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Christopher Holker photo
Turkmenistan, Ashgabat
1 Level
747 Review
66 Karma

Review on πŸ“Έ High-quality Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DC Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras: A Comprehensive Photography Solution by Christopher Holker

Revainrating 5 out of 5

The Sigma 18-200mm lens can do it all!

The Sigma 18-200mm lens allowed me to skip switching between my Canon 18-55 and 70-300mm lenses (as a bonus, potential dust issues can be avoided). The main advantage is that during sporting events or band performances I can quickly capture a wide field of view (e.g. the entire band) and then a few seconds later zoom in on my son to get a close-up of him WITHOUT switching that lens back and forth. . Works very well for outdoor sports. For indoor basketball games, my shots with the Canon Digital Rebel XT depend on the lighting in the gym. With no flash, the lighting in the gym has to be bright enough, or I have to use a wide-angle shot with shutter priority (low aperture) to keep the speed high and avoid blur. Using my flash (some recommendations allow it :-) I can get pretty good zoom shots of my other son/his teammates with no motion blur (I have a Canon 580 flash - another great product). I took photos that I would never have been able to take without this lens. If I had to do it again I would buy this lens first and wait for a 70-300 lens (more for extreme close-up/nature photography). Before purchasing this lens, I saw other posts stating (generally) that these automatic lenses might have trouble automatically detecting the correct focus distance for a given shot. It seems to me that these images are blurry (I've had a few of them) because the camera's autofocus system (usually a series of "areas" in the autofocus system) is inadvertently aimed at objects at a different distance from cameras. than the object of interest (your child!) and that it creates some blurry images at different times - usually when there's a lot of movement (like basketball games) and it's difficult to always get the right focus. My solution was to be aware of the camera's autofocus system (I started using the 'Center focus point only' option on my Rebel - that helped). I also do canon pre-focus by half-pressing the button while the "focus area" is active on a basketball backboard, say - then moving the camera's field of view down to capture the action and waiting for to press the trigger. until the end when the player making the quick layup has the right to bat. I managed to get some amazing photos of my son or his teammate doing it in the air this way. I also take a lot of shots, so the occasional fuzzy shot (when I dim the focus), bad facial expressions, etc. can be skipped in favor of other really good shots I've gotten.

Pros
  • Excellent overall performance
Cons
  • Functionality