Sigma10-20mm f4-5.6 EX DC HSM - Canon fit lens

The lens arrived before stated delivery date. It was in excellent condition (nowhere near as much wear as my damaged one so no complaint.I've used it several time sine purchase and no problem.

I owned this lens for about 3 years and loved the combined ability to shoot ultra wide and from very close in to the subject. I used it with my Canon 20D and 40D bodies and had a lot of fun with it. Before I bought this lens I had been contemplating the option of upgrading to a full frame body. Once I had this lens that desire ceased. This lens gave me ultra wide shooting without losing the "advantage" of the 1.6 x crop factor for my longer lenses.In December 2009 all of my camera equipment was stolen in a burglary and this lens fell victim to me deciding to replace my body with the more expensive 7D rather than the 50D which would have been the current direct replacement for my stolen 40D. I got the 15-85mm IS kit lens with the 7D and I thought "that'll be wide enough".I was wrong! I ended up missing this lens so much that I have recently replaced it, and at the current price on Amazon of £377 it's seems to me to be an absolute bargain.Sigma have now released their 8-16mm lens, but you'll pay nearly twice as much. I know all too well that every mm counts at the wide end, but I couldn't justify the expense for the extra 2mm of width.There is now also an f3.5 version of this lens, but as I very often stop down to f8, f9 or more then I also couldn't see the point in paying quite a lot more for that either.I've had the replacement for about a week now and have been very happy with the image quality, just as I was with my original copy of this lens. My only slight gripe is with the lens cap, which seems to have been revised since I had my previous copy of this lens and seems to be rather tricky to lock properly into place. I'm worried that I'll soon lose the lens cap.One thing I've not yet tried, which I think might be a lot of fun, is shooting high definition video on my 7D using this lens. It's wide enough that camera shake shouldn't be much of an issue and I think it might provide some stunning video footage in appropriate locations.If you want to shoot wide, without going fish-eye then I think this lens represents wonderful value for money. Over the years I have used this lens I have to say that it is the lens which has given me the most photographic fun (I think maybe even more than my Lensbaby). Stop it down to f8 or f9 and you'll be in the sweet spot for sharpness (from my own experience), although I don't have any complaints even when shooting at f4.

A 10-20mm lens on a typical DSLR is obviously pretty aggressive because I suppose it is equal to a 16-28mm (or thereabouts) on a full frame 35mm camera. This particular Sigma model first came out a little time ago now and equivalents have since been launched by other "independents" plus of course there is Canon's own rather more expensive offering.So there are other choices, are they better or worse, I really couldn't tell you, I do not run an optical test lab but I am very happy with it and it was a great price. If I lost it, would I buy it again ? Yes.I have a number of lenses and mainly wanted this for landscape work, it is excellent for that but also there is fun to be had taking close up pictures that deliberately exploit the distortion that comes with extreme wide angle lenses and I got some great shots doing that. One thing that I did find was that because the front glass is 77mm and there is a supplied petal hood, in certain close up situations where I used the pop up flash on my 40D, the lens barrel cast a shadow ! Obviously mounting a Speedlight on the hot shoe solved that.The "magic" of a DSLR is the interchangeable lenses which make it such a flexible tool. I have been lucky, I bought my first Canon DSLR a D30 at Christmas 2000 and therefore over the intervening years have gradually built up a collection of lenses which neatly split pretty evenly between Canon originals or Sigma equivalents.Unless you really specialize in photography to just one thing like Motor Sports, Aircraft, Wildlife and so on in which case, always buy that lens that costs x3 times your camera body, to an extent every lens purchase will be a compromise between, quality, price and how often it gets used - there is also the matter of paying one's normal household bills !In this context I am a great fan of Sigma based upon their quality and value for money and on one particular occasion bought their lens over the equivalent Canon ones because I was able to do a side by side test on my own camera, not on price. For me because I can get quite a lot of mileage out of it as a camera bag option, this 10-20mm Sigma is a brilliant buy for me and mounted on my Canon 40D produces the images I want plus, as a relatively extreme lens, it is a steal and brilliant value for money.

I have had two copies of this lens, Pentax and Canon. I switched systems recently and one of my first purchases was this lens. The Pentax fit copy I had was trouble free with non of the fabled problems with bad copies of Sigma lenses. Thats why I got another when I moved to Canon because I loved using it. The Canon fit is way way better, HSM is a joy and nearly silent and the manual focus just feels more precise. Both my copies produced identical images with no problems of de-centering or focus issues. Its not perfect and the corners are soft, the Tokina supposed to be sharper but I have had no issues with this (this Sigma is cheaper). My Pentax copy was sharper at 100% crop but this was on a 10 megapixel K10 as opposed to my 15 megapixel 50D. The 50D is softer at 100% but at normal viewing you wouldn't notice. aAlmost all of my photography with this lens is a around f8 or f11 on a tripod and I have no problems with sharpness and the corners are acceptible. EX build quality is solid and there are no wobbles, it just feels like a quality product. Doesn't get 5 stars because of the corners but it's good (and apparently better than the new f3.5 version). Cult lens, I would be without mine.