![]() ![]() The whole idea of the dock is to fix focusing problems even if you have MFA in your camera. Do you have other bright lenses to test? Nikon D800 when came out had left focus point problem but only manifested itself with 24mm or wider F1.4 lenses mostly. Is it possible that some lenses are just duds? So the final question is do you think the method of buying directly from Sigma and returning the lens until I get a solid one is a good plan? I've never seen a professional review of this lens that reflects the serious autofocusing issues I'm having. Manual focusing was easier for this, but clearly not optimal. While that provided me everything I needed for landscapes and staged shots, my fears were confirmed that this method is too slow for walk-around shooting. I used the lens extensively this weekend with live view focusing. I'll need to determine if center focusing and recomposing can offer a better auto focus lock than off-center focus points can. I did some more controlled testing and discovered that using off-center focus points at 18mm the lens is always quite soft. ![]() I'm pretty sure I'm going to send it back and possibly buy one directly from Sigma so that I can send the lenses back until I get a good one. I have not goofed around with making micro-adjustments to the lens using the software. That seemed to address the issue of the lens not focusing at all at 24mm. So I bought the Sigma USB dock and updated the lens firmware. Needless to say I'm a bit concerned since I payed the money for a razor sharp lens, not one which is entirely undependable. Others still maintain that I will get decent performance with serious lens adjustment via the dock. Others report that the lens will never actually autofocus reliably. Some say I need to buy a better camera body. Some people say I need to buy a new one and send them back until I get a good copy. I read reports like the one from that claim that the lens only misfocuses 4% of the time and that seems irreconcilable with my experience with this copy. If I have the identical issue with a separate copy I'll know that its the camera/lens combo (or that I got really bad luck with manufacturing variation twice in a row). With center focus points at 18mm the camera focuses just fine, but with off-center focus points it misfocuses every single time.Īt this point I'm thinking that I could take the refund offer and try my luck with a different lens. I could spend hours adjusting the lens with the dock that I bought- but I'm concerned that the issue may not be fixable. ![]() The seller told me that the lens had never seen a dock before. I want to be able to depend on this lens- that's why I bought it! I don't want to have to baby it with live-view focusing which oftentimes takes considerably longer. The shots that were in focus were literally world-class. Of course, I read this only after I had a used lens in hand! I do not have the USB dock and at this point I don't know what the firmware is on the lens.ġ) Should I follow through with returning the item, potentially eating the shipping costs, or should I try and fix it with the USB dock? Is that even possible in my situation?Ģ) If I can return it and should, is it best for me to pay the extra two hundred dollars to get it straight from the Sigma factory so that I'm covered by the warranty? I've read from several sources that the only reliable way to get a properly focusing lens is to keep sending them back until you're satisfied. I've had a very busy week and have a trip planned for this weekend, so I won't be able to do any. I have not done any scientific testing yet. Even with all of these measures some images appeared to not even be focused on anything. All of these images were shot through the viewfinder with off-center single point auto focus spots. Many exposures I took at very fast shutter speeds in well-lit conditions. I was shooting at f/2.8 to avoid issues with shallow depth of field. ![]() I've never had this issue with any other lens I use. Maybe 1/5 or 1/4 of the images were far below the quality of what I would expect from a lens of this caliber. However when I got into Lightroom I noticed that a good portion of my exposures were very poorly focused. I took the lens for a spin this weekend, very eager to enjoy this excellent lens. The important part is that the seller stated that "The item may have some signs of cosmetic wear, but is fully operational and functions as intended." Also to note that the seller has a no return policy, of which I understand is trumped by Ebay's buyer protection program. Here's the scoop: I won a bid on a used Sigma 18-35 1.8 lens for Cannon on Ebay for $550. While I followed a lot of what was discussed there I have a few questions related to my situation that I hope you folks can help me with. I signed on because I saw a pretty fruitful discussion concerning focusing issues with the Sigma 18-35mm 1.8. ![]()
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