I tried this lens. Fantastic optics. Miserable AF. So, useless in real life (I mean, when shooting something else than resolution charts as 99% of internet reviews do — not yours, kudos for that). It’s not that AF is inconsistent, as many people put it here. No no, in my tests, it is very consistent. It very consistently front-focuses each time I use lateral AF points on my D7500. And by a large margin, you don’t need to pixel-peep to notice that that lady’s face is out of focus, but her cuffs are very sharp. If you always shoot centered, or if you recompose each time, fine. But centered shots are often awful, and why have 51 AF points if you still have to trade focus with timing? For me, it quickly went back to the store. [Obviously this lens is fine if you like to shoot in Live View with contrast detection or manual focus. I don’t.]
Thanks , after buying a D7500 recently I was looking to buy this lens but all the reports of AF problems with this and other 3rd party lenses on Nikon and Canon decided to stick with native lenses .
Sony Mandap
February 25, 2019 5:12 am
Are we going to see a review on 50-100mm f/1.8, too? :)
Martina Mizzi
February 21, 2018 7:57 am
Thanks for this review , you have been most helpful! I am looking for a lens which i can use for landscapes as well as portraits, and i am considering 18-35mm for this purpose especially since i have a crop sensor lens. However i would like to buy a lens which i can use on full frame so if i decide to buy a full frame in the future i can use it. Any suggestions for a similar lens? And would u recommend this lens for landacape/portraits? I will use it for travel photography mainly. Thanks!
This lens is not the basic portrait type lens but I use it for portraits that tell a story. Like environmental portraits and it’s great for landscape and nature photography. This is a legendary lens . Even legendary for its inconsistent autofocus. But on the right body it’s a beast .
Marloes
January 17, 2018 10:21 am
Hello Nasim,
Thanks for your review! I’m experiencing some unreliable AF, but definetely not all the time. I use it with a Canon 80D. You said something about firmware updates. Do you know if this is available, and if it improves the AF quality?
Thanks a lot in advance, Marloes
Lance
August 5, 2017 5:48 am
Hello, Another really great thorough review. I am really interested in this lens for my Nikon D500 but the auto focus issue identified here and on the reviews page at B&H is making me second guess that decision. Does anyone know given that this is 2017 that they have identified and fixed that issue? Can anyone who has Nikon d 500 let me know does auto focus work on all of the various focus points? If the work around is to use only single point autofocus that is too much of a compromise for me, at this price. Cheers, Lance
Based on Jorgen’s comment in Aug 2016 sharing his experience with this lens on a Canon 7D Mark ii I believe we shouldn’t experience AF issues on Nikon D500 either since it has better AF capabilities compared to Canon 7D (Just my opinion, I maybe wrong).
But yes, whoever has practical hands on experience with this combination can confirm. I’m looking forward to the same as well.
Well I can confirm AF doesn’t work on lateral focus points with a D7500. Observed on a 2019 brand new sample.
Marie-Pascale Vandewalle
March 31, 2017 8:30 am
Hello,after this great review, I am also considering to buy this lens. Is this a good lens to combine with a Canon 1DX that I bought in 2014 ? In combination with my 1DX, will the range stay at 18-35mm or also go to 27-52 as mentioned in the beginning of the review ? ( I didn’t understand that sentence very much ;-)
I understood this lens is shape enough to shoot sports ? How about portraits ? Is this lens comparable with the 35mm Sigma Art lens ? ( which seems to be great also ! )
Many thanks for advising me…
Marie-Pascale
Jo
August 30, 2016 5:55 am
I think this lens is best used in front of a DX body released after 2013, maybe being Canon the better choice because of Dual Pixel AF. I expect bets results in front of a mirrorless system or in LiveView of a normal DSLR. Due to the wide open aperture, the AF needs to be very precise and the elder AF-modules handle thsi demand less good.
Jorgen K
August 30, 2016 5:27 am
Hi!
The only reason I’m writing a comment over 2½ years after the article was written is to tell you about my experience with the autofocus problems. This might help other people stumbling across this review to make their decision whether to buy this lens or not.
I shoot LOTS of sports photography and thought that this lens would give me a few stops more of light for indoor shooting, as well as giving me the close range that I was missing. When I bought this lens, I owned the Canon 7D. Shooting a full weekend of kickboxing and free fighting ringside (even inside the ropes pretty close to the fighters), I quickly realized that the autofocus was utter rubbish. So I had to skip this lens as a sports lens, but for things that don’t move around this lens gives FANTASTIC results!
Skip forward a few years, I go buy the Canon 7D Mk II, which is known to have superb autofocus. I give the Sigma 18-35 f/1.8 another chance at sports – and voilà! – I’m constantly getting perfect, beautiful, sharp shots with narrow DoF! =D
My reasoning is this:
– Canon 7D => released in September 2009 – Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 => released in April 2013 – Canon 7D Mark II => released in September 2014
So the NEWER lens was capable of more than the OLD camera could handle, but when a NEW camera came out, it had finally caught up with the awesomeness of the lens! =D
Nowadays the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM Art comes with me to my sports shoots and works nicely whenever I get close enough to the subject to use it.
Hi Martina MIZZI! I have tried it on my D5300, on my back-up D5100, on my D300s and my D700. To my surprise – in spite of this lens being a DX-lens – it actually DOES fill the whole full frame sensor of my D700, from focal length 28mm up to 35mm – WITHOUT vignetting! In shorter focal length of 28mm down to 18mm vignetting increases ever so much. But, hey! This is still a good bargain.
So- yes, you can try it on a FF-camera, but only from about 28mm and upwards to 35mm – without too much vignetting: Good Luck to you! Best regards, Walter
Eric Jacobs
April 22, 2016 10:05 am
Nasim,
Are you aware if the AF issues you experienced with the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 and the Nikon D5300/D800e were resolved? I own a Nikon D5300 and also a Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 and have experienced the exact same issues you mentioned in your review. Specifically, random shots that focused on the background rather than the subject, but even worse I have experienced the lens simply refusing to focus at all! I found this very disconcerting, and was beginning to think I just got a bad copy, but when I heard you experienced the exact same issues I knew this was a bigger problem than just a bad lens. As you mentioned, this seems to be an issue with Nikon and Sigma not ‘playing well together’. Whatever it is, it is very disappointing and makes me wonder if buying ANY sigma lens for my Nikon camera is a good investment. I would appreciate any updated information you might have regarding this issue.
Eric
Patrick
October 24, 2014 4:09 am
What lens would you choose? The Nikkor 35mm 1.8 DX or the Simga 30mm Art? The Zoom is to heavy for me. So I’m looking for a nice walk around lens with sharp image quality wide open! Thanks!
I tried this lens. Fantastic optics. Miserable AF. So, useless in real life (I mean, when shooting something else than resolution charts as 99% of internet reviews do — not yours, kudos for that).
It’s not that AF is inconsistent, as many people put it here. No no, in my tests, it is very consistent. It very consistently front-focuses each time I use lateral AF points on my D7500. And by a large margin, you don’t need to pixel-peep to notice that that lady’s face is out of focus, but her cuffs are very sharp. If you always shoot centered, or if you recompose each time, fine. But centered shots are often awful, and why have 51 AF points if you still have to trade focus with timing?
For me, it quickly went back to the store.
[Obviously this lens is fine if you like to shoot in Live View with contrast detection or manual focus. I don’t.]
Thanks , after buying a D7500 recently I was looking to buy this lens but all the reports of AF problems with this and other 3rd party lenses on Nikon and Canon decided to stick with native lenses .
Are we going to see a review on 50-100mm f/1.8, too? :)
Thanks for this review , you have been most helpful! I am looking for a lens which i can use for landscapes as well as portraits, and i am considering 18-35mm for this purpose especially since i have a crop sensor lens. However i would like to buy a lens which i can use on full frame so if i decide to buy a full frame in the future i can use it. Any suggestions for a similar lens? And would u recommend this lens for landacape/portraits? I will use it for travel photography mainly. Thanks!
This lens is not the basic portrait type lens but I use it for portraits that tell a story. Like environmental portraits and it’s great for landscape and nature photography. This is a legendary lens . Even legendary for its inconsistent autofocus. But on the right body it’s a beast .
Hello Nasim,
Thanks for your review! I’m experiencing some unreliable AF, but definetely not all the time. I use it with a Canon 80D.
You said something about firmware updates. Do you know if this is available, and if it improves the AF quality?
Thanks a lot in advance,
Marloes
Hello,
Another really great thorough review. I am really interested in this lens for my Nikon D500 but the auto focus issue identified here and on the reviews page at B&H is making me second guess that decision. Does anyone know given that this is 2017 that they have identified and fixed that issue?
Can anyone who has Nikon d 500 let me know does auto focus work on all of the various focus points? If the work around is to use only single point autofocus that is too much of a compromise for me, at this price.
Cheers,
Lance
Based on Jorgen’s comment in Aug 2016 sharing his experience with this lens on a Canon 7D Mark ii I believe we shouldn’t experience AF issues on Nikon D500 either since it has better AF capabilities compared to Canon 7D (Just my opinion, I maybe wrong).
But yes, whoever has practical hands on experience with this combination can confirm. I’m looking forward to the same as well.
Cheers
Peter
Well I can confirm AF doesn’t work on lateral focus points with a D7500. Observed on a 2019 brand new sample.
Hello,after this great review, I am also considering to buy this lens. Is this a good lens to combine with a Canon 1DX that I bought in 2014 ? In combination with my 1DX, will the range stay at 18-35mm or also go to 27-52 as mentioned in the beginning of the review ? ( I didn’t understand that sentence very much ;-)
I understood this lens is shape enough to shoot sports ?
How about portraits ? Is this lens comparable with the 35mm Sigma Art lens ? ( which seems to be great also ! )
Many thanks for advising me…
Marie-Pascale
I think this lens is best used in front of a DX body released after 2013, maybe being Canon the better choice because of Dual Pixel AF. I expect bets results in front of a mirrorless system or in LiveView of a normal DSLR. Due to the wide open aperture, the AF needs to be very precise and the elder AF-modules handle thsi demand less good.
Hi!
The only reason I’m writing a comment over 2½ years after the article was written is to tell you about my experience with the autofocus problems.
This might help other people stumbling across this review to make their decision whether to buy this lens or not.
I shoot LOTS of sports photography and thought that this lens would give me a few stops more of light for indoor shooting, as well as giving me the close range that I was missing.
When I bought this lens, I owned the Canon 7D.
Shooting a full weekend of kickboxing and free fighting ringside (even inside the ropes pretty close to the fighters), I quickly realized that the autofocus was utter rubbish. So I had to skip this lens as a sports lens, but for things that don’t move around this lens gives FANTASTIC results!
Skip forward a few years, I go buy the Canon 7D Mk II, which is known to have superb autofocus.
I give the Sigma 18-35 f/1.8 another chance at sports – and voilà! – I’m constantly getting perfect, beautiful, sharp shots with narrow DoF!
=D
My reasoning is this:
– Canon 7D => released in September 2009
– Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 => released in April 2013
– Canon 7D Mark II => released in September 2014
So the NEWER lens was capable of more than the OLD camera could handle, but when a NEW camera came out, it had finally caught up with the awesomeness of the lens!
=D
Nowadays the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM Art comes with me to my sports shoots and works nicely whenever I get close enough to the subject to use it.
Hi! How do u manage to use this lens with a full frame?
Hi Martina MIZZI!
I have tried it on my D5300, on my back-up D5100, on my D300s and my D700. To my surprise – in spite of this lens being a DX-lens – it actually DOES fill the whole full frame sensor of my D700, from focal length 28mm up to 35mm – WITHOUT vignetting! In shorter focal length of 28mm down to 18mm vignetting increases ever so much. But, hey! This is still a good bargain.
So- yes, you can try it on a FF-camera, but only from about 28mm and upwards to 35mm – without too much vignetting:
Good Luck to you!
Best regards,
Walter
Nasim,
Are you aware if the AF issues you experienced with the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 and the Nikon D5300/D800e were resolved? I own a Nikon D5300 and also a Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 and have experienced the exact same issues you mentioned in your review. Specifically, random shots that focused on the background rather than the subject, but even worse I have experienced the lens simply refusing to focus at all! I found this very disconcerting, and was beginning to think I just got a bad copy, but when I heard you experienced the exact same issues I knew this was a bigger problem than just a bad lens. As you mentioned, this seems to be an issue with Nikon and Sigma not ‘playing well together’. Whatever it is, it is very disappointing and makes me wonder if buying ANY sigma lens for my Nikon camera is a good investment. I would appreciate any updated information you might have regarding this issue.
Eric
What lens would you choose? The Nikkor 35mm 1.8 DX or the Simga 30mm Art? The Zoom is to heavy for me. So I’m looking for a nice walk around lens with sharp image quality wide open! Thanks!