New Sigma 18-35 f/1.8 excitement

chas1723 · Apr 7, 2016

I just purchased the Sigma 18-35 f/1.8. It is my first lens besides the 18-140 that came with my D5500. I plan on using it for vacation photos of landscapes and for astrophotography. So far it is extremely sharp from corner to corner. Hopefullyiit will be a good purchase.

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dannylightning · Apr 7, 2016

nice, its a very good lens. i had to fine tune mine with the dock, it was way off when i got it, now it focuses great and its very sharp.. i think its a great lens, i am sure you will really like it.

chas1723 · Apr 7, 2016

Just got the dock. My weekend will be spent fine tuning. Any tips to shorten the process?

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dannylightning · Apr 7, 2016

the process sucks for the most part., basically i printed out one of these targets which you can get for free in this link i posted below.... i taped it to the wall and started snapping a photos, I put the camera on a tripod, set the lens to the widest aperture and use a shutter speed of around 1/500 or higher, you want to do this in good lighting without using a flash.. the flash will probably make the photos look sharp even if the focus is off so its best not to use the flash..

after each photo i took the lens off the camera and it went back on the dock to be adjusted. i started at -10 or -15 or whatever the lowest negative number was, i cant remember but lets just say it was -10. so i snapped a shot at -10 than i took a photo at -8 than -7 than -5 than -3 than 0 than +2 than +4 all the way up to the highest positive number on the adjustment. after i took all those photos i viewed them in light room with a extremely heavy crop. and picked the photo that was the sharpest of them all. that gave me a idea of where it needed to be. lets just say it was +7 that looked the sharpest..

next i took a set of photo at +5, +6, +7, +8 +9 and picked the one that looked the sharpest.. i had to do this 4 times for each focal length since there are adjustments for 4 distances at each focal length, there are 16 total adjustments you need to make.. it is not a fast process or easy process, i think it took me a few days to get them all done..

after i found the adjustment that looked the sharpest on the paper. i went for a second round of photos with someones house address sign, most of the photos the house numbers looked very sharp at each distance for each focal length but a few of them were still a little off so i had to readjust those ones again, so i snapped a shot and adjusted on the house number sign till the numbers looked perfectly sharp at each focal length for each distance.. this part went pretty quick since i was either dead on or very close to the proper adjustment..

i would suggest maybe picking one focal length a day, get all 4 distances at 35mm down on day, maybe do 18mm the next day.. of you can do them all in one day if you want. if your images are already looking sharp than you probably have a really good idea of where to start the adjustments. mine were all kinds of wacky, i do not think they even tuned my lens at the factory.. the numbers i ended up with were all over the place and the lens was not even close to getting a perfect focus out of the box.. it was way off. so that made it much harder for me.

but after i tuned that thing its taking great photos that are really nice and sharp.. i really like this lens allot.. i just wish it would have been tuned right from the factory.. my 150-600mm sport came tuned perfect out of the box.. i just wish my 18-35 1.8 would have been lol

How to Quickly Test Your DSLR for Autofocus Issues

goooner · Apr 7, 2016

Great, looking froward to your photos. I would love that lens, but it's way down on my 'must have' list.

dannylightning · Apr 7, 2016

here are a few photos i got after tuning my lens.. and a photo of the address sign i used when calibrating the lens which worked great.. that was not one of the test photos, i think the focus point was on the glass of the light in this one and not the numbers.