Sigma IQ Expectations...

Hi Roger
Any news of your iffy Sigma lens, I have been looking at your recent uploads with other lenses and I cant see much wrong with them, I'm sure there must be something wrong with the Sigma and it's not just a focusing issue.
Regards David

Good afternoon, David.

The lens is on its way back to me, delivery today.

I spoke to Chris who said a colleague had done the "brick wall" test on it, at various focal lengths & apertures. They consider it to be within acceptable standards.

He offered to send it to Sigma for their testing/thoughts.

I had, however, a project lined up for next week to photograph kestrels at their nest-box. Even with its shortcomings, the Sigma is the only tool for this excercise!
We've agreed, therefore, for it to come back to me for a couple of weeks, then Chris will arrange for its collection to be returned to Sigma for their examination.

We'll see how I get on with my shots, for which I'll use RAW, then move on with Sigma.

Thanks very much for your interest in my predicament, I really appreciate your support!

Watch this space!

Roger.

( P.S., my latest post of the water boatman on The Gallery does, I think, at least demonstrate that I know how to (manually) focus a lens! :shock

Hi Roger
As yet I have not needed to use manual focus on a regular basis, I only envisage that being necessary if I should have the subject sitting long enough to use a tripod, although on very rare occasions I have used manual focus when shooting through foliage. As a rule you should get good images without resorting to this.
However as I have said before JPEG's straight from the camera with this lens are not good, I would suggest you use Adobe RAW editor every time. In my experience doing auto RAW to JPEG conversions rarely does more than reduce file size and gives a pretty poor result. If I find out how to and get chance I will post an example of how I do my RAW editing.
All the best David

Thanks, David.

I generally use Elements 9, which has a RAW editor "attached"
Are such editors much the same? Are any/is one "better" than the others?

The comment re manual focus only really referred to my macro work.

Thanks again for your help,

Roger.

Hi Roger
Not certain but I think the PSE6 and PSE9 RAW editors are similar, you may have more options especially when you have finished using the RAW editor and open the image in the standard editor for final tweaks and saving. I have to say even with my version the detail that is revealed by the RAW editor is amazing and this can ofetn be further enhanced using the normal PSE editor. I very rarley use any of the auto options except the white balance is often corrected by selecting Auto. Many of my images I leave with the camera RAW default WB, thats except for some landscapes which are often a bit too blue. If you want I can email you a PDF document of a quick RAW edit and conversion to jpeg I have done.
Regards David

Yes please, David.
I'd be very interested to receive that!

Roger.