Sigma or Nikkor?

[rockstar]

Two lenses in my area came up for sale and it's a choice between the Sigma 18-125mm DC or the Nikon D70 kit lens (18-70mm).

They're both selling for the same price.

The lens I'm going to buy will be my all-purpose lens so I'm not going for anything totally specific.

Which one would be the better buy and which would produce better image quality?

 

[clarinetJWD]

Honestly, I don't know the Sigma lens, but I have the Nikkor 18-70, and it is certainly a quality lens and a good all purpose one.

 

[thebeginning]

nikkor. it's a solid lens for a kit lens, and is surpisingly good (only downsides are vignetting and distortion). the sigma also has good image quality, but the autofocus is really bad, which can be a major turnoff.

 

[dewey]

I can't speak for the Sigma, sorry, but the Nikkor is a great lens - I love it. I have had good experiences with Sigma, but I have heard from a friend that has this Sigma that the AF is very slow.

 

[fmw]

In my experience the "off brand" lenses have about the same optical quality as the "camera brand" lenses but not the same build quality. On the other hand, the Nikon kit lenses are Chinese made and don't have very good build quality either.

Nevertheless, I would go with the Nikon simply because it has a narrower zoom range and that means it has fewer compromises in its design. Compromises in zoom lens design are usually seen in things like contrast, corner sharpness, light falloff etc. etc. If the Sigma had a narrower range than the Nikon, I would opt for it instead.

Personally, I don't recommend zoom lenses with more than a 3X range. I've seen a couple that were optically very good but all of those were quite slow. Most wide range zooms are not good optically.

Here are the lenses I use with my digital SLR. Nothing over 3X.

 

[clarinetJWD]

nikkor. it's a solid lens for a kit lens, and is surpisingly good (only downsides are vignetting and distortion). the sigma also has good image quality, but the autofocus is really bad, which can be a major turnoff.

Both easily fixed using PT Lens in Photoshop...if you want to....
But honestly, the vignetting the 18-70 gets is usually quite visually pleasing, and I often like to accentuate it

 

[thebeginning]

Both easily fixed using PT Lens in Photoshop...if you want to....
But honestly, the vignetting the 18-70 gets is usually quite visually pleasing, and I often like to accentuate it

haha me too! if lenses have 'bad vignetting' wide open it's more of a reason to buy it