Customer Reviews:
 Great 28-300mm zoom lens for under $200 April 21, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I tested out my lens by taking non-flash photography at a table tennis event. The pictures turned out very well. Only a few shots were blurred but that may have been due to camera shake (I didn't even use a tripod).
Good lens March 19, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Lens is sturdy (made in Japan).
A good lens for those who like to use manual mode on their cameras. I have taken some pictures in auto mode with somewhat poor results but when switching to manual and setting the AV correctly I don't have problems.
Photos can be a little blurry at full zoom, but I suspect most lenses have this problem.
 Great Product for the Price February 26, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I purchased this lens to go with my Canon Rebel Xti Digital SLR camera for a long trip in fall of 2007. I was looking for something with a little more zoom than the standard lens for wildlife and scenery shots. This lens really does the job for the price, but of course not as great as the higher priced larger lenses.
I used it for every photo on my trip and they turned out amazing. A couple little problems, if the lens is extended to it's fullest the image can get a little fuzzy seeming out of focus. Also there isn't a stablizer and if it's too dark outside, it tends to trigger the flash earlier than it would with the standard lens that normally comes with the camera. But you can work around that. Instead of setting at it's fullest length at the 1:3 setting, I only extend it to 1:3.3 which is just a tad less than the fullest and the images are still crisp at this length.
The zoom is nice. The lens does tend to extend or shrink on it's own if you are looking down or up while taking a photo, but there is a lock on the lens to prevent this. Just remember that when attaching it to your camera or adding a filter to the lens, be sure that it's in manual mode so that you're not forcing the auto focal part of the lens, this can break it. Once it's in place you can put it back to auto focus.
It came with a hood for free which was nice. You just can't use it when you're really close to the subject sometimes. It casts a shadow when using the flash, well at least with my camera sometimes. Overall this product is really great for the price.
Excellent value and versatility January 2, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I purchased this lens as a "tourist lens" to give me a little more reach than my Canon 28-200 zoom. I have taken over 3,000 pictures with it, and I am very satisfied. Picture quality is as good as the Canon lens, it is slightly smaller than the Canon lens, and it is less expensive. "Zoom creep" is an annoyance, as is fumbling with the zoom lock switch which will lock the lens only in the 28 mm position. Still, the lens is very versatile, allowing me to go from pretty wide to very zoomed on my Canon EOS 5D full frame camera. This is an excellent lens when you know you'll be taking lots of pictures from varying vantage points with little time for changing lenses.
 Not realy something you can call great lense December 30, 2007
7 out of 13 found this review helpful
I am amateur photographer with just a passion for god clean nice nature photography. I kind of decided to spend few dollars and purchase this lens because that was the best lens for the price. Reviews were mixed up, but... Unfortunately there is almost nothing in between this one and Canon 28-300. After several days of playing I decided to go and really test lens in two different conditions. First condition was night shooting. From distance I tried to get gloving skyline of San Diego downtown. And results are way too disappointed. Pictures with full 300mm are very blurry and not clean at all, just when you go bit inside on 280 and below images may be relatively OK. Night shouting from moving car was absolutely impossible, under any conditions and any settings, except if you like to get something that looks like early days Picasso. This lens is incredibly SLOW. I went around of my neighborhood and pictured some houses with Christmas lights on, and it did not work out. Imagine line of lights ... light then space then again light then again space and so on, right? Well this lens did not see it that way. It looks on the picture as a single neon light with out spaces in between lights. Obviously night photography with my Canon EOS30, very stable tripod and Sigma 28-300 did not work out. Of lets say 150 pictures taken, I will keep only 3, other ones I can surely rate way below ZERO. Day test was little different. Skyline of the San Diego was OK on about 250mm and tripod. I went close to the airport to catch landing planes. It did work out but you can see that something is missing, (color, deepness, sharpness...just something was not right) all pictures are bit darker than I expected. Let me give you example; It was perfectly cool sunny San Diego day, sun was hitting my back and planes were in front of me about 150 to 250 yards. All planes were perfectly visible to the naked eye, but not to the Sigma lens, pictures were blurry and if plane was smaller it will just catch silhouette on the sky nothing was really recognizable. Then I switch to Canon lens ...worked just fine. After that I vent in to the park under the tree shades, images are just way to dark to be acceptable. The only way that this lens will work god is on the very stable tripod set on about 250mm and very very sunny day or room with extremely lot of light.
And just another remark; If you picturing anything below you, gravity will pull lens and open it all the way, same thing if you lets say picturing landing planes and your lens is pointed in to the sky, lens will scroll in, so you have constantly to hold it with your hand.
Yes there is a lock button but it does work only if lens is all the way in, or all the way extended.
I think many people who rated this lens are amateurs just like me and they are afraid that someone will judge them on they language and basic photo knowledge, so they will complain about how lens is so noisy and so on, which is really not true, this lens is really badly engineered and manufactured, and simply when you are taking picture with this lens, you will get that filling like it is very difficult to take decent picture and just accidentally you may get great one.
Final thoughts; for the money and if you don't do serious photography you may be happy, other than that this lens is extremely low quality lens.
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