-Great for budget friendly astrophotography.
-Very little coma on the edges wide open on my D600
-Great sharpness for low-light landscapes and night sky
-Good build and size

Sharpness is not uniform wide open. Sometimes the outer edges of the center appear sharper than the center. I only noticed this shooting in daylight though.

I chose the Sigma EX DG HSM over the Tamron equivalent since it has less coma and chromatic aberration in the edges wide open on full frame. These are important factors to me when shooting the stars and the milky way. Sharpness is great for night sky stuff with this lens. I compared this lens on my D600 to the Tokina 11-16 on a D7000 and the Tokina is a lot better. So if you are a DX shooter, get the Tokina. I actually got this lens to replace the Tokina 11-16 on full frame since the Tokina works fine from 15-16mm with no vignetting, but the edges and corners are a mess unless the lens is way stopped down. Beware that there are two versions of this lens. Make sure to get the EX DG HSM that has a 77mm filter size and not the older 82mm.

-better range than my old 20-35mm
- big and usable 2.8 aperture at 17mm
- good contrast and colours in normal lighting conditions
- good center sharpness at all apertures
- virtually non-existent distortion
- build
- very quiet HSM motor
- nice lens for (advanced) amateurs and architecture photographers

- contrast loss in counterlight
- needs to be stopped down a lot when out of center sharpness matters
- sometimes shows some front focus, but not too problematic
- not for pro's mostly due to the problematic counterlight problem

Bought the Sigma (new DG version) after a disappointing quick lens test of the two Canon professional lenses 16-35L and 17-40L in the shop.
Both lenses were not very sharp and not very contrasty at full lens opening. I am an available light people photographer so I would use F2.8 and F4 a lot.
The Sigma 17-35 2.8-4 EX DG however did have a nice sharpness ,contrast and vivid colours (in the low light of the shop)
I have mixed feelings about this lens. Real sharpness at big lens openings can only be found in the center. You would need to stop down
to at least F8 to get some sharpness at the (far) edges (I use a full frame Canon , EOS 5D). But then again I expect the Canon L lenses to show this also ( I have not tested them at smaller
apertures I must say, but have seen full rez sample-photo's from Canon ).
Also this lens has some problems with counterlight. In some situations, it looses a lot of contrast.
Other more positive aspects of this lens are its (still very usable) big 2.8 aperture at 17mm, very very low distortion , it is superbly build and HSM AF-motor .

Similar Products Used:

Tokina 20-35 F3.5-4.5 (excellent cheap lens for full frame digital (and 35mm) use !
Sigma 24mm 1.8 EX DG (usable @ full aperture !)

Color saturation of image are absolutely perfect. The weight and universal ring is perfectly done.

A bit distort at dim light in f2.8-f3.5

I bought this lens in Singapore at first just to use it as backup. Then i fold in love with it. Absolutely awesome in f4 and above. Very sharp at 17mm or at 35mm in f4, ISO100. A bit distortion at f2.8 - f3.5 (Anyway solve in photoshop would do). I always used this lens with my 10D and mostly use with studio light. Sharpness and color saturation of image captured are gorgeous... Must buy must buy if your budget are low to get the 16mm-35mm 2.8L USM... Worth buying it. The weight are just nice if you are 70kg in weight... Haahaa... Absolutely awesome this lens. My next target of Sigma lens is the 300mm f2.8

Customer Service

I've used it for nearly a year but there's no problem yet... Touch wood...

Similar Products Used:

Canon 100mm f2.8 micro, canon 24mm-70mm f2.8 L usm, 100mm-400mm f4.5-5.6 L IS usm, 70mm-200mm f2.8 L usm etc.

sharp really good pictures extra low distortion very good at 2.8 build quality is PRO fast HSM

can't remember one

Before buying this lens i compared it to nikkor 18-35, sigma 15-30 and nikkor 18-70 lens. The Sigma 17-35 was the sharpest lens that at the same time had the lowest distortion among the tested lens. The corners are sharp. Also its construction is very good, seems to be the one for pros. It is pretty heavy which is not the negative feature. focus and zoom rings are smooth. If you can not afford the nikkor 17-35 2.8 then this is the lens you have to buy!

Similar Products Used:

nikkor 18-35 sigma 15-30

Solid Quiet Sharp Low distortion

Flare and ghosting, but better than expected. AF slower than expected.

A sturdy and solid lens. Quiet AF, not as fast as expexted, but aqurate. Sharp optics, flare and ghosting controlled better than expected, but visible. Minimal distortion.

Customer Service

Not needed, yet.

Similar Products Used:

None

Solid build, Full time auto focus, Quiet and fast HSM. Wide

Auto focus not as accurae as I would like. Only zooms to 35mm

The build is great. The HSM is quiet and the auto focus is fast. I tried it on my EOS 20D. Most images came out well but the auto focus was not that accurate. I found that many images were just not sharp. Thanks to B&H photo for their generous return policy. I returned it and got the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 EX DC and was glad I did. The 18-50mm f/2.8 gives superb images.

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 EX DC (Better Images)

very solid construction very fine picture quality very low distortions fast enough (2.8-4) a joy to use

some rare problems while shooting into direct light sources

This SIGMA lens is simply great: The quality is very solid (more solid than the Nikon 17-35mm lenses with their new cheap plastic look), it is very good to handle and offers sharp and brillant picture quality, if you stop down (5.6-14). The silent wave motor works fast and exactly on a F5. And the best: The over 1000 Euro more costing Nikkor has not so straight lines, the very low distortions of this SIGMA are outstanding. So buy the Nikkors only, if you are shooting full open most times...!

Similar Products Used:

Nikon 20-35mm 2.8 Nikon 17-35mm 2.8 Sigma 20-40mm 2.8

Range ideal for digital SLR's Build Quality excellent

Images not razor sharp (but certainly acceptable)

I bought this lens as I needed a wide angle zoom to use on a Canon 10D (with a 1.6 crop factor). The 17-35mm certainly fits the bill in terms of its range and build quality is excellent (not far short of my Canon L series glass) - however in terms of image quality its a little soft for my liking. Having said that I don't know of another 17-35mm zoom for this price with better optics.

Customer Service

Not needed