High performance medium telephoto macro lens optimized for digital cameras
MACRO 105mm F2.8 EX DG allows greater Working distance between the lens and subject. High Contrast and excellent image quality are made possible in all shooting ranges. This macro lens is ideal for digital SLR cameras as well as film SLR cameras.
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Reduces flare and ghost
This new medium telephoto macro lens employs a new design concept for digital SLR cameras. Its new lens power layout produces an excellent optical performance and also reduces flare and ghost. This new lens is designed to reduce the influence of harmful light caused by reflections from the digital image sensor.
An easy to use 105mm medium telephoto lens
MACRO 105mm F2.8 EX DG lens is very suitable for taking pictures in nature and it enables to use of natural light conditions or flash.
The greater working distance of this lens is very advantageous when taking the picture of a flower among the branches or an insect. You do not shake your subject when you want to take its precise details without blurring by using a tripod.
The narrow Angle of view is a great aid for simplifying backgrounds and shallow Depth of field makes it easier to handle the composition. This lens would have an equivalent field of view of a 178mm telephoto macro lens on a digital SLR camera (when used with the SD10).
Minimum aperture of F45
Depth of field of medium telephoto Macro lenses is generally very shallow; however, Sigma, Canon and Konica Minolta mounts of this lens have a minimum aperture of F45 (or F32 for Nikon and Pentax mounts) for incredible depth of field.
Screw-in lens hood
A screw-in hood is included, for convenient use of circular polarizing filters. It is possible to attach an 77mm filter in front of the lens hood.
Dual Focus (DF) system
This lens also incorporates a Dual Focus (DF) system that is designed to make the lens easy to hold during auto focusing. The large focus ring offers smooth and positive action whilst focusing manually.
Handling,
Manual focus is nice and simple- pull back on the focusing ring for manual focusing, push it back for autofocus. It's smooth but just stiff enough to prevent the focus from slipping or being knocked. If you get the Nikon or Pentax fitting, the aperture goes to f32 but for the other fittings allows for f45. Some may find the limit/full switch fiddly to chance because of its positive and small design, but over all it handles well.
Image quality
Distortion is well controlled and barely noticeable at all. When used wide open, the results are a little soft around the edges of the frame though. Stop down to f5.6 and the results are sharper but still slightly soft at the extreme edge. Thats not to say that the results arn't good - they are - but some of the competition are just a little sharper.
Why should you care what I think?
My relationship with this item: I have borrowed a friends Where did you buy this item?: N/A Price paid: 299 When did you buy this item?: N/A
Conclusions at a glance
Would you recommend this Item: Yes Pros: Sharp, cost Cons: build
User Lens Reviews
Average user rating from: 31 user(s)
Overall rating (weighted)
4.2
Sharpness
4.2
Build Quality
4.1
AF Speed
4.1
Value for Money
4.3
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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
I Love this Lens!!! The colors are fantastic!, Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Overall rating (weighted)
4.8
Sharpness
4.0
Build Quality
5.0
AF Speed
5.0
Value for Money
5.0
I recently bought this lens for a Nikon D90 camera. I am new to Macro Photography and chose this lens over the Nikon 85mm. At first I had trouble taking macro pictures with the lens. I know you are supposed to use a tripod, but right now that's just not my style. Finding a way to put a tripod in front of a flower and catching that bee in that act just doesn't appeal to me. My pictures at first were blurry. My shutter speed was too low to hand hold the shots. After giving the shutter more speed I solved that problem. Now my pictures are just as nice and clear. The lens works well with my Nikon D90. It doesn't make any noise at all and is very snappy to lock in when I use auto focus. It doesn't hunt at all. I did find that in taking pictures of things close up it is easier to take the pictures in manual focus. Focusing in manual is real easy with this lens. The picture quality is fabulous! I just love this lens!!!!! I posted a link to some of my pictures in the comments section.
I Love this Lens!!! The colors are fantastic!, Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Overall rating (weighted)
4.8
Sharpness
5.0
Build Quality
4.0
AF Speed
5.0
Value for Money
5.0
I recently bought this lens for a Nikon D90 camera. I am new to Macro Photography and chose this lens over the Nikon 85mm. At first I had trouble taking macro pictures with the lens. I know you are supposed to use a tripod, but right now that's just not my style. Finding a way to put a tripod in front of a flower and trying to catch the bee in the act just doesn't appeal to me. My pictures at first were blurry. My shutter speed was too low to hand hold the shots. After giving the shutter more speed I solved that problem. Now my pictures are just as nice and clear. The lens works well with my Nikon D90. It doesn't make any noise at all and is very snappy to lock in when I use auto focus. It doesn't hunt at all. I did find that in taking pictures of things close up it is easier to take the pictures in manual focus. Focusing in manual is real easy with this lens. The picture quality is fabulous! I just love this lens!!!!! I posted a link to some of my pictures in the comments section.
I'm sure this is a great lens but it was absolutely worthless for what I wanted to use it for. The focal point is soooo small and even with a good tripod you still get a good amount of Camera shake or Blur in the picture. I know a macro lens is often talked about when taking pictures of bugs and what not but I am a fossil dealer and was hoping to take crips pictures of specific areas on a fossil (ie. a potential undisclosed repair or restoration) but you have to be very far away and your subject has to be very very very small (ie. an ant) for this lens to be useful. If you want to take a picture of the eyeball of a wasp from far away....then yes, this might be the lens for you. If for instance your a coin collector and you want to take a crips shot of a 1821 penny....its not going to happen with this lens. You would need to place the penny on the driveway and you and your camera, with the tripod, would need to get on the roof of your house, and even then....you'd have a very difficult time getting this thing to focus on the entire shot.
I read lots of reviews that talked about how great this lens is before shelling out the cash...and I am sure it is...but you have to be buying it for its sole intented purpose (taking pictures from far away of bugs) and don't go outside that purpose expecting it to work. Am I a professional photographer and a camera and lens expert? No, but I do take approx. 10,000 pictures per week x 10 years and you begin to pick up on things just with experience.
This is a review based on how the lens performed for my intented purposes. I am not giving the lens a 2 rating...just my experience with it. Hope this helps others who were perhaps hoping to use this lens for something besides taking pictures of bugs and small flowers. Kind regards, Garry
This is a great lens. I see quite a few people giving it bad marks for the auto-focus system, I do not use auto focus in macro; I find it cumbersome when shooting macro.
Pros: *Sharp, very sharp *Acceptable low to mid lighting performance *1:1 and 105mm are a great combination *Build quality is very good
Salvo por que el autofoco no funciona con la Nikon D60, es una maravilla, muy luminoso y liviano. La limitación del autofoco no es problema para macro, ya que usualmente se debe utilizar foco selectivo.
Muy buen lente para retrato por su caracter de 105mm
If you are thinking about getting it; GET IT!, Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
4.0
Sharpness
4.0
Build Quality
3.0
AF Speed
5.0
Value for Money
4.0
I have had this lens for more than a year so I know all the Pros and Cons; I did not just buy it and I am not writing a spur of the moment review. If you are debating between this lens and the Nikon one, I would go with this one. I am not saying this one in better than the Nikon because I haven't used the Nikon, but I don't imagine it is $350 better.
Now there are reviews that complain about the auto-focusing on this lens. It is a Macro lens meaning its field of focus is very small at 2.8 so it will tend to go back and forth at times, especially if there is a lot of things in the viewfinder. If you know how to use a DSLR then should be able to Manual Focus it. When shooting portrait style photos I have no problem with the autofocus, now with nature it doesn't always want to focus perfectly no, but like I said above it is a Macro lens and focuses very tight. Also a one person said to go to Manual Focus you have to flip the switch on the camera, one the lens, and move the focusing ring. Which is not true. The switch on the lens is a focus limiting switch. Which locks the camera in full minimum focus ratio, meaning it will focus closer up, or you can limit it.
I personally don't like the lens hood because it screws on, instead of twist and lock, which also means you can't put a filter on the lens directly while using the lens hood. Instead you have to put the filter on the hood itself. Also it fits the Nikon but doesn't lock in the camera body as easy or smoothly, again it still fits and works fine.
I personally love my sigma lens and will definitely buy my next lens through Sigma. Most likely will be the 50mm Macro.
Buy this. Do it nao., Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
4.0
Sharpness
4.0
Build Quality
3.0
AF Speed
4.0
Value for Money
5.0
I won't lie. I know nothing about macro photography other than I want to learn how to do it and do it well. So I read around and a lot of people said this was a very solid lens to go with. More importantly, though, I spent hours looking at photos taken with this lens on the exact body that I use. I liked what I saw, the price was reasonable, so I went with it. When it came I didn't even read any of the fine literature that comes with it, I just put it on and started shooting pepsi cans, keyboards, and creepy collections of Hummels my mom has. They immediately looked awesome, thats without modifying any settings. I'm sure I have no idea what I'm doing and yet I took some photos that look sweet. I suppose the one thing I will say is that when you auto focus it is a Bit noisy, but I was alone in my room with no noise at midnight. Under any other circumstances I am confident it will not be noticable. and honestly even if it is, is that really a reason to not by an otherwise quality lens? (the answer is no.)
Excellent performance lens, Friday, 11 September 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
5.0
Sharpness
5.0
Build Quality
5.0
AF Speed
5.0
Value for Money
5.0
From life-size close-up to infinity, from 35mm to digital, this lens provides superb, sharp and distortion free images. I would highly recommend this lens to be added to your camera bag. It delivers clear crisp images at normal focusing ranges while providing high image quality. And at life sized magnifications, you receive a realistic impression of your subjects.
After using this lens I'd rate it so,so, Tuesday, 01 September 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
3.8
Sharpness
3.0
Build Quality
4.0
AF Speed
4.0
Value for Money
4.0
I was very pleased at first with this lens,however after about a month I have found myself becoming Very frustrated with the slow,noisy, and sometime non-existent auto-focus ability and the extremely "touchy" manual focus mode means that you better not be in a hurry to get your shot because you're gonna be fidgeting for awhile trying to get the focus indicator to light up..... on a Sony A300 anyway. I have 2 other Sigma lenes, a 28mm and a 70-300mm, and couldn't be happier with their performance,I suppose this is why I feel somewhat disappointed with this one.
In general this is a good macro lens. Let down by the poor AF system, that is very prone to hunting, and long noisy focus times. There are times it hit's the mark straight away, but many more times it wildly hunts. So for insect photography, I would definitely recommend looking at other lenses.
Why should you care what I think?
My relationship with this item: I own it Where did you buy this item?: Amazon UK Price paid: 300
Conclusions at a glance
Would you recommend this Item: Undecided Pros: Good Solid Build Quality Cons: Poor AF performance
Great macro/portrait lens, Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
4.8
Sharpness
5.0
Build Quality
4.0
AF Speed
5.0
Value for Money
5.0
I was looking for a prime lens with macro capability and since I already had the Pentax 50mm f/1.4, I needed something in the 100mm range. There were two options: this Sigma and the Pentax equivalent that was slightly more expensive. I've seen some great recommendations for the Sigma on photo.net, so I decided to go with it and I don't regret that choice. If you've been using cheaper lenses, this lens will show you why it's worth investing more into a good prime lens. I've been using it for macro photography (flowers) and for portraits with great results. I also recommend the Sigma DG 58mm Multi-Coated UV Filter to go with it.
Product is everthing good that I heard it was. It is priced reasonably well. Build quality is very good as with all sigma lenses. IQ is excellent. Have not seen any negitive lens quality. Am completely pleased with this product.
I bought this lens for macro work after I saw the photos of a member of my camera club made with the same lens. I wasn't disappointed. Photos are sharp & clear.
Sigma 105 macr ver Nikon micro lenses, Wednesday, 08 April 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
4.5
Sharpness
5.0
Build Quality
5.0
AF Speed
4.0
Value for Money
4.0
I need a Macro lens for my Nikon D-60 So I looked at the Nikon AF-S VR 60mm, the Nikon 105 AF-S VR lenses and the Sigma 105 macro lense. The sigma is missing some fetures of the Nikkor lenses, however in macro work you are normal using AP mode and manual focus. I feel the 105 lenses work at more flexable distance from the subject, the quality of the immage between a the nikon 105 and the Sigma is nearly identical. But difference in price is inportant to me. Summar, the sigma has a signifant price/performance edge of the Nikon competers.
