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Which is best to worst aftermarket lens? Sigma, Tokina or Tamron?


12 years 5 months ago #157490 by MYoung
While on topic of aftermarket lenses for my D7000. I'm shopping around at alternative brand lenses to save a few bucks. I'm noticing a pretty wide price range for these three brands: Sigma, Tokina and Tamron. Which is best and which is on the other side of that scale?

These all may be really good lenses, I'm just looking for which brand would you most likely buy from first.
Photo Comments
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12 years 5 months ago #157493 by TheNissanMan
Unfortunately I think the question is a little to open, I don't know much about 3rd party/nikon lenses but with Canon there are third party lenses that are close at certain lengths but miles away at others.

It may help to provide the focal lengths that you are looking at for others with more experience of those lenses to offer some advice...
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12 years 5 months ago #157495 by MYoung
Thank you for the response and sorry to ask a open ended question. I just got my first DSLR which is a Nikon D7000. So a lot of the focal lengths are unknown. I have about a $1800 budget to spend on lenses. I would ideally like to cover as much focal area as I can. Which is why I was told to look at alternative brands like these.

I was told to stay away from the all in one like 18 to 500mm (just throwing numbers out to make example).

I was told that getting closer focal ranges in lenses was better. The down side is by doing so, it requires more lenses to be bought.
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12 years 5 months ago #157503 by Screamin Scott
If you want to get the most focal lengths covered, you might consider older manual focus lenses. Your camera will meter with them in manual & aperture priority modes (no AF of course)....You can get what were once "pro" quality lenses for a fraction of the cost of current offerings....As for the orignal question question, as was noted above, you really have to look at lens by lens comparisons. Some 3rd party offerings aren't the best, whereas others equal OEM offerings. How you are going to show your photos makes a difference too....If you are only going to post reduced resolution copies on the web, you can get acceptable results from even the bottom of the barrel of lenses. It's when you pixel peep or make large prints that the quality of a lens will become obvious.
Scott Ditzel Photography

www.flickr.com/photos/screaminscott/
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12 years 5 months ago #157543 by KCook
I agree with the prior posts. Plus:

In my view it's a mistake for a newbie to run out and buy a bunch of lenses at once. Instead pick them up one at a time, as you come to know that you truly need that type. A great lens for me might never be used by you.

As for brands, no different from camera brands. Every brand has it's fan. I happen to have a Sigma, so take care not to flog the Sigma horse . . .
:duel: :cheers:

Kelly Cook
Canon 50D, Olympus PL2
kellycook.zenfolio.com/
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12 years 5 months ago #157608 by Towcestermark
Scott - good point, could you elaborate on which lenses to search for in the older pro ranges for Canon?

I'm interested in looking into this as a viable alternative to spending thousands on an L lens
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12 years 5 months ago - 12 years 5 months ago #157630 by Screamin Scott
Canon & Minolta changed their lens mounts with the advent of auto focus systems back in the late 80's, Nikon & Pentax kept their mounts the same...In order to use older manual focus lenses on a Canon, you need to use an adapter. Since I shoot with Nikon, I'm not as well versed with Canon systems. Hopefully a Canon shooter with some knowledge will join in here. As I understand it, the older FD (Canon's MF lens line) mount lenses cannot be used on the EOS mount. You can ,however, use Nikon, Pentax & other MF mount lenses on EOS bodies with adapters (available on eBay & elsewhere). Nikon cameras have one of the longer register distances & few other OEM lenses can be adapted to be used on Nikon cameras without an optical correction element to retain infinity focus. Here is a link to an informative Wiki on register distances & how they affect the use of other OEM lenses on different systems for those entertaining the idea of going this route. Since I can use most any Nikon F mount manual focus lens on my camera, I only briefly dabbled with M42 to Nikon adapters for my older M42 mount lenses...

OOps....forgot to add Wiki link

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange_focal_distance
Scott Ditzel Photography

www.flickr.com/photos/screaminscott/
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12 years 5 months ago #157817 by Henry Peach
There is no real world best or worst brand. All of them, including the big names, make a few gems and a few lemons. In general they all make pretty good lenses. You would be better off to compare specific models, and even then there can be quite a bit of quality variation among lenses of the same model that are supposed to be identical.

www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/10/notes-o...and-camera-variation

I use several f/2.8 zooms from Tamron and Sigma along side my Canon Ls. I'm very happy with them. These days with all the easy to use lens rental sites I rent and try before I buy if it's an expensive lens.
mattneedham.zenfolio.com
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12 years 5 months ago #158289 by Joves
Well all of the third party lenses you listed have both good and bad lenses as far as for after market. I have tried both Tamron and Sigma and have not had the results I wanted. Forst they were both much slower than my Nikkor/Nikons and with Sigma their 50mm was terrible for sharpness, I sent it back several times to get a good copy but never did. Both of those brands did have lenses that gave me good images but being as slow as they were I got rid of them.
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12 years 5 months ago #158611 by Farestad

Henry Peach wrote: There is no real world best or worst brand. All of them, including the big names, make a few gems and a few lemons. In general they all make pretty good lenses. You would be better off to compare specific models, and even then there can be quite a bit of quality variation among lenses of the same model that are supposed to be identical.

www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/10/notes-o...and-camera-variation

I use several f/2.8 zooms from Tamron and Sigma along side my Canon Ls. I'm very happy with them. These days with all the easy to use lens rental sites I rent and try before I buy if it's an expensive lens.


:agree: "There is no real world best or worst brand."
EF 50mm f/1.4
EF 35mm f/1.4L USM
EF 100mm f/2
EF 70-200mm f/4
EF 18-55mm
EF 85mm f/1.8 USM
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12 years 5 months ago #160723 by Kid Prodigy
Tough, question. Actually I just phrase it as a loaded question. I'll say my favorite would be Sigma and Tokina
Canon EOS 7D|Canon EF 70-200mm F/2.8L USM |
Canon EF 50mm F/1.4 USM |
(2) Canon Speedlite 480EX II
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12 years 5 months ago #160734 by Imagegourmet
I have been in the photo industry for many years and what I can tell you conclusively is that some of these brands were bad 5 - 10 years ago, but they all have improved remarkably in the last few years.
None of these lenses can match the branded lenses, I don't care what anyone tells you, but all the lenses I have tested from Sigma, Tamron and Tokina are very good, not excellent in comparison to Nikon but certainly not rubbish.
www.flickr.com/photos/imagegourmet/
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12 years 5 months ago #161299 by Stealthy Ninja
From my experience... here are 3 "3rd party" lenses that match or better the Canon/Nikon originals.

Tokina 11-16 2.8
Sigma 50 1.4
Sigma 85 1.4
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www.aevansphoto.com
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12 years 5 months ago #161338 by Henry Peach
"Better" also varies from photographer to photographer and situation to situation. My Canon L 24-70 f/2.8 is a hair sharper in the center than my Tamron 28-75 f/2.8, but it (the Canon) has such horrible field curvature that the edges are often very soft when using larger apertures. This makes it a lousy lens choice for me when I'm doing big group shots.
mattneedham.zenfolio.com
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12 years 5 months ago #161683 by Stealthy Ninja
Henry is right. To me I like the Sigma 50 1.4 despite it's problems, because I like the bokeh (which is subjective). Others like other 50mm lenses.
img\def

www.aevansphoto.com
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