Customer Reviews

Sigma 24-60mm f/2.8 EX DG IF Aspherical Wide Angle Zoom Lens for Pentax and Samsung SLR Cameras

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I saw this lens for half the price of other short zooms at 2.8 - even half the price of the same Sigma 24-60 in other mounts like Canon or Nikon. I decided to take a chance at that price. When I started out in photography, waaay back in the late 70s, off-brand lenses were almost all terrible. The first Sigmas i ever encountered were later on in the 80s and 90s, and they were terrible. Tamrons were good - the SPs, anyway - but nearly everyone else was really bad.

With that background, I have to say this is a pretty nice lense. It's sharp and contrasty - far more so than I expected. It focuses very close, as well. Paired with my K20D, it's made some great images. But it's worth noting that it front-focuses, and I had to adjust it in the K20D's focus adjustment panel - nearly as far as you *can* adjust a lens. Now it works well.

It's worth noting that it misses focus a lot more often than the 18-55 kit lens does, and at distances close to infinity it will pay you to focus manually. In most shooting situations - five to fifteen feet - it performs very well, focusing fast and sharp. It's odd, though - it focusses correctly every time on my *ist DL; only on the K20D does it have a lot of trouble. The Pentax lenses focus much faster and more accurately on the K20D.

In short, if you're looking for a perfect lens, keep looking; but if you want a sharp, contrasty lens that has a few minor warts but costs LITERALLY half - or less - what all the other fast short zooms cost, this is your lens!

I bought the 24-60mm because I wanted a fast zoom for low light work, but I dodn't want to send a arm and a leg for the pentax 16-50 f2.8 and I wanted something faster than the f4 pentaxs. SO I settled on this great litle sigma. The optics are sharp, the focus is pretty fast and relatively quiet for a body driven lens. The construction is very good and feels a good bit better than the lower tier pentaxes it competes with. It is alittle heavy but relatively light and compact compared to the pentax pro glass. The only drawback that I've found is that at f2.8 in a backlit situation the lens shows chromatic abberation and goes soft. I've only found this at f2.8 with backlit subjects, under normal conditions this problem does not exist. This is a great lens for walking around and travel. Now here is the biggie: this lens is only $199 here on amazon, compared to the competition which is in the 400+ range. SO it is quite the buy. Of course the more expensive pentax lenses are tougher and slightly sharper but the difference is so marginal that I can't see any reason why you should not get this lens. Oh and this lens will work on all your old pentax film gear too.

The EX series has once again stood up to its reputation of solid construction.
Lens has a good weight to it a little heavy especially with an external flash mounted on the camera. However, manageble weight greatly reduces shaking when taking a picture.
Beautiful Bukeh when stepped down to 2.8. Extremely sharp at 5.0

Unlike Pentax DA and ED lenses, focus ring is locked in electrically. Inorder to fine tune focusing you will have to flip the switch on the camera body to Manual. This is my only small complain.

Pros:
Amazing image quality
Sharp at all apertures
Compact for f/2.8 standard zoom (standard sigma 77mm filter ring body).

Cons:
24mm isn't wide enough sometimes.
Mechanical operations doesn't feel too durable
My copy had severe Front Focus that was corrected on first try by Sigma USA

Who should buy this lens:
Anyone looking for a fast standard zoom. The price is an outright bargain ($200), with optical quality equal to most factory f/2.8 zooms.

Comments:
The image quality of this lens is astounding considering the price. It will work for full frame, but is really designed for digital, and the digital benefits from the 1.5 crop factor improving edge/corner sharpness. If you are using film/full frame use the 24-70 f/2.8 instead. If your copy isn't sharp wide open, you have a focus issue, see if you can adjust the front/rear focus of the camera or send the lens to Sigma for adjustment.

This lens isn't very large, same size as most of the Sigma 77mm thread size lenses. It is however dense for its size, but much more compact than the much larger 24-70mm f/2.8 that was designed to be sharp corner to corner on film.

The mechanical operation of this lens doesn't feel highly durable. I already noticed it is slightly looser than when I bought it, but still smooth. It does have a zoom lock at 24mm to prevent creep while walking around. Mine takes a pretty heavy movement to make the lens creep, but it wouldn't creep at all when new.

If this were a Pentax lens I would give it 4 stars because the higher price, however for a $200 lens this so far exceeds my expectations I give it 5 stars. It performs 90% as well as lenses costing 4-5 times its price. It compliments my Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6 and Pentax 50-135mm f/2.8 excellently.

This is probably the fastest wide zoom you'll find for 200us$

It's not as sharp, wide or as fast to autofocus as the Pentax 16-50 SDM, but this will get you a long way for a lot less.

This is the second copy of this lens that I have had. The first copy was pretty worthless and sent back immediately. I was prepared for the worse after reading other reviews that had the same problems as my copy, but after using the second copy I have to say this lens rarely leaves my camera. Across frame even at f/2.8 this lens is incredibly sharp. The first copy missed focus over 50% of the time, this one rarely ever does and that's probably more of a problem of Penax (do you hear me pentax?!). I would compare it favorably to some of the pentax primes, but they are much smaller and can be faster. If you get a good copy I would put this up against some of the 2.8 pentax primes.

i purchaced this lens and found it to be well built. after some testing i found it to front focus so bad that i couldn't adjust it on my K20D with the in camera focus adjuster. i took the lens to the sigma usa site with the k20d body. 20 min later they gave the lens back and now it is as sharp as my pentax DA* lens. i think that you jump at this lens at this price. if you have a problem sigma will back it up. this was the second time i went to sigma with a lens and walked out with a perfect working lens in less than a half hour.