Sigma 14mm f/2.8 EX HSM RF Aspherical Ultra Wide Angle Lens for Minolta and Sony SLR Cameras

Just got this lens as a Christams gift, and I'm really impressed with it. It's a little soft at the edges wide open, but if you stop it down a bit, you get most of the corner sharpness back. It's also a little heavier than I'm used to, and I was suprized by how large it is. Nonetheless, it's a great lens for the landscapes I like shooting.

The Sigma 14mm f2.8 is a great lens. It does a good job of keeping line straight. As others have stated you need to stop down (5.6 or higher) to keep sharp focus. That's the case with most very wide angle lenses. It is difficult to focus as others as said. That's just the nature of very wide angle lenses. If you shooting something up close then let the auto-focus do it for you. It you want to make certain it's in focus then measure (the old fashioned way). I've shot numerous projects with this lens and find to be major player in the very wide angle lens field. I've shot home exteriors, home interiors, art gallery interiors and even food with this lens.

My only issue with this lens is that it does not handle blowout hot spots well. It tends to shift the color on the fringes of the hot spot to the yellow. You just need to be careful not blowout hot spots which why I gave 4 stars instead of 5 stars.

As another reviewer said earlier, sometimes the QA from Sigma is hit or miss. I have had the same experience in the past. The last 2 Sigmas I have tried have been fine (14 and 150 macro) My copy of this lens for Nikon is pretty nice (sharp, decent contrast if you keep light off the front element, fast accurate focus) on digital bodies. The HSM on mine is just as quiet as any of the AF-S Nikon lenses I have. I still prefer Nikon in general, but for the limited use I have for this lens, it has worked nicely.

My copy of this lens gives good image quality, though it does have slight barrel distortion (things near the edge of the field of view bulge out very slightly). This is typical for this wide of a lens, and isn't noticeable unless viewing something with lots of straight lines near and parallel to the edge of the frame.
I like the lens, but do make sure you really want a lens with a field of view THIS WIDE. It's nice for landscapes, but they will all have everything but the kitchen sink in each shot. You can't use this lens to isolate a particular feature of interest like you can with a standard or a telephoto lens.
One feature nobody seems to pay much attention to on this lens is that it can focus very close! You can do a sort of wide-angle macro work with this lens, if the light is good.
I recommend it as a relatively affordable alternative to the Canon or Tamron equivalents, if you are sure a 14mm lens is something you really want. I like mine, but occasionally have second thoughts about needing a lens this wide. Finally, I should mention that I use a digital SLR which only uses the central 2/3 of the lens. I've seen reports from others saying that edge distortion on this lens is unacceptable with a full-frame film camera.

To echo what is said about the new release SIGMA lenses - WOW.

Canon look out. I was shopping for a new toy for XMAS and settled on the CANON 14mm F2.8L lens. It was very nice but for the price hard to justify. I asked for an eval of the Canon and this, the Sigma alternative at 1/3rd the price. Head to head testing of the lenses on my Canon EOS 50 (ELAN) using ISO 200 film resulted in the Sigma producing a crisper image with better definition and colour saturation. Both lenses have a little "flattening" of the image at the edges as they try to compensate for curvature but the Sigma in my opinion is closer to true. Neither lens had any trouble Auto-Focusing during the day (Canon felt a little faster). The Sigma was a little unsure of itself on when I went for a night/bulb exposure of the starscape. Switched to Manual, set for infinity and away we went. My only other issue with the Sigma is the lens hood is not quite big enough where the Canon is spot on. Still you have to be looking really hard for faults to find them.

Tooling around with the lens has been lots of fun. I had never considered using the lens for indoors shots but it is magic. Architecture photography is going to be a new thing for me I think.