| Review

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Yes virginia there is a focusing issue w/ this len, Tuesday, 30 December 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		2.5
Sharpness		2.0
Build Quality		2.0
AF Speed		3.0
Value for Money		3.0

When I bought this lens for my Canon 450D, I did not do enough research about the poor quality of Sigma lenses. As a warning, please take a look at Canon's 28mm EF and 35mm lens as possible alternatives to this lens. Like other reviewers my instance of this lens tends to focus in front of the subject I want and not on the subject. Thus, resulting in an out of focus/fuzzy picture. I've been forced to manually focus this lens if I desire my subject to be in focus. This really reduces the number of photos I can take per given amount of time and the situations where I can use this lens.

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Yes virginia there is a focusing issue w/ this len, Tuesday, 30 December 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		1.5
Sharpness		1.0
Build Quality		1.0
AF Speed		1.0
Value for Money		3.0

When I bought this lens for my Canon 450D, I did not do enough research about the poor quality of Sigma lenses. My suggestion is to take a look at Canon's 28mm EF and 35mm lens as possible alternatives to this lens. Like other reviewers my instance of this lens tends to focus in front of the subject I want and not on the subject. Thus, resulting in an out of focus/fuzzy picture. I've been forced to manually focus this lens if I desire my subject to be in focus. This really reduces the number of photos I can take per given amount of time and the situations where I can use this lens.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

An ideal lens for everyday use, Sunday, 28 December 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		4.5
Sharpness		5.0
Build Quality		5.0
AF Speed		4.0
Value for Money		4.0

It's small and light. 30mm/1.4 on a 1.6x crop factor is ideal for indoor photography when you lack space and light.

Image quality is not the sharpest (especially wide open) but good enough for non professional photography.

I find that I have to correct and increase color saturation almost all the time when post processing photos taken with this lens.

I could only compare it to Canon's 50mm/1.4 (I know it's a different length and use) but that's the closest I was able to try (at this price range). The canon is sharper and the colors are much more vibrant. The bokeh produced by the canon lens looks better to me. Again, since it's a different length it can't be used in the same places as the sigma.

Overall it's a nice and humble lens that helps you make the shot instead of missing it.

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful

A wonderful lens for background blur, Sunday, 07 December 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		4.8
Sharpness		5.0
Build Quality		5.0
AF Speed		5.0
Value for Money		4.0

I've been using this lens with my 20D for the past couple of weeks, and it's so much fun that I've hardly used any other lens. I really enjoy the beautiful, smooth background blur that it gives me at f/1.4. And the sharp areas of the photo are very sharp, even wide open at f/1.4. The build quality is solid and the focusing ring is smooth, which is important for those who sometimes wish to manually focus or to use the lens' full-time manual feature to manually adjust focus even when in autofocus mode. I also find the lens to be very resistant to flare, which is great because I enjoy using it to shoot into the light and get a backlit effect on my out-of-focus background.

This lens is intended for use only on cameras with APS-C sensors such as the 10D, 20D, 30D, 40D, 50D and digital Rebels, and it gives you a "normal" field of view (similar to the classic 50mm focal length on film cameras).

As has been reported here and elsewhere on the web, some copies of this lens have poor autofocus with Canon cameras. The first copy Amazon sent me had erratic autofocus and I returned it. But the replacement copy is superb. And Amazon's returns process is so painless that I felt quite comfortable buying this lens here even though I knew before I bought it that I might not get a perfect one first time.

If you are looking for a general purpose, "normal" lens (the equivalent of a 50mm lens on a film camera) and you are not seeking background blurs, you might also want to consider the Canon 28mm f/2.8, which costs about half as much as this lens. But if you want to shoot at a wide aperture with subjects that are relatively close in order to get a beautiful, smooth and out of focus background, look no further -- this is the lens for you, and the quality of the blur is terrific.

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Love this Lens!, Friday, 05 December 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		4.8
Sharpness		4.0
Build Quality		5.0
AF Speed		5.0
Value for Money		5.0

This is my first Sigma lens and I was a bit nervous when ordered it. But I was pleasantly surprised with the build quality and sharpness of this lens. I experienced no AF problems. This lens AF as good as any of my Canon lens. It is very usable at f1.4 and becomes extremely sharp if you step it down a couple of steps. The 30mm works extremely well on a crop frame body especially indoors where there is simply not enough room to step back to fit everything in. Oh yeah, I love the fact that it comes with a matching finish hood!

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Great Value, Fantastic Results, Saturday, 01 November 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		4.8
Sharpness		4.0
Build Quality		5.0
AF Speed		5.0
Value for Money		5.0

i bought this lens last year before going to England. I kept it on my xti practically the entire time I was there, except for the architectural shots I took with my 10-22 wide canon lens. This prime lens provided very high quality shots with a beautiful bokeh. For the price, i have no right to give this lens less than a 5 star rating; and for sigma to produce a lens with a nice professional matte feel and size- this one is hard to beat. I'm still startled by the amazing clarity and sharpness in my images- it's better than real life to be honest.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Sharp, but with lots of CA (wide open), Sunday, 05 October 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		4.5
Sharpness		4.0
Build Quality		4.0
AF Speed		5.0
Value for Money		5.0

This lens is extremely sharp at f1.4, which is of course the whole point. The problem I have with this lens is the Chromatic Aberration at f1.4 is very strong. I was not able to remove it using Lightroom 2, by this I mean moving the sliders all the way to either direction. This mostly occurs during strong contrast situation, like for outdoor portraits in harsh sun. I did not want to have to put up with the CA from the lens and the slow focusing despite the HSM, so I sent the lens back.

The build quality was very good though.

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful

Outstanding lens - if you get a good copy, Friday, 19 September 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		5.0
Sharpness		5.0
Build Quality		5.0
AF Speed		5.0
Value for Money		5.0

I've read a lot of good things and seen a lot of images taken by the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens, so I decided to get one from Amazon. First copy I got was no good. It was out of focus on both my Canon 20D and 350D. So I returned it immediately, and thanks to the good return policy of Amazon, it was no hassle to do so.

I ordered another one. It was fantastic. All I've read and seen about it was true. Now I could take low light pictures without dreading the noise at high ISO with fantastic bokeh to boot and without paying an arm and a leg for the Canon equivalent.

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful

Nice glass, Wednesday, 17 September 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		5.0
Sharpness		5.0
Build Quality		5.0
AF Speed		5.0
Value for Money		5.0

Lots of glass, which makes the lens a tad heavy. Depth of field is impressive. I haven't experienced the focusing problems that some other people have described. Overall, this is a great lens for relatively dark and/or indoor lighting. As expected with f/1.4, the bokeh is just gorgeous.

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful

Mis-focus, Friday, 05 September 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		1.3
Sharpness		1.0
Build Quality		2.0
AF Speed		1.0
Value for Money		1.0

I was 0 for 2 with the Sigma 30mm bought at Amazon. Got the first one, focus was terrible. I mean the only thing I could get in focus on my xti was a shot outside at f/8 and infinity. I tried to focus on my birdfeeder at 30 feet and was really blurry (with plenty of shutter speed). Inside was a little better but completely unacceptable compared to my 50mm f/1.8. Sent it back and got another from Amazon. A little better inside. The focus was not so horrible that I could actually tell that it was front focusing. Things that were in focus were very sharp (only a couple of shots of things I wasn't focusing on). Outside I still couldn't get a clear focus on the bird feeder. Oh well, Amazon was great though. No problems with the refund.

Got my Canon 28mm f/1.8 (at B&H) and all of the tests that I did with the Sigma showed that the focus was right on. Taking pictures of my baby girl was hit or miss just like my nifty fifty, but at least I can take sharp pictures of inanimate objects at close and far ranges. Unfortunately, that was not possible with the Sigma 30s that I had tried (on my Xti).

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Shockingly good, Tuesday, 19 August 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		4.8
Sharpness		4.0
Build Quality		5.0
AF Speed		5.0
Value for Money		5.0

Far exceeded all of my expectations. And my expectations are very high. I still can not believe the amount of detail and the contrast this lens delivers. I have 1.8 20mm Sigma lens, which I thought was pretty good, as long as I applied some sharpening in post-processing. But this thing blows it out of the water completely.

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Excellent Lens, , Sunday, 17 August 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		4.8
Sharpness		4.0
Build Quality		5.0
AF Speed		5.0
Value for Money		5.0

This lens takes very clear images, its extremely fast and offers low-light image taking. I am using this lens exclusively right now because it offers so much flexibility between indoor and outdoor lighting.

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful

Sigma hits the sweet spot!, Saturday, 26 July 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		4.5
Sharpness		5.0
Build Quality		4.0
AF Speed		5.0
Value for Money		4.0

What a fantastic lens! I've always used sharpest lenses (17-55 f/2.8, 50 f/1.4 etc). This lens is not only super sharp, but it's like the best L-lenses: it gives superb micro-contrast, bokeh, color and realism.

I use it on my 40D with a Kenko Pro1 UV filter. My favorite apertures are f/2.8 to f/5.6. But, f/1.4-2 are not bad either if there is not sufficient light.

The Sigma AF is not as reliable as Canon ones. My 30mm doesn't front- or back-focus consistently, but AF can miss focus at times, especially if you use it at f/1.4.

My favorite zoom is 17-55 f/2.8. I wouldn't leave home only with 50mm, 85mm primes, but 30mm is much more versatile than those primes and I don't hesitate to use bring lens as my only lens to an event or a trip.

30mm is quite appropriate for portraits, but if you want the ultimate portrait lens, I would recommend Canon 50mm f/1.4 (or f/1.2L).

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Sharp lens, but inaccurate auto-focus, Wednesday, 23 July 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		2.3
Sharpness		2.0
Build Quality		2.0
AF Speed		2.0
Value for Money		3.0

I've had this lens for about a year and a half now. The lens itself is small and easy to carry in a camera bag. I can confirm that it's also very sharp. When it's manually focused it can be incredibly sharp, but unfortunately the auto-focus is inconsistent and will often front-focus (i.e. the red auto-focus dot will light up on an object, but the picture ends up focusing on something slightly closer than the object supposedly in focus). I've done testing on a tripod and compared it against manually focusing the lens and I confirmed the issue does exist. I've read, however, that Sigma has issues with consistency and quality control sometimes, so it's entirely possible I just got a bunk lens and that others will be fine. Note that Sigma reverse-engineers the auto-focus systems from Canon/Nikon/etc. because those manufacturers don't provide data sheets on how to interface with the camera, so Sigma's lenses *are* more prone to error than the "native" lenses, and I'm certainly not the only one to have this error.

More about the lens: at f/1.4 the contrast is a little weak and it's not as sharp as if you stop it down a little more (to say f/2.8), but it's still better than most zoom lenses at any aperture. At f/2.8 or higher, everything is in perfect focus. This lens has the potential to be the perfect prime lens because it's the equivalent to a standard ~50mm lens after the multiplier of cropped sensor cameras like the 40D/30D/20D and XSi/XTi/XT, plus at f/1.4 it's great in low light. But with poor auto-focus, the lens becomes far less useful than it otherwise would be. Using manual focus it's perfect, though.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Great bargain lens, Sunday, 22 June 2008


Overall rating (weighted)		4.3
Sharpness		4.0
Build Quality		4.0
AF Speed		4.0
Value for Money		5.0

One of the best lenses you can buy for your Canon crop camera.(20/30/40D or any of the Rebels)Many people report problems with this lens but like Jim Hunt said in another review, I believe most of the focusing errors are operator errors. Prime lenses and especially prime lenses in the "normal" range have very few moving parts and are far less likely to have mechanical issues. That said, I love this lens. I have moved on to a full frame camera so I can no longer use it. For the money the Sigma 30mm is one of the best lenses you can buy. One reason I believe so many people report having problems with this lens is the price brings it into the affordable range for the amateur photographer or student photographer. These are the photographers that are least likely to understand Depth of Field, and the least likely to do proper testing and evaluations. Therefore I believe there are some errors sure, but they are not the fault of the equipment.

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