotic glass types need to be used, which ultimately results in a more attractive selling price. The lens manufacturer relies on automatic correction of these characteristics in the camera or in photo editing software. The “jpg-score” gives you for a lens/test camera combination, “What you see is what you get” when all available lens corrections are applied in the camera. {loadmodule mod_custom, LensConclusion}Because the zoom ring is so large and the focus ring is rather small, it is unlikely that this turning will bother you. I know many L snobs say this is a junk lens but I guess they never ever shoot in Burma or Cambodia with a white lens , to see how the local people there react to their white Ls. With lateral chromatic aberration, not all colors come out in exactly the same place in the corners of the image, so that you can find blue and red edges at sharp contrast transitions in the corners. The Nikon D7100 corrects for this outstandingly, so that you don’t encounter any visible chromatic aberration in the jpg files. In the RAW files, chromatic aberration, just as with all other superzooms, is visibly present. That’s simple to correct with software.

Likewise, the extraordinary Canon 70-200mm f/4 L IS will look better if you look at files at 100%, but it costs more, it's bigger and heavier, doesn't focus anywhere near as close, and hardly zooms at all. There is a bit compromise(not as much as I thought) but it's worth it, at least for me. I like this lens very much.The course of distortion is typical for a superzoom and runs from visible barrel-shaped distortion at 18 mm to pinchushion-shaped distortion at focal distances above 30 mm. In particular, the barrel-shaped distortion at the shortest focal distance is sometimes clear to see. Distortion for RAW files is simple (“with one press of a button”) to automatically correct with the lens correction profiles in Lightroom or Photoshop. So I think both super zooms are really good for what it is, but 18mm on a 1.6X Canon body is not wide enough , so for a 1.6X Canon ,I usually need a EF-S10-22 with this EF-S18-200IS lens for travel but with my D300 , I just use the 18-200Vr or 16-85Vr with the cheap but sharp AF 85f1.8D and no need wider than the 18mm end of the AF-S18-200Vr or the 16mm end of the AF-S16-85VR , so I prefer traveling with my d300 when I have to travel light. We pursued the compactness as an ideal everyday lens. From an early stage of development, SIGMA was determined to make the lens size compact, for example, by incorporating double-sided aspherical lens elements and downsizing the motor. As a result, while the predecessor had a diameter of ø75.3mm, this lens has reduced it to ø70.7mm, which has the difference of 4.6mm. It also achieves -11% in volume ratio compared to its predecessor. It is one of the smallest in its class of lenses with more than a 7x zoom ratio, and is more comparable in size to a generic standard zoom lenses. The real minimum focal length is somewhat understated by Sigma, coverage at "18mm" falls almost exactly between the 18-70 Nikkor and my 20/2.8 fixed focal length Nikkor so I would guess it is really about 19mm. Small and light, the reduced-frame EF-S 18-200mm lens represents a field of view of approximately 29-320mm in 35mm terms. As an EF-S lens, it will not mount on Canon's 1.3x, or full-frame camera bodies (as well as some older APS-C dSLR bodies). To economize and create a more efficient design, the lens is equipped with a variable aperture; as the zoom extends the focal length, both the smallest and the largest apertures change. The following chart represents the largest and smallest apertures you can expect at a given focal length: Focal length