Chris Lauritzen
(K=14949) - Comment Date 3/17/2003
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As a Nikon shooter I would lean toward the Nikon lens but I have read good reviews of the Sigma 20-40 2.8. I personally would like having the zoom range that the 20-40 would give you. I only own one sigma lens and it?s on my wife?s Canon but it does seem to take descent shots.
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Chris Moore
(K=5591) - Comment Date 3/18/2003
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Hi,
I have the Sigma 17-35Ex for my Canon. I absolutely love it. I have not tried the Canon equivalent, but it was 3 times the price so well beyond what I was willing to pay. The zoom range gives me great flexibility and 17mm is extremely good fun to play with. When I bought it, it was reviewed side by side against the Canon 17-35. The Canon scored tiny gains optically, it's main advantage was that it is f/2.8 across the board. I don't find this a problem as it's rare for me to want to use the lens at such a wide aperture in any case - though I do so occasionally in rock gigs, using the extreme wide end of the zoom which is f/2.8 in any case.
There are images in my portfolio taken with the 17-35 if that's any help, though obviously online images are of little use to assess optical quality.
I also have the Sigma 28-70f/2.8 and wouldn't personally recommend it as it just doesn't have the same crisp feel to it. This is just to demonstrate that I'm no sigma zealot :)
Sorry I can't comment on any of the other lenses you mention not having tried any of them.
HTH
Chris
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Eric Mendoza
(K=1204) - Comment Date 3/30/2003
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Hi, so you already have a 28-200 zoom! I'm a Nikon
purist, my e-mail address starts with enikkor!!!!
I think a single focal wide angle lens either 24 or
20 is the way to go! It will be very light and with
wide lens opening and also critically sharp. Ever since
I move to autofocus and got 2 nikkor zooms which cover
all my needs, I miss my single focal 24, 35 and 28 nikkors!
They're sharp, fast and light, also very clear and bright!
Zooms are for convinience and quickies! For critical
landscape, nature and tight shots I still prefer single focal wide angle lenses. My 2 cents.
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Marco Brivio
(K=14339) - Comment Date 4/2/2003
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I have the Nikkor 20mm f 2:8D and I am quite satisfied. The optical scheme is quite obsolete anyway the lens is good. The MTF test gives a 3.6 result (not so bad).
If I had some money I would buy the Nikkor 17-35 f 2:8, but its actual price is above my budget limit !
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Mark E
(K=216) - Comment Date 4/17/2003
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The Nikkor 20 2.8 is an excellent lens, but it had such a wide angle of view that its usefulness is more limited than it's cousin the 24 2.8. Unless you are experienced with extreme wide angle lenses, you might want to consider the 24 2.8 since it's better for general photography.
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Charles Morris
(K=5969) - Comment Date 4/19/2003
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Consider how much you will use this lens and how much room it takes up in your bag. The sigma 20mm f1.8 is one i have used for about 8 months now. I also have a Tokina 19-35mm f3.5-4.5 that i have had for about 2.5 years. In actual use the tokina lens is not much different in size or weight than the sigma. the surprising part is that when i drop a ruler on one of my prints the sigma has a lot of noticably curved lines that the tokina renders straight (or at least closer to straight). i think the sigma lens will be a gift to one of my nieces that is interested in photography because i certainly have not gotten any benefit out of it.
i finally figured out after years of being unhappy with exreme wide angle lenses that your best friend is a tripod regardless of aperture. if you can't get yout camera level and square with the world, the distortions these lenses add can impart an artisitic feel or they can ruin an image. the lighter weight and lower cost of this little tokina lens ($180 lens +$25 for the dedicated hood) comes at a cost of 2/3 of a stop vs an f2.8 lens on the wide end. the nikkor 20/2.8 is a very good lens by all accounts, just be sure you are going to use it enough to justify the cost. The sigma 17-35 is a good lens. for nearly $500 you get a lens that is huge, heavy, uses amazingly expensive 82mm filters and there have been so many unannounced design and spec changes over the years that if it breaks there is a fair chance you can't get it repaired.
2cents@large
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 4/21/2003
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If I were you I'd replace that 28-200 with a 28-70 and 70-200 or 80-200 first, and only then get more lenses.
That said, you haven't said how much money you have to spend so I'll stick in the pricerange of the ones you mention.
The Sigma 17-35 is supposed to be an excellent lens, but do look at the Tokina 20-35 f/2.8 AT-X which costs about the same. Optically comparable, I find Tokinas in general to have superior mechanical qualities (important if you go for longevity).
Of the Nikon and Sigma primes, I'd go for the Nikon unless the 2 stops extra are important to you. It has CRC meaning you can focus really close and still have everything way back to infinity in focus. It does of course cost 50% more, but for that you get a superior lens (and one that takes up less room in your camerabag and accepts cheaper filters, the Sigma is quite large and takes 82mm filters against 62 for the Nikon).
The Sigma 20-40 is about a quarter more expensive again. Personally I'd rather get a 20mm prime and a 28-70 f2.8 (or similar) zoom to cover the range. You get more versatility that way and get good optics further into the range you have now with your 28-200.
Sigma, Tokina and Nikon all make excellent 28-70 f/2.8 lenses (the Nikon being a 35-70 to stay somewhat close in price). Given they're all more than excellent, I'd stick with the cheapest of the 3 which is the Tokina.
So my recommendation would be a Nikon 20mm f/2.8 and a Tokina 28-70 f/2.8. Together they should not cost much more than the Sigma 20-40 which you probably had budgetted for or you'd not have included it here.
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Wayne D Willis
(K=20) - Comment Date 4/22/2003
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go the sigma 15-30mm it will give you a taste of wide angles then which ever you use the most get a prime. Thats what i did and now i have 15-30mm and a 17mm
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Mark Beltran
(K=32612) - Comment Date 4/25/2003
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If image quality is a high priority, a fixed focal length wide angle is IMHO the most promising way to go. Zooms have improved, but a friend who's worked for Leitz as an optical engineer told me that one of the problems with designing zoom lenses is color correction throughout the varying focal lengths. And that's addressing only one problem. Imagine dealing with that and maintaining focus while changing focal length. And then there's aberrations. To make a zoom lens requires balancing certain factors by compromising on less critical ones. A good zoom lens is a marvel of engineering. On the other hand, a fixed focal length lens only has to deal with things without focal length variances. I'm sure an optical engineer can offer a more detailed explanation. I prefer fixed focal length, and I recommend it.
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David Goldfarb
(K=7611) - Comment Date 4/26/2003
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The biggest tradeoff in designing a zoom lens is between flatness of field (or you might say, center-to-corner sharpness) and barrel/pincushion distortion. There have been good ultrawide prime lenses for over 30 years capable of rendering straight lines as straight when the camera is properly leveled, but zooms still cannot do this throughout their range, even though they are much sharper and faster than they used to be.
I own only one zoom lens (and I have a lot of lenses), a 35-105/2.8 that I use occasionally for photographing people at events and such, where straight lines at the edges are not usually a big issue. For anything else, I use a prime lens.
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Vincent K. Tylor
(K=7863) - Comment Date 4/26/2003
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The Nikon 17-35 is simply my bread and butter lens. I shoot landscapes and sunsets almost exclusively. The zooms sharpness is so close to a prime that it is indistinguishable nowadays. If you cannot afford the Nikon, then go with the Sigma. The difference between Sigma's 17-35 and the Tokina 20-35 will become evident quickly. Do NOT buy any of the primes unless a macro. The zooms give you a measure of creativity that is simply not possible with any fixed lens.
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Roland Le Gall
(K=7018) - Comment Date 4/27/2003
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Have you a digital SLR...? The problem is not the same because the coeff X 1,6....I have a Canon 20-30, a good lens.. but with the canon D30, it became 32-48...:-( So I bought the Sigma 14 mm F:2,8, I'm glad with it...You can see my to day's picture "rebirth" taken with it..
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Mark E
(K=216) - Comment Date 5/14/2003
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If you have a DSLR, I would recommend the Nikon 20 2.8. If the lens is for a 35mm SLR, have you considered the Nikon 24 2.8? It is much more useful than the 20mm because it's angle of view and wide angle "effect" is not extreme.
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