With Digital SLR's becomming more and more popular and affordable, many more SLR lenses are being sold and supplied with dSLR kits. If you bought a Nikon D70 or a Canon Digital Rebel, most likely, you bought it in the kit form, which came with a lens. If you were already a 35mm SLR owner, then you most likely had some lenses already lying around your house.

This is the place where you can post your reviews about these lenses. Because of the many ways a lens can be reviewed, we ask your review to meet this criteria:

If you want to add a sample picture to elaborate on your review, please do! However, you must upload it to »/dev/null with a maximum width of 640 pixels, and then link to it from your review. Everybody should know this but it needs to be stated anyway: pictures that are offensive or depict anything vulgar are not allowed and will be removed, quite possibly along with your entire review.

Please post the current going price of the lens in your review. If you don't know what that is, you can check at »bhphotovideo.com or at »keh.com Then, post what you paid for the lens, and when (you don't have to be exact).

The title of your post must be formatted as follows:
Brand, Lens Mount type, focal length/range/speed.

Example:
Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L

That is all!

The Canon EF 50mm (80mm 1.6x crop factor) f/1.4 USM is a Canon prime lens. I paid ~$300 for this lens at B&H in February 2004, which is a lot more expensive than its baby brother, the EF 50mm 1.8 non-USM, but I wanted something with a better build. I chose this lens primarily for shooting portraits and use it for indoor available light, and some landscape. The lens is a little soft at 1.4, but I dont normally shoot at that setting. Beyond that its very sharp and produces exquisite bokeh. It produces great colors and contrast and almost L quality images, particularly stopped down to f/2.8 and beyond. The more I use it, the more Ive come to appreciate the capabilities of this lens. The auto focus is not super fast and the USM (micro-USM) is noisier than my two L lenses, but you cant have everything, can you? The front element extends in and out when focusing (can you say dust?), but does not rotate and is recessed into the body more than my other two lenses (less chance of scratching when not using a filter or lens hood). The lens has a small clunk when handling which drives me crazy, but its my understanding that this is a non-defective characteristic of the lens. It takes 55mm filters. Overall, I am very happy with this lens.

Strengths:

Great optical performance
Good build quality
Excellent low light performance
Outstanding bokeh (8 diaphragm blades)
Compact and light

Weaknesses:

Nothing significant

This small prime lens is Canon's economy answer to the 50mm f/1.4 USM. When I say economy, I certainly don't mean quality-wise.

For about $75 you can pick up this wonderful lens from B&H or from many other camera vendors. It is considered an absolute necessity for the photographer's bag, because of it's very low price and incredible performance.

The Depth of Field (DOF) at f/1.8 is very, very narrow when shooting at the close focus distance, but can be very pleasing for things at a longer distance (3m+) where light is scarce. Stopped down by a few stops, the lens performs excellently. The image is sharp throughout most of the image.

The AF may not be as accurate/fast as on this lens as on the f/1.4 version because of the lack of USM for the focus motor. Because the great amount of light (f/1.8) that is being let in at any given time during AF operation, the AF is still pretty fast.

Pros:
•Very inexpensive
•Compact
•Extremely sharp when stopped down a bit

Cons:
•AF is not constantly overridable because of DC focus motor

Bottom line: Own this lens. If you're more of an enthusiast/professional who needs the USM and extra light, spring for the f/1.4 version.

The Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM is one of the Canon L series lenses, although it is one of the more affordable L lenses with professional grade optics by the use of three aspherical lens elements, in addition to a Super UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) glass element. It is often compared to the EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM, but at half the price, although one less F stop. I paid $700 for this lens with lens hood and pouch at B&H in February 2004. It is labeled by Canon as an ultra-wide zoom lens, but when used with a Canon EOS 10D, it effectively becomes 27-64mm because of the 1.6x crop factor, which really puts it in the standard zoom category for this particular camera. Even so, I find this lens to be perfect for landscape, architecture, and other situations requiring a wider angle of view. It is well constructed, light (1.1 lbs.), and has moisture and dust seals. In addition, it has a rubber O-ring on the lens mount. Canon recommends a filter to make it truly dust resistant since the front element does move when zooming. One drawback is the expensive 77mm filter size it takes. It does have the ability to use gel filters in the slot on the rear of lens. The lens can focus as close as 11 inches and comes with Canon's full-time manual focus and ring-type USM for fast and silent auto-focus. The 17-40mm is very sharp and has great contrast wide open and across the zoom range, although it has been reported that there is some distortion wide open, but I havent noticed it coupled with the 10D. One other minor noticeable fault is when using this lens with the lens hood installed, the hood will create shadows when using the pop-up flash on the Canon EOS 10D, but is not a problem when using an external flash. Overall, this lens is fun to use, it is fast and sharp, and it is truly an incredible lens for the price. I highly recommend it.

Strengths:

Professional L-Series lens
Low relative cost
Sharpness and contrast
Fast and silent focusing
Weather and dust resistance
Light and well constructed

Weaknesses:

Awkward lens hood
Large and expensive filters
Some distortion

Before I bought a telephoto lens, I decided to do my careful research as to which one turned out the best quality images (for the amount paid). I was ready to spend a few bucks on it, and if you are in the market for the 70-200mm f/4L, you too should brace yourself to spend nearly $600.

The first nice thing about this lens is that it comes with a very effective hood. The hood helps when shooting into the sun. The lens is already good enough as it is at blocking out unwanted flare, but the hood helps that much more.

Did I mention that this is an "L" lens? This means that it is part of Canon's professional line of lenses. It is built to the highest standards. All of the L lenses are on just about the same level. It all comes down to this: you get what you pay for.

Throughout the zoom range, the 70-200mm's widest aperture is f/4. This means that the amount of light let in doesn't diminish as you zoom in. In addition, the lens doesn't extend when zooming or focusing. All of the mechanics are internal, which also means that the front doesn't spin when focusing. This is mainly thanks to the Ultrasonic Motor that the 70-200mm f/4L uses for focusing. Extremely quiet and fast focusing is what you get as a result.

There is a handy focus limiter on the lens for when you are doing sports or need quick focusing for objects that are greater than 3 meters away. As already implied, the focus limiter makes for faster AF operation because the camera won't need to hunt within the (fairly large) zoom range of 1.5-3m.

The close focus range of the 70-200mm f/4L is 1.3m, roughly 4 feet. When shooting smaller objects with the aperture wide open, the bokeh (out of focus rendering) is spectacular, as can be seen in the image below.



As you can see, the images are also incredibly sharp when shooting wide open, which cannot be said about almost any of the non-"L" lenses.

The bokeh is also very nice when doing sporting events wide open. In general, the lens is tack sharp wide or tele, stopped down or wide open. The focus is nailed every time given that your camera has a swift and accurate AF. I certainly know that my 300D is not driving this lens' focus as fast as it can go. On a 20D or 1D, it would be much faster than it is now (and I'm not calling it slow either!).

It takes a 67mm filter, which isn't all that common on canon lenses, but the commonality only matters when selling the filter. If you're like me, I don't plan on selling this lens or the filter anytime soon.

Like any other "L" lens, the 70-200mm f/4L keeps its value very well. Used, you can't find one for more than $10-$25 less than retail price. That said, don't buy one used! Buying one new allows you the piece of mind of having a new product and a new warranty.

Bottom line: The 70-200mm f/4L is an incredible lens for the price. Although it may cost more than the various flavors of 75-300's, in my opinion, it is simply superior in every regard. The lens isn't very heavy either - which is an advantage over the $1200 f/2.8 version and the $1700 f/2.8 version with image stabilizer. Both of them are very heavy in comparison.

If you have any more questions, PM them to me and I'll gladly answer them to you and add the answer to this FAQ!

I bought the Digital Rebel with the lens kit 18-55mm. So I was in need of a telephoto lens. I have owned a few Canon lens from my film SLR Rebel a few years ago, but sold them. So I decide to go with Sigma which has some good ratings better than the Canon lens around the same price. I had the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM-$170.00 before and the Sigma 70-300mm F4-5.6 APO-$204.00 has better reviews and ratings. Plus the Macro with the Sigma is a nice feature. There are 3 different version of the Sigma 70-300 the DL and the older APO which doesn't have the red line around the end.

When I first opened it up it came with a hood and a nice carrying case with a belt loop. I will not use it instead just put the lens in my camera bag. The case is huge, big enough for most P&S cameras. The hood might cause interference with the built in flash on the Rebel due to it's size. The lens is 20.6oz and 8.2" long when fully extended and add another 2 inches with the hood installed.

Here is the Specs:
Construction 10 Groups /14 Elements
Angle of view 34.3°-8.2°
F stop range 22-32
Closest Focusing Distance 150 macro (95)cm/59.1 macro (37.4)"
Maximum Magnification 1:4 macro (1:2)
Filter Size 58mm
Dimensions (Length x Diameter) 74.5 x 119.5mm / 2.9 x 4.7"
Full Extended Length 208.3mm / 8.2"
Weight 585g / 20.6oz.

I was use to the 18-55mm kit lens and when I snapped this lens to the body you had some weight to contend with. But don't let that keep you from this lens. I have only taken around 25 shot so far and for the price this lens can't be beat. Being F4-5.6 it's not the fastest and has a little trouble with auto focus in very dark situations. But that's not a problem for me. I have not used it on an overcast day yet, but today being bright and sunny the auto focus worked great. The DOF was nice coming from a F4-5.6 much better than expected from me. It takes a little getting use to the normal/macro switch, you have to make sure the lens is fully extended for it to switch easily.

The zoom is nice and tight with no slack or zoom creep, that being expected from a new lens. There is no zoom lock feature. I added a 58mm Tiffen UV filter for protection. The hood comes off and goes on easily with or without the filter, the only drawback is with the hood installed the lens cap is hard to get on and off. With the lack of HSM or USM as Canon calls it, was still a fairly quiet lens and AF speed was moderate. The lens shell is a hard plastic with a nice semi soft rubber zoom and AF grip rings. It seem to be built rugged and fairly smooth mechanically.

On my scale of 1-5, 5 being the best I would rate this at 4.5 with the price being an added factor. It is worth $300.00 in my book.

SIGMA 24-70 EX:

BUILD QUALITY: The Build quality is the first thing noticed when taking this baby out of the box. Lets face it, it is built tough! The finish is beautiful. The Lens hood included in the camera is 10x stronger than any I've seen from Canon. The one thing you may notice new out of the box is the zoom is a little tight, meaning its kind of hard to zoom in and out, but after a few uses it loosens up.

LAYOUT: Here is where things get different. The zoom is opposite of CANONS, meaning you turn the zoom ring Clock Wise to ZOOM in whereas CANONS turn Counter Clock Wise to ZOom. Thats no big deal and you get used to it really fast. Another thing was the placement of the ZOOM RING, its really close to the camera body and is smaller than the Manual FOCUS RING. What I'm trying to say here is that you tend to turn the MF ring instead of the ZOOM RING.

IMAGES: The images are a tad soft at f/2.8. But your going to find that most lenses tend to be soft wide open either way. Even the CANON 24-70 'L' is soft at its f/2.8. Real this lens really starts to shine is at F/4 - f/11. The images are really sharp in that range, dont get me wrong f/2.8 is very good as well. I was very impressed with this lens when I used it this past weekend at a 4th of JULY parade.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

The Canon EF 50mm (80mm 1.6x crop factor) f/1.4 USM is a Canon prime lens. I paid ~$300 for this lens at B&H in February 2004, which is a lot more expensive than its baby brother, the EF 50mm 1.8 non-USM, but I wanted something with a better build. I chose this lens primarily for shooting portraits and use it for indoor available light, and some landscape. The lens is a little soft at 1.4, but I dont normally shoot at that setting. Beyond that its very sharp and produces exquisite bokeh. It produces great colors and contrast and almost L quality images, particularly stopped down to f/2.8 and beyond. The more I use it, the more Ive come to appreciate the capabilities of this lens. The auto focus is not super fast and the USM (micro-USM) is noisier than my two L lenses, but you cant have everything, can you? The front element extends in and out when focusing (can you say dust?), but does not rotate and is recessed into the body more than my other two lenses (less chance of scratching when not using a filter or lens hood). The lens has a small clunk when handling which drives me crazy, but its my understanding that this is a non-defective characteristic of the lens. It takes 55mm filters. Overall, I am very happy with this lens.

Strengths:

Great optical performance
Good build quality
Excellent low light performance
Outstanding bokeh (8 diaphragm blades)
Compact and light

Weaknesses:

Nothing significant

This is a basic review of the Sigma 18-200mm f 3.5/6.3 DC (IF) lens (Pentax mount)

Lens basics: 18-200mm (11.1x zoom range)
Note: This is not the 'OS' (Optical stabilized) version, as Pentax cameras have their own internal stabilizer 'function'.
Cost: $249 (Amazon) - OS version is ~$400.
Filters: 62mm

This lens is a relatively compact 'superzoom' for DSLR cameras, and light weight. This makes for a good replacement to the kit 18-55mm that comes with most entry level DSLR cameras, and a great all around lens for those coming from the point and shoot cameras that can have 10-36x zoom, and are not used to having an SLR with ~3x zoom lens. At 62mm, you'll want to purchase a relatively cheap ($7) lens filter to keep from having the lens getting scratched/dust/etc when outdoors.

Pros:
- Great amount of range for an SLR
- (relatively) light weight for this range
- 62mm filters are relatively easy to find
- Bargain price
- Fairly sharp at at ranges
- Excellent for an outdoor, all around lens

Cons:
- Not the 'fastest' lens - I wouldn't recommend this for dark/distance. Make sure your camera can handle high ISO, or you have a tripod for night shots/indoor
- Some CA in high contrast shots outdoors
- Lens zoom creep if you're not holding it (there is a lock for this)
- AF in low light will 'hunt' - recommended using manual focus.