My $10 28mm f/2.8 steal deal

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480sparky

Senior Member
While haunting the local camera store, I occasionally dig around in a box they have in the back that's chock-full of oddball old lenses. Most of them are broken, scratched or otherwise usable only for paperweights and doorstops.

Yesterday, however, I found a nifty little Sigma 28mm f/2.8 Mini-Wide II in a Nikon mount down at the bottom. Some of the markings on the barrel have worn off, but the front glass has just a couple barely-perceptible scratches and the rear glass is perfect. No internal dust is visible. The price tag has fallen off, so I asked what they'd want for it. Their response: $10.

NikkorvSigma28.jpg


I took a pair of test shots to compare it with my Nikkor 28/2.8 AF. Although I'm losing AF with the Siggy, I gotta say it blows the Nikkor out of the water.
 
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480sparky

Senior Member
Managed a bit of time to take a couple of comparison shots. Knowing the achilles heel of the Nikkor AF is the terrible corners at ANY aperture, but f/11 being the lesser of 7 evils, I took two equal shots with both.

This is the extreme lower left corner of both, at 100%:

Nikkor:

12Nikkor11Post.jpg



Sigma:

5Sigma11Post.jpg



The Sigma tends to underexpose a bit, as well is giving a more blue cast to the images. But these were shot in JPEG simply for sharpness comparison, so shooting in raw will give me far more lattitude in editing and correcting these small discrepencies.
 
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papafrankm

Senior Member
Great find, I love working fully manual. Feels like YOU are taking the pictures.

Sent from my GT-P5113 using Tapatalk
 
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SkvLTD

SkvLTD

Senior Member
I nabbed the Super-Wide II a good while back off ebay, with original leather case for $40. Haven't seen these for less than 80 since, so $10 in what looks to be great shape is awesome indeed!

And yea, lens itself is very solid for the price today.
 
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480sparky

Senior Member
Took 'er out for a test drive this afternoon. Loaded up with the 20mm Nikkor, 50/1.8D, 105/2.8 micro D, Siggy 15mm fisheye and tossed a roll of ISO 400 into the 'ol FM2n. Will develop the roll tonight.
 
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