Sigma 18-125mm f/3.5-5.6 DC for Canon EOS

Pro: Price, 7x zoom, build quality, sharp image, rear focus, great walk-around lens for hiking and backpacking. comes with a free hood.

Con: difficult to AF at low light, low contrast condition. very noticeable vignetting at 18mm wide open, AF is a bit slow. noticeable distortion @ 18mm.

Review: I wanted to purchase a lens that will replace the Rebel XT kit. After doing the research, I came up with 3 candidates:

EF 17-40L
EF-s 17-85
Sigma 18-125mm

I finally went with the Sigma for the price and range, after doing the more research on fredmiranda and on Photozone.de. I bought the lens used/in mint condition from eBay and I paid 220 shipped.

This is a great walk-around lens for my application. I do a lot of hiking and I needed something that will cover a good range so I dont have to bring too many lens. As an amateaur, the image quality is great and the image is pretty sharp at wide open. My lens does not have the AF problem like others have mentioned here but it did miss couple times at 18mm and 125mm. Vignetting is noticeable at 18mm wide open but they can be easily fixed on photoshop.

The build quality is good and the lens weights a bit heavier than the kit. It does not feel like a piece of plastic in my hand. The zoom and focus rings are big and easy to turn, but they are a bit loose. Anyways, nothing really to complain at this price.


Conclusion: Many people have reported the AF problem. I will definitly try this lens in a store first. If you want to buy in on eBay, I would suggest to confirm with the seller and ask the seller for some sample image taken with AF. This is a great lens and worth every penny for me.

thx for reading