Bruce, thanks for your comments and the beautiful samples. I just received this lens and I'm playing with it today. I gotta say it feels much better on the camera than it does in my hands :-) The focus does feel nice but it has such a short travel, perhaps 70 degrees. For comparison, my 50/1.4 focus travels about 135 degrees and the 77 travels about 150 degrees. Focus on the Sigma is a matter of tiny movement. I'll adjust. Autofocus is fast and accurate. It'll definitely take some getting used to having the aperture change with zoom. The zoom ring is very tight.
The lens is light and unimposing, so it should work well for train shows. This afternoon I'll give it a proper trial as I use it to photograph an old LEGO project. It seems to have worked well for you in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I'll take it with me next time I vacation, if I ever get to do that. Amy Bruce wrote: > I have it. For the price it is actually quite nice. Not > overly speedy, but a pretty good focal range. On the plus > side, it is fairly small and light and has a good manual > focus feel (very important to me). One small negative is > that the reversible hood just bayonets on to the lens and > since the barrel rotates while focusing, if you try to put > the hood on with the lens on the body and AF engaged, it > will torque the AF motor - so you need to disengage the AF > while putting on the hood.
