Non-digital 105mm Sigma Macro : Why so expensive?

[Gruditch]

Hi Fishiee, A hell of a lot of people, myself included have had compatibility problems with older Sigma lenses on Digital camera body's. Below is a link to the typical discussion that was going on a few years ago.

http://www.burnyourbonus.info/rec.photo ... d1756.html

About 3 years ago, loads of people were getting stitched up on ebay, buying the older Sigma lenses, only to find that it wouldn't work on their camera. I'm not sure what sigma did to their lenses when they stuck the DG badge on, but the problem stopped then.

If Andrew's lens works fine with his 40D, then there is obviously no point in getting it re-chipped. But I would advise cation when buying non DG Sigma lenses, as there is no guarantee that it will be compatible the you current set up.

Regards Gruditch

[FISHiEE]

Sorry I stand corrected. I read in detail one thread on the lens and the conclusion was there wasn't much different between the old and new version and this was a late 2008 thread. I just noticed it was on a pentax forum.... whatever that means

Seems like in the thread you posted the link to Sigma charged for the re-chipping. I notice that was for a 350D which must be older than a 40D so am guessing if it works ok on the 40D it must have been re-chipped already? Or maybe they still made them after the date of the compatibility issue and later made models came out of the factory already fixed for current technology at that time.

[Gruditch]

Your probably right. While the Sigma sales team were trying to come up with DG logo, the technicians had probably already fixed the problem. The last batch of non DG badged lenses to leave the factory were probably DG's in everything but name.

A 28-300 Sigma I had, would work most of the time with a 10D, but not at all with a 300D.

Regards Gruditch

[FISHiEE]

The DG is to do with the coating and not any chipping I believe. Sigma upgraded a lot of their lenses to DG a few years back (almost every week there was a new DG sigma lens it seemed!) but I don't think they re-chipped them all.

The Sigma website says they are "large-aperture lenses with wide angles and short minimum focusing distances. With an abundance of peripheral illumination, they are ideal lenses for Digital SLR Cameras." doesn't mention anything about chips or special coatings!

[Gruditch]

Its very odd, a couple of years back, Sigma described DG as, a lens designed specifically for digital SLR cameras.
But now a DG is described as,
These are large-aperture lenses with wide angles and short minimum focusing distances. With an abundance of peripheral illumination, they are ideal lenses for Digital SLR Cameras whilst retaining suitability for traditional 35mm SLRs. Yet every lens in their line up apart from the DC lenses is a DG.
And the DC are only Sigma's answer to the Canon EF-S lens.

I don't see how a 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM, for example, could be described as a large-aperture lens with wide angle and short minimum focusing distance.

Regards Gruditch

[Dave McCormick]

These are large-aperture lenses with wide angles and short minimum focusing distances. With an abundance of peripheral illumination, they are ideal lenses for Digital SLR Cameras whilst retaining suitability for traditional 35mm SLRs. Yet every lens in their line up apart from the DC lenses is a DG.
And the DC are only Sigma's answer to the Canon EF-S lens.

Wide Angle? I wasn't sure the 105, 150mm EX DG Macros were wide angle or does the wide angles mean something else?

I could not find much more on what DG actually was besides what you posted.

[Pete Eeles]

"DG", as far as I can tell, is a shorthand for "Digital", in that such lenses are optimised for digital camera bodies (although I'm not sure what "optimisation" is required).

The 105mm and 150mm are not wide-angle lenses, and the choice of words provided by Sigma is confusing. Wide-angle lenses typically have a focal length of around 15mm to 40mm, an extreme example being a "fisheye" lens whose focal length might be less than 10mm!

On that note, wide angle lenses do have their uses with respect to butterfly photography where, for example, you want to photograph the subject but also get a panoramic view of the surrounding scenery!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Lee Hurrell]

On that note, wide angle lenses do have their uses with respect to butterfly photography where, for example, you want to photograph the subject but also get a panoramic view of the surrounding scenery!

As per Guy's wonderful shot of telius!