Quote Originally Posted by Josh


Jan, is that shot of your brother a crop or did you shoot vertical? I'm hoping it's the latter and that's normal stretching, otherwise that lens is buggered.



Josh thanks for asking. No it was a vertical portrait-orientated shot. It isn't cropped and as far as I know the only thing adjusted was vibrance level -100 in lightroom. I still thinks it's kinda looking fisheye, but remember I was really really close to my brother, so I guess you could expect such distortion.





Quote Originally Posted by Mark Elberson


Jan,


Thanks for your sample pics. That Sigma 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6 looks pretty cool! What was your overall opinion of it?



No problem! It is really cool actually! I was just battling over buying a ultrawide for my 5D2 or a 50mm fast prime.


The 17-40 was really cool, although I wasn't convinced that buying this lens purely for the 17-24 difference was worth the price. I thought 17mm wasn't too big of a difference.


The sigma was a little too expensive for me and my mind kept wondering towards the 50mm prime. Finally I bought the new Sigma 50mm 1.4 prime and thusfar I love it.


Anyway since I only had like 20min of shooting with both lenses, I didn't make a lot of pictures, but I can tell you a few things I noticed.


I will also post a few full-sized jpegs to show you a bit more and have you make a few decisions of your own.


The Sigma is really sharp! I liked that a lot.


The size/weight is pretty good, it feels good in your hand and on your camera (5D without grip)


Disliked the fact that you can't put filters on it to protect it. The glass is round (don't know the proper word for it)


There was a little chromatic aberation, which you'll probably see in the full-size. But not more than the 17-40L.


I don't know how you call it (light fall off perhaps?) but it seems that you get a bright "spot" on the picture and I assume it's from the sun. But the sun was very hard anyways.


Here they are:


12mm full size


12mm full size distortion


Hope you can do something with these. Anyway for me the 17-40L wasn't worth the price, considering I've already got the 24-105 and the 17-24 difference wasn't big enough for me. If I would consider buying an ultra wide again in the future, I would definitely try out the Sigma again. I can't really make a good conclusion on it since I haven't had enough time with it to create an honest and more reliable opinion, but for me the first idea of it is very positive, it could definitely bring a create side out.


I also don't know if I'm right about it, but distortion at 17mm could be even less than distortion from the 17-40 at 17mm, but I didn't try it so I can't tell you [:P]


Good luck and I hope this helps a bit!


Jan


Oh Ps: the pictures are straight out of the camera, with max open aperture and no postprocessing done. Used adobe standard profile and autoWB. AV mode +2/3 exposure if I remember correctly.
If you're interested, I also got an f10 picture from the landscape photo. Give me a signal if you want to see it [Y]