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I bought the Sigma Designs IF 28 300mm F3 5 6 3 DL Aspherical Hyperzoom in January, and have shot around 50 rolls of film through this lens. I bought it because I travel frequently, and often need to go back and forth between wide angles and long zooms and have had to deal with that with multiple lenses and bodies. I hoped that this hyperzoom would be the answer. Four months later, I was looking again for other lenses, and have given up trying to get an all-in-one solution.

Starting with the lens' physical attributes: The lens is wonderfully light and small. At first glance, the build quality appears to be OK, but then I start getting rings popping out of position, and the like (the best way to fix it was to jam it against a car bumper!)

The quality of the pictures suffers badly from vignetting. I usually stop down my lenses to f/8.0 to avoid vignetting, but f/13.0+ is needed with this lens when you get above 150mm focal lengths. Looking at the slides through a good loupe, the lower optical quality is obvious. The sharpness simply is not there.

The final straw... was an increasing tendancy for the autofocus to go completely haywire, forcing me to go to full manual. At times (once every 5 ot 6 pictures), the camera would lock up, and the only thing that would unlock it is to remove the lens and put it back - pointing to bad connectors. Then, a new problem turned up, where the light metering through lens is 3, 4, even 5 stops too low. On the final film I ever used with this lens I was shooting a frontlit, light-colored aircraft in full sunlight with 100 ASA film, and the camera reports a proper exposure of f/4.0 at speed 1/15th!!!

Putting the lens on my backup body results in the same results, and both cameras work fine with my several Canon lenses.

Sending the lens to be fixed (under warantee) took nearly 6 months.

Stay away!!!

I am totally happy with this lens. I like to shoot almost anything, from panoramic views to wildlife, and I felt 80% of my needs to compose the picture and get desired zoom or wideangle effect were met. As long as the subject is in contrast with its surrounding, I have never had problems with fast autofocus. The only time it couldn't focus was when I was focusing on a brown bird that was almost camouflaged by its surroundings. I also find it very easy to use, i.e. easy to adjust zoom or manually focus. The rings seem to be in appropriate place where my hand reaches for them naturally. I have other lenses where I have to get away from the view finder and figure out which ring to grab. The performance of the lens has been excellent. I have taken pictures at mid-day with extremely bright conditions, probably the worst time to take pictures, and still with merely a hood, the pictures came out great. The use of Circualar Polarizer and UV filters just puts life into a picture, even in worst conditions(bright noon).

Only problem that I encountered is that I went for overkill and put three filters, (UV, Circular, and Enhancement). This caused the light to be blocked at the edges. To overcome this I had to sacrifice the wideangle from 28 to about 45mm.

If one likes to take pictures while hiking or rock climbing etc, this lens is perfect because you don't have to worry about wideangle, or zoom lenses, and amazingly its extremely light. I have seen people with half that zoom, with longer lenses. Even more amazing is the low price.

This is the ultimate lens to take when traveling or don't want to bring the camera bag. It covers the most widely used zoom ranges. I use to regularly carry 2 lenses (a 35-105mm and 75-300mm), but now I normally only carry this one. It is very compact (looks to be about an inch longer than my Canon 35-105mm lens due to it using 3 sections to extend out instead of the standard 2 on most zoom lenses) and the lens has a lock so it won't accidently extend when carrying it. The zoom knob has a stiff and percise feel to it. The optics are good and my pictures look great. The end of the lens doesn't rotate when zooming or focusing making it easier to work with certain types of filters. The only downside is the longer exposure times needed as compared to a dedicated 300mm lens. If you are looking for a wide-range zoom lens, then this is the one to get.

Sigma lenses are high quality glass for those of us that don't want to throw away money on the company product. This lens will simplify your life. I was fortunate enough to have a friend loan me this lens for a couple of days and it covers the most widely used focal lengths required for professional work. I wasn't hunting around in my bag for a lens to get closer to my subject and I could easily pull away and get a nice wide shot. Lightweight and easy to focus - it just feels good. You will need a flash for indoor shooting, though. Get one - it might be the last lens you will ever buy.

SELLER AND AMAZON HAS GIVEN ME NO HELP ON THIS ORDER. I HAVE BEEN TRYING FOR A MONTH TO RECEIVE THIS ORDER BACK AND FORTH TO SELLER AND AMAZON WITH NO HELP FROM EITHER, I WANT MY MONEY RETURNED

A compact lense that provides the ranges needed in the most common photo opportunities. 28MM wide angle doesn't create the fisheye look like some lenses. The AF zoom does well for the far shots. The mid ranges shots are very good, not perfect (this may have more to do with the AF camera). The weight of the lense does not make focusing or operation of camera any more difficult than a standard 70MM lense. The zoom function is a bit stiff.
This lense is sensitive to shock and banging, so be careful. This is my second lense from Sigma. The first one locked up somehow at 80MM. I don't mean that it's not durable. I've used this lense on my roadtips and on hikes. Jus be careful, it is a zoom lense with moving parts.

The lenses optical does provide good shapeness and color. Focusing is quick and manual focusing is good.

Overall, the features you get for this price is well worth the investment.

We have a Canon SLR (IX, I think). It's the precursor to the Rebel 2000. Anyways, we had an older Sigma 28-200mm lens that somehow got out of whack. It would no longer focus on close objects. We went to a local retail outlet (Wolf), and bought this to replace our older Sigma 28-200mm lens. The addition of the macro functionality is superb.

We can now take excellent pictures of our son (telephoto) and also landscapes and scenery (wide angle). This is an excellent general purpose lens.

I ADORE this lens. Sigma has the greatest lenses in the world. ONE lens to shoot MOST EVERYTHING. I enjoy being able to take one lens, the camera, film and a few filters to shoot 98% of everything in the greatest of detail. NO fumbling back and forth for the correct lens. It is the closest thing to an all-in-one (zoom), you can find. The 28/200 is worth the money. Less hassle, Great Quality. My photos are Excellent.