the Sigma 50 to 100 f-18 it's a lens
that promises to give you full-frame
results on an aps-c camera body like
good Nikon d70 200 or D 500 or Canon 70d
or Canon 80 D it's available for both
Canon and Nikon systems and that's kind
of a big deal because people want that
look of a 70 to 200 f28 zoom on a full
frame body but if you get an F to a zoom
and you put it on your aps-c body the
kind of like bouquet and low-light
effects you're going to get are going to
be more like a full-frame camera with an
f/4 lens and it also means if you're
putting that full frame lens on your
crop body that you're carrying around
like you're not using half the glass
you're paying for and not using half the
glass you're getting less sharpness than
you would if you had a full frame body
on there too so Sigma came along and
made a lens that meant you didn't have
to upgrade to a full frame body that you
could get the results you wanted and
it's it's pretty fantastic it is a
professional lens for aps-c cameras it's
a perfect complement to the Sigma 18 to
35 f-18 that we've reviewed previously
and those two go together hand-in-hand
and it's perfect because we needed that
full focal length from an equivalent 24
millimetres to 150 millimetres
full-frame equivalent with a fast f-18
zoom so now you can really you don't
have to upgrade a full frame to get
professional results we've spent a
couple of months with it now and my
experiences have been good and bad so
let's go through it quickly the
sharpness is astounding it's a
world-class compared to the Nikon 18 to
140 and Canon 18 to 135 kit lenses the
Sigma 50 to 100 is noticeably sharper at
the same focal lengths
if you're worried about not having the
extra reach to 135 140 millimeters don't
don't worry if you crop the Sigma to 140
millimeters it's still sharper than
either of the kit lenses uncropped
compared to the Nikon 7200 the Sigma is
noticeably sharper when they're both add
100 millimeters if you zoom to 135
millimeters and crop the Sigma's results
the sharpness is about the same but if
you zoom in all the way to 200
millimeters on your Nikon 7000 200 you
can't crop that deeply with the Sigma
and still match the sharpness for long
distance work at 200 millimeters like
outdoor sports a Canon Tama on a Nikon
7200 is still the better choice you can
extend sharp lenses with a teleconverter
but most zooms aren't sharp enough to
handle them all my hundred-dollar Kenko
300 1.4 x teleconverter brought the
Sigma to 140 millimeters and you can see
that it shows significantly more details
than just cropping this indicates that
the lens could handle a higher megapixel
body like a 36 or even 50 megapixel
aps-c body
let's hope Canon and Nikon give that to
us but there's a real weakness here it's
extremely sharp at sharper than any
other aps-c lens we've ever tested even
it's like up there with primes but no
aps-c body from Canon or Nikon right now
has more than 24 megapixels so I'm
confident you could put a 50 megapixel
aps-c body in on this lens and get
outstanding results but it doesn't exist
yet so the lens is kind of ahead of its
time we need to wait for higher
megapixel bodies to come out to really
take advantage of it but nonetheless you
get the sharpest 24 megapixels you can
possibly get out of it for now there's
no focus breathing if you care about
that kind of thing so get as close as
you want and you can still blow out the
background with fantastic bouquet the
bouquet on this lens is better than any
lens we've ever tested it's like our new
reference the bouquet is nice and
perfectly smooth with basically no harsh
edges and we compare the bouquet to
other competitive lenses it all you
immediately see the flaws in them now I
don't think most people care at all
about okay it's kind of the like lens
snob thing to do to complain about
bouquet or talk about the grape okay if
you care about bouquet you will love
that lens the fit and finish of it when
you get it is
fantastic I love that like satiny finish
but after you use it for a couple of
weeks in the real world it looks like
crap it gets scratched up so fast I
would much rather it just be like the
all-metal finish of that Nikon 7200 or
this even just this plasticky finish of
the Fuji because those don't show marks
like the satiny finish of the Sigma does
that was a huge mistake it looks great
in the box it looks great when it's new
but it immediately shows age and if it's
going to be a pro lens it needs to be
able to handle being banged around a
little bit like those scratches are just
from me taking a trip to Ireland and
walking around with it on my shoulder
because you know you brush against
brushes and stuff then maybe it bangs
against something in your bag and it
will make it look like crap nonetheless
it seems durable so it's not like it
changes the performance it just looks
bad the lens does not have image
stabilization and that is HUGE this is a
real problem I had constant issues with
pictures not turning out and sure the
reciprocal rule right because of the
crop factor you should be shooting at
one one sixtieth or faster according to
the reciprocal rule but the reciprocal
rule is really not a rule because it's
not like suddenly images are going to be
blurry at one 160th and below or sharp
at one one sixtieth and above do you
still have the same amount of movement
if you don't have any sort of image
stabilization it's just that as you
double your shutter speed you cut down
that movement in half so it becomes less
and less visible what I'm getting at is
the sharper lenses the higher the
megapixels the camera are the more
obvious that movement becomes and the
more you have to actually exceed the
reciprocal rule to reliably get sharp
pictures you can also blame Canada and
Nikon for this because Pentax Olympus
Sony Panasonic they all have stabilized
sensors in their lineup and a stabilized
sensor would mean you didn't have to
compromise the image quality of that
lens by sticking image stabilization in
there that's why it's Sigma didn't do it
it's not like they're cheap they just
they know that adding those extra optics
would reduce the image quality and they
didn't want to make any compromises
Ken and I can make bodies that provide
that but they don't
and so talk to canon and nikon about it
Pentax has it in DSLR formats but sigma
didn't make this lens for Pentax
focusing problems a lot of people online
in both the Canon and Nikon worlds are
complaining that the lens doesn't focus
great that it misses focus a lot this
lens has really shallow depth of field
that's the great thing about it you can
totally blur out the background but it
definitely has focus problems at least
on the Nikon d70 200 and D 500 but I
talk to people in the Canon worlds too
and they're missing focus a lot too and
I can't necessarily explain it it's not
something that micro adjustments can fix
because it often nails focus perfectly
but then in other conditions I'll take
ten shots refocusing between the shots
and all of them will be back focused
some of them are just randomly front
focused and it's not something I
experienced with other lenses because I
talked to the Sigma people and they said
try calibrating it but that would only
fix it if the problem were consistently
back focusing or consistently front
focusing it's sporadic it often works
great and then it will often ruin an
entire shoot and so for that reason it's
hard for me to even recommend because
it's just kind of flaky and Sigma
doesn't seem to have an answer for it
like maybe it'll be a firmware update or
something but for right now it's it's
it's iffy and if you're a pro you know
you can't just take a chance that a
whole set of shots are going to be out
of focus and that's kind of the reality
of what I've experienced I'd like to
hear other people's experiences too like
I said I've tried it with multiple
different bodies and I'm having the set
that having that problem sporadically
the Sigma 50 to 100 f1a I can't
wholeheartedly recommend it but it's a
fantastic camera fantastic lens it will
give you pro grade sharpness and
background blur and boquete but there
are some caveats it is a third-party
lens I think they didn't work closely
enough for the camera manufacturers to
get all the focusing problems worked out
if you're careful with it or if you're
using it for landscapes or still-life or
something go for it I hope you
appreciate our honest and unbiased
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and of course check out my book stunning
digital photography as well as my books
on Lightroom and Photoshop thanks
I am really just frustrated with that
lens because I looked forward to it for
the longest time but then as I was
looking back for my pictures just to
gather them for this review I was like
so many of these things are just
out of focus