A Visit to 'Southeastern Camera' at Carrboro

Now that my Spring 2014 semester is over, I am back to post things on my blog!

April 19th, 2014
It had been approximately 5 months since I got my first DSLR! (which is Canon T3i)
and I started to notice the limitations of a kit-lens. (Things like variable aperture, frontal element that moves when I'm trying to focus, and etc.)
These were starting to get really annoying.

and then it came to me...
that I wanted to buy a new lens!!
I got to crave a standard zoom lens that could replace my 18-55mm kit lens.
Two of the candidates are:
Sigma 17-70 f2.8-4 C OS HSM lens
Sigma 17-50 f2.8 EX OS HSM lens

Because of my overflowing desire for a new lens....

I decided to visit one of the closest camera stores from campus and try some of the lenses out.

Here it is!
Southeastern Camera in Carrboro!

It was quite a long trip to this place on foot.
It was waaayyy past Cat's Cradle.

Anyway, time to go in and try out some lenses!

These two are the lenses that I tested that day!
The one on the left is Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 VC lens. I had to try this one instead, because they didn't have Sigma 17-50mm f2.8 EX OS HSM lens... (and I've heard some of the pixelpeepers say that the Sigma one is better in image quality)
The one on the right is Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4 C OS HSM lens.

Both of these lenses were bigger and bulkier than the 18-55mm kit lens I was using with my T3i.

Well,
It's time to test what these lenses are capable of

First, I tested my 18-55mm kit lens (ISO 400, F 5.6) at various focal length.

This is kit lens at 18mm

55mm

55mm (Background Bokeh)
I personally think f5.6 has a good amount of bokeh.

35mm

Anyway, pretty kit lens-ish...


The next lens I used was Tamron 17-50mm VC lens.
(ISO 400, F5.6 ..... I forgot to open the aperture up to F2.8...)

First, 17mm
This actually feels wider than the kit lens' 18mm.
Seems to me that 1mm actually matters a lot in the wide angle focal lengths.

50mm
In a standard zoom range, I don't think 5mm feels like a big difference

50mm background bokeh.
Although I forgot to open up the aperture to F2.8, this looks like a very nice bokeh! :D

35mm
Sharper compared to the kit-lens.


The last lens I tested was Sigma 17-70 f2.8-4 C OS HSM lens.
(ISO 400, F4)

17mm
Just as wide as it was with Tamron 17-50mm lens.

70mm
Wow, this lens zooms in a lot.

70mm background bokeh
unlike 50mm and 55mm, 70mm does make a big difference in zooming!
What a desirable zoom range..

Lastly 50mm.
I forgot to shoot in 35mm.
Oh yeah, Sigma does have some issues with its autofocus.
Well, good thing I'm more of a manual focus person. :)

This is the last shot with the Sigma 17-70 lens.
I just wanted to test its macro.

By just looking at the zoom range, Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4 C OS HSM is definitely the choice for me.


However,
there's another test I did with these lenses: Zoom Test
Not a lot of people really try this or think of this seriously, but if you're thinking of shooting videos, this might be quite critical.



Those of you who use DSLRs might already know that a typical 18-55mm kit lens is a 'variable aperture' lens (f3.5-5.6).
So what many people think is that "the brightness won't change if the aperture closed down to f5.6."
However, if you do a video test like the one I have above, you can actually see the image becoming darker while zooming in and then returning to f5.6's brightness when I'm done, and the image becoming brighter while zooming out and then returning to f5.6's brightness.
This might be a problem for those of you who are shooting videos, and I personally found it annoying as well...



Then I tested the same thing with Sigma 17-70 f2.8-4 C OS HSM lens, which is also variable aperture lens.



Ugh...
This lens goes through the exact same problem.
The only difference from my kit lens is that the brightness doesn't change too much after the zoom is completer, but the brightness changes suddenly with a clicking sound.
......
I really love the zoom range of this lens,
this would've been my choice if it weren't for this problem..
T_T.



Lastly, I've tried the same test with the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 lens.



Ah!!
So this is the true power(?) of a fixed aperture lens!!
The brightness doesn't change when I'm zooming in or out.


and after searching for other people who have experienced the same problem.
I've found out that pretty much all variable aperture lens has this problem.

This is actually a really sad truth for me.
I personally don't think I would need an aperture that is as wide open as f2.8
but if I were to zoom while I'm shooting videos, I just have to go with a fixed aperture lens...

ugh...
My trip to the camera store actually made it harder for me to choose my next lens...
fixed aperture or 20mm extra zoom
what should I choose?

This sure is a huge trade-off....
T_T

I might as well just go for Canon 24-105 f4 lens..?