wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: Nikon Glass
Mr. Roger Howard 2006-Aug-10 17:53:00
On Aug 9, 2006, at 6:20 PM, Mark Banas (lists) wrote:
> On Aug 9, 2006, at 8:03 PM, nottrydo wrote:
>> Hi I'm a new member and was looking for an opinion form the
>> experienced. I was looking at wide zooms and am considering the 12-24
>> Nikor, but was warned against it by a sales person. He advised I look
>> at the sigma lens instead. I want it for both panos and other
>> landscape etc?
> I'm not a Nikon user, but I recently bought a used Sigma 12-24, and
> it is an excellent, sharp lens. What I have heard in the past about
> the Nikkor 12-24 is that it has a problem with "mustache distortion,"
> which, unlike barrel or pincushion distortion, cannot be easily (if
> at all) corrected. This may not be a big problem in single-shot
> landscapes, especially without a defined horizon or lots of straight
> lines (think buildings), but this is probably what the salesperson
> was thinking of. I don't know which lens is sharper, but the Sigma
> has very mild barrel distortion at 12mm and almost none at 24mm.
>
> And I think the Sigma is significantly cheaper.
Agreed - the Sigma 12-24 is a nice, sharp lens with fairly light
distortion at the wide-end. My major complain with it has been its
heavy flaring in the sun, but I have heard so few others complain
about this that I'm starting to think I have a unit with bad coating.
On mine the whole frame gets washed out when I'm anywhere near the
sun - and I bought this lens primarily for higher resolution outdoor
panos, so that's been a real bummer. Otherwise it's sharp with great
color.
I will say that like the Nikon it's really made for smaller
sensors... I've only used it on a 1.6x sensor (10D and 20D) but I've
heard from a friend who borrowed it for use on a 5D (fullframe) that
it was really bad outside the center where I normally see it.
-R