Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Sigh. Front focusing Sigma 28mm :(

I've had this idea of shooting with a fast prime in low light for a while, and finally decided to get a Sigma 28mm/1.8 - versus Nikon's own 28/2.8 - why oh why can't Nikon release a fast F1.8 prime like Canon? Sometimes, I do wish I was using a Canon body in order to use their (seemingly) nicer lens line up.

In anycase, my Sigma 28mm 1.8 arrived today in Australia, barely 4 days after I placed the order to B&H Photo on Friday. SWEET!

Unfortunately... did some testing against a chart, and quite annoyed to see it front focus by a few mm. No much yes? But imagine if I were to take a closeup of a bug or flower, and the focus of say, was on the bugs eyes, but the actual picture showed the bugs' mandibles in focus, that is NOT what I want.

In real life tests, results were exactly as determined by the focusing chart - everything was front focusing. This was particularly bad shooting at distance objects at F1.8 as the subjects would be just out of focus :(

I am really sad, as stopped down, this was the sharpest lens I've ever used on my camera. I really wish I could keep a good version of this, but I'm not going to spend time sending this to Sigma for repairs and stuff.

Tischer also reports similar issues with this lens. Given that I know I'm going to be firing this baby off at F1.8 (if not, why buy a fast lens hey?) the front focus is really a bummer. I'm just going to be exchanging it for a 16-85VR, which is a perfect 24-1xx range. Should be a good stepup from my 18-55VR, which I'll sell with my D40x. Ah well.

GW

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