The build of the lens is very good and the rubber grips feel good to hand. I'm happy to use the lens on my A77, but on a lighter camera, the combination would be nose-heavy. The color rendition is pleasant and the sharpness of the lens is remarkable at any aperture. I was worried if the focal length was enough for my purposes. Heavy (but also rests easy on hand for steady shots) I'll get the dock and see if the focus issues can be fixed. With F/1.8 the narrow DoF makes focusing quite important, so focus inaccuracy is the biggest drawback about this lens, optically and build wise is on pair with the very best in the industry. Micro adjustment in camera fixed it for medium and long range focus, however for close up focus it's still front focusing – also it hunts or even say focus is ok even though it’s not. The autofocus however is inconsistent and front focused (quite a lot) on my copy. The HSM is every bit as fast and quite as the Tamron piezo and USD, and Sony’s SSM. Some reviews here say the autofocus is slow, well not on my copy. The autofocus is however sub-par and worse than even my other Sigma lens the 18-200mm. However, for indoor close range and non-flash shooting, it's the very best lens I know of for APS-C - beating even the FF primes. The low zoom and wide angel range, makes my Sony 16-50mm F2.8 a better street lens. It a exceptional fast lens, with a T-stop to match even the very bests of F1.8's. The lends is sharp so IQ is nothing less than great, the price is quite good and it's the only true F2.8 on APS-C I know of (with crop factor it's 27-52mm F2.7).

Focus is still a bit inaccurate and somewhat inconsistent on my copy, even after micro adjustment.Ī USB dock may be needed to fine tune it, in order to make it good - so focus is NOT ok. Very sharp, even wide open - have very good T-stop valueįast and quiet focus - when it works, see nagativeĭid back focus quite a lot so I needed to make micro adjustment in camera to make it usable.

Sigma 18 35 sony