SLR-Camera Reviews

This 105mm Sigma macro lens with a fast f/2.8 aperture satisfies you in every department. First of all it gives you a 1:1 true life size macro and these macro images comes out truly amazing... extremely sharp, good color saturation and contrast(on Pentax ZX-7). The 105mm focal length is also suitable for taking portraits. Portrait results have also come out extremely well. The EX finish is aesthetically pleasing, scratch proof and has a metal alloy body for sturdiness. The hood which is provided along with the lens matches well with it. One can also use a 77mm dia lens cap which fits perfectly on the hood, so that the hood can remain permanently on the lens (hood is threaded so that it can screw on the lens like filters.)

A bit of a bother is the clutch mechanism which on has to engage/disengage while changing between MF/AF. But on the positive side, the focus ring doesn't move (in AF mode) and one is more at ease while holding the camera. The other thing is the long rotational travel of the focusing ring while focusing a subject and in AF mode this could sometimes take a while. This could be somewhat solved by using the focusing limiter switch.

Definitely, a well made lens optically and structurally and should satisfy one and all.

I bought this lens when they had a sale. It was [price] without shipping charge, and I think the price was the lowest anywhere.
I love this lens. It is a lot sharper than EF 28-135mm IS, which I use most of the time. Now I can take good pictures of teeth from my patients and also good portraits for my baby.
Overall it is very versatile and overall quality is excellent, and I would recommend to anyone interested in macro photography.

Sigma 105 EX macro is considered one of the best primes for its optical quality. MTF tests, which determine how sharp the lens is, place it just below the famous Canon 100mm Macro. The EX sign tells that the build quality of the lens is higher than that of a consumer-grade product. The big plus is a price. It is almost twice cheaper than Canon 100mm. ALso, it comes with the case and a hood and Canon does not. The drawbacks, however, include potential incompatibility with the future Canon camera bodies. I would highly recommend this lens for advanced amatures on a tight budget.

My reasons for finally buying this accessory were different than those of the first reviewer, though I have to agree that when I have it attached to my camera, it definitely makes it look cooler!

In my case, I was just sick and tired of having otherwise great shots become less than great because I couldn't keep the horizontal in the horizon. The final straw was a lovely mood shot taken last summer in our drought parched wetlands. Birds were congregating in the one or two scum covered spots with moisture, and I shot a lovely silhouette of a sandhill crane surrounded by soft green. Of course, wanting to accentuate the height of the bird, I shot vertically--and the resulting photo looked tipsy.

Perhaps others have a steadier hand when shooting with the camera shutter, but mine invariably tips to one side. I added the vertical grip to my arsenal after learning such a thing existed while reading Arthur Morris's book on bird photography. He considers it essential as well. He was right. My vertical shots are now truly vertical, not angled.

The other cool thing the battery pack offers is, well, battery options. It can use the batteries from the camera, or will adapt regular batteries to power the camera, which can be an advantage when your batteries die and you aren't able to replace the camera specific batteries.

The only downside for me? I wish I'd bought it sooner. My great photos of the clock tower on Parliament wouldn't have been tipsy if I had!

I picked up a Canon EOS Elan 7E (EOS 30 in Europe, EOS 7 in Japan) because I wanted something fully-featured to begin studying photography with. The Elan 7E can do anything the bigger cameras can do, just not as quickly and minus the weighty weatherproof construction, and I was very happy with it for a long time.

After a while, however, I started noticing problems. Being in Japan, I would encounter hordes of elderly ladies and young men, clearly enthusiasts but not professionals, sporting the top-of-the-line cameras with heavy L-series lenses. When I would go to take pictures of an event - say, a parade - the professionals would elbow me out of the way at all the best spots.

Clearly, my equipment did not look cool enough.

Needless to say, big equipment provides plenty of psychological benefits and assuages those feelings of envy. But also, when you carry around a lightweight camera with a consumer-grade zoom lens, the professional photojournalists instinctively know at a glance that you are an _amateur_ getting in the way of their _serious work_. When you try to gain access to a venue, you need to first overpower the guards with the appearance of professionalism, if nothing else, and this is difficult to do when everyone else's camera is bigger than yours. People make snap judgments, and are easily fooled by big tools.

The solution? Step 1a: Buy a heavy-duty professional lens. Anything bearing the red ring of Canon's 'L' line or the groovy finish of Sigma's 'EX' line are both fine, but for photojournalism a 70-200/2.8 is ideal. Step 1b: Bulk up your camera body with this battery pack/grip. Professionals may still realize there's something amiss, but you'll probably get past the first couple glances and be able to sneak in the door. Step 1a does more to help, but 1b is almost as important and a heck of a lot less expensive.

So the most important thing is that it looks cool, but it also has a couple other interesting features. It provides a little extra weight and a better center of gravity for when you start playing with the bigger lenses. It has shutter release and exposure lock buttons so you can take portrait (vertical) shots in a slightly more relaxed position. It accepts AA batteries (alkaline, NiMH or Ni-Cad) or the usual CR123As through an ingenious little flip spacer thing. Unfortunately, powerful, lightweight, durable lithium AA batteries are verboten - "The initial voltage is high and it can may [sic] damage the camera's electronic circuitry." Since alkaline batteries are much heavier than lithiums and fail in extreme cold, the extended battery life (115 rolls with eye-controlled focusing at 20 Celsius, 0 rolls at -20) isn't too much of an advantage over CR123As. You can use rechargeables to save money, but they bleed their charges relatively quickly even when not in use, and CR123As last all year anyway as long as you're not constantly taking extreme time exposures of the stars.

So, ultimately, it gets five stars almost entirely on the coolness of its looks alone. Get one, get out there and shove a photojournalist back.

On a DSLR with 1.3x or 1.6x cropping, such as the 10D or 1D, you will see no difference in the images produced by this lens and the twice-as-expensive EF 16-35 f/2.8L. So if you don't need the extra f-stop, go with this one and save yourself $700.

On 35mm film or the 1Ds, you'll see more vignetting with this lens, but the images are still excellent, and this lens has less flare than the 16-35.

The 16-35 is marginally sharper near the 35mm focal length, and does have much better bokeh, if that's important to you.

If you take lots of wide-angle shots, this lens is a must-have. It's one of the less expensive "L" lenses, making it a relative bargain.

If you get paid for your photos, you should own the f/2.8L instead. For the rest of us, this is a fantastic lens, my second Canon L lens after the 100-400. Construction quality is first rate. Images are sharp. The range of the zoom is excellent. For film. On an APS-C sized sensor (Canon 10D or DRebel) this isn't an exciting range and is only marginally wide angle. Though the Sigma 12-24mm is slower and (on paper) lower resolution---that might be the lens of choice for this range on a digital camera.

This lens will give you a half-stop above the f1.8 version, as well as a metal mount, somewhat more solid construction, full-time manual focusing, and a distance scale. The color and sharpness are excellent.

The lens is somewhat soft wide open, though you do get the use of f1.4, which will get you shots you might otherwise miss. It does well at f2, but needs to be stopped down a minimum of two stops (to f2.8) before its true sharpness is revealed. By f4-5.6 it's blindingly sharp, enough to serve as a measure for all other lenses.

This lens does not use a true USM ring motor, instead using a slightly noisier, slower, and less accurate micro motor with a full-time manual clutch. People with 10Ds (such as myself) have reported focus problems, and mine seems to miss focus under certain conditions more often than my more solidly constructed lenses. Apparently, 1-series cameras with superior focus systems work much more pleasingly with the 50/1.4.

Despite these issues, the 50/1.4 is an excellent lens. On a camera with a 1.6x crop factor (10D, D60), this makes an excellent portrait lens. One just needs to keep these quirks in mind.

Excellent piece of glass, does a great job blurring backgrounds and delivers sharp and crisp images. A must have for any decent portrait photographer.

This Camera takes incredible pictures. It has a wide range of shutter speeds rangeing from 2000 to bulb. plus hte 7 point auto focus syste is hand in most situations. Plus it is very light making it easy to carry around.

I had bought a fantastic camera called Canon Rebel 2000 Date Body in Brazil. For me, a amadorist photographer is perfect camera SLR. I need this camera to take pictures from climbs, camps, and so. And my sister take pictures from your architectural projects. And I bought a 20/80 lenses, to improve my camera.

This kit is also great for the Rebel 2000- it comes with all these wonderful things to keep your camera clean and operating smoothly!

The Canon SLR Custom Acessary Pack is a fabulous deal for what comes inside it. For only 19.99, you get a lens cover, which protected my lens when my camera was hit, cleaning supplies for the lens, and two batteries. IT's a great deal and I recomend it to anyone with the appropriate camera!

I bought this for my QTsi camera. It is a great second lens for this camera. If you want to take professional looking photographs, using this lens with a tripod will give you remarkable results. Be sure to set the camera on the photograph setting. This lens is also great for taking those far off pictures, (the ones that are over before you run and get there). Be sure to set your camera for action to help compensate for camera or subject movement for those far off shots. Great also for capturing those special moments at sporting events or concerts, even when you have nose-bleed seats. The AF function helps capture special moments without having to constantly adjusting the lens focus. You can also turn off the AF and take some artistic shots, even if you have never used a SLR camera before. Minolta has come up with a wonderful system that makes taking excellent and exciting photographs easy for everyone.

I bought this lens for a HTSi. It works just fine. I recommendit highly. . . .

This camera takes perfect pictures. Every little detail in the photo is crystal clear. I can't believe how horrible all my pictures from my previous camera look compared to the pictures that the maxxum 3 takes. I highly recommend this camera.

This camera gives the best photographic results of any camera I've ever worked with. Ease of use and wonderful quality results in a perfect personal rating of this camera.

I bought the HTsi+, Minolta 28-80 and 70-210 and the 5400HS flash. It is a wonderful combination. The camera is the perfect combination of sophistication and simplicity. I have not yet had a bad photo or incorrect exposure. If all you want is a "point and shoot", it'll do that. If you want absolute control of the camera, you can do that. In between are enough modes and settings to keep a very advanced amateur satisfied. The flash is amazing. It has a guide number of 152. It follows every movement of the lens, zooming instantly. It can also be used off the camera and is triggered by the HTsi's built-in fill flash. I was a little worried about the heavy use of plastics in the camera. I have pleasantly surprised - plastics have come a long way. I do not hesitate to recommend this camera.

My choice came down to Minolta HTSi Plus or Canon EOS Rebel X or 2000. Features are VERY similar. I preferred the HTSi Plus' feel and viewer displays, so I choice Minolta's body. (FYI, I worked with the 28-80 lens for 3 weeks, then decided to upgrade to a 28-200mm for more flexibility.) The features allow tons of growth/learning by the photographer, while still taking great shots right out of the box. It's designed so that the photographer can take as much control over the shot as they want, with the onboard computer handling whatever the photographer doesn't feel comfortable with: From focus to aperture and fstop settings. Variety of optional presets allow immediate creativity while the photographer learns more about lighting, angles, film, and composition with each shot. No, I don't work for Minolta. I just love their camera.

I purchased my Minolta X-370s on a whim, and never regretted it. Within its limitations, such as lack of DOF preview and a bit of a noisy shutter release, it's a very reliable and easy to learn camera. The lens it comes with is quite versatile, and allows for close-ups as well as fairly angular shots. Building a system is easy thanks to the affordability of lenses and equipment. In sum, an excellent learning tool you won't outgrow too soon.

For the begginer and the more advanced this has to be the easiest camera I've used. I have always like the Minolta camera line and this is one of the better one for begginers to SLR.