I bought this lens for the Canon mount. The seller listed it under the Nikon mount because there is no listing on Amazon for the Canon version. But Amazon combines all the reviews together anyway so I will write my review here.
I've had a full day to test the lens and even used it at a photo shoot last evening. There are so many things about this lens that I love:
1. Ultra Wide Angle. This is the widest rectilinear prime focal length made. Canon has one, of course, and the Mark II version costs over $2000. I picked my Sigma up used here on Amazon for only $450, I consider it a great deal since this lens is becoming rare.
2. Close focusing range. It focuses closer than the expensive Canon L lens. This lens focuses SO close, just 7.1 inches from the focal plane. This is actually a Macro lens! I already took some really cool shots at the close distance.
3. Sharpness. Soft wide open but sharpens up nicely at f/4. At the center of the frame, this lens is sharper at f/4 than my
Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM UD Wide Angle Zoom Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras
lens is at f/5.6 @ 15mm. And I always considered that a sharp lens.
4. Flexibility. On my full-frame Canon 5D Mark II this gives an ultrawide field of view of 114 degrees. Fun, but perhaps too wide for many uses. If you're not careful your subject gets lost. But on my 60D it gives a very useful field of view equivalent to 22mm, while utilizing the sharpest part of the image.
5. Autofocus. Works like a champ, is fast and dead on. Not like my experience with some other Sigma lenses that I had to send in for calibration. Focuses well in low light too.
6. Built like a tank. Solid. I'm used to using telephoto lenses, so to me it doesn't seem heavy at all.
There is really only one thing I don't like about this lens and that is the poor performance in the corners. The distortion and vignetting can be corrected in software, but the corners are smeared so badly wide open and never fully clear up even when stopped down. The center reaches optimal sharpness at f/5.6 and the corners do sharpen up somewhat, reaching optimal sharpness at f/11. But even at f/11 the smearing is still there and it's not just the far corners, it's a fair amount of the outer edge that is smeared looking. In small photos for the web it's not really apparent and if your background is out of focus it won't matter, but if you're a professional landscape photographer this may be an issue.
The good news is that if you're using this lens on an APS-C camera to get a 22mm "equivalent focal length", your camera's sensor crops out the offending edges. You only capture the center "sweet spot" of the image and although you can still tell that the far left and right sides of the image are not as sharp as the center, it's not bad at all. Still, I can't give 5 stars to a lens that is not acceptably sharp from corner to corner.
So why did Sigma discontinue this lens in 2007? By all counts it was a popular, lower cost alternative to the Canon L glass with even better image quality than the first Canon version. Perhaps there is a revision in the works? Let's hope so. Sigma has been coming out with some great lenses lately.
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