Sigm 15-30?? Can this be used u/w?

Hey,

I have looked at the Sigma 15-30, am new to u/w photog and have the Rebel xt which hopefully someone will have a variety of housings out for in the near future. Would this lens be useful u/water?

Hi,

I owned this lens for a while, but I sold it. This lens is huge and heavy, and has a huge pop-eye front element - which means it's difficult to use underwater.

A much better choice would be one of the "digital" lenses like the Canon 18-55 or the Sigma 18-50. If you want to go wider look at the lenses in the 10-22mm range.

Cheers

James

Thanks, would it be useful for anything else? Above water or course.

It's designed to be an ultra-wideangle zoom on a full frame camera. That's why it's so big for what it does - it's not F2.8.

With a digital camera, you can do much better w/ another lens, it will be smaller, faster, and cover just about the same zoom range.

Cheers

James

Thanks!

It is a useful lens for wide-angle topwise. I use it with a Nikon F80, and am very happy with it; but would not house it due to its size.

Robert Z.

I used the lens topside for two years. In my opinion this was the best wideangle zoom for cropped (Canon) DSLRs in the past (15mm). And the first one designed having cropped digital cameras in mind. At that time, only zoom providing 24mm FF equivalent on my 10D. I was satisfied with the results (good sharpness) and the Canon 17-40 was not even anounced at that time. It's not slow at all @ the wide end. f3.5 @15mm is even faster than some nowadays APS-C wideangle zooms. Mine was sharper than my current Sigma 12-24mm and it performed quiet good on FF too (slides). But I agree that there are more attractive choices now available, especially for underwater: wider and smaller. And yes, the huge popeye front element attracted flare.

Julian

edit: However, I think it's still a good topside compromise for dual usage (cropped & FF cameras) between the Canon 17-40 and Sigma 12-24: Wider than the Canon (and even faster @wide end) and noticeably less soft than the Sigma 12-24.