Forum: Q & A

Steven Scott said:

Of those you listed, I think the Sigma 8mm F3.5 is a dominant lens for worldwide panographers. I'll let the others give their say.

KVSSetty said:

Hello to All ,

I am very new here and recently started to shoot Panos with my Nikon DX camera and 18-80mm lens made quite a few good cylindrical panos with Hugin.

Now wanted to make Spherical panos and ordered NN5L, yet to receive the head.

Mean while, wanted to buy a good wide angle and after some study and surfing short listed as follows:

# Nikon 10.5mm
# Sigma 8mm F3.5 EX DG
# Sigma 4.5mm F2.8EX DC

But unable to take a final decision.

So any help and suggestions is most welcome.

Thanking all the experts here for any help.
KVS Setty

Doug Aurand said:

Not sure why Matt sells so many more Absolute heads for the Nikkor 10.5mm than for the Sigma 8mm

Doug Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

mediavets said:

Perhaps because 360Precision heads are 'top end' products, Nikon users with fancy cameras (and for me a D200/D300 would be a pretty 'fancy camera') and deep pockets tend to buy only Nikkor lenses and to be rather dismissive of third-party lenses like the Sigma range.
Andrew

di19026 said:

mediavets said:

Perhaps because 360Precision heads are 'top end' products, Nikon users with fancy cameras (and for me a D200/D300 would be a pretty 'fancy camera') and deep pockets tend to buy only Nikkor lenses and to be rather dismissive of third-party lenses like the Sigma range.
Andrew

Well considering that the Nikon 10.5 sells for less than either of the two Sigmas mentioned- yet provides for better image quality, your statement doesn't actually make much of a point.

Doug Aurand said:

Tim Hatch's Equipment breakdown for the World Wide Panorama project shows the Nikkor is more popular than the Sigma among contributers, but ony a little

timhatch.com/projects/wwp-equipment/

Unfornately he doesn't have separate numbers for the f/3.5 and the f/4 versions.

Doug Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

mediavets said:

'Deep pockets' referred more to purchase of 360Precision heads, and secondarily to the tendency of Nikon users with deep pockets (like the corporate users/purchasers Matt cited) to stick to Nikkor branded lenses - in case of this particular lens - the Nikkor 10.5mm FE - it ain't so much about cost it's about the brand, for such customers sticking to the Nikon/Nikkor brand constitutes a 'safe buy' and a more easily defended purchase decision.

Anyway, it's just idle speculation on my part.

Andrew

di19026 said:

mediavets said:

'Deep pockets' referred more to purchase of 360Precision heads, and secondarily to the tendency of Nikon users with deep pockets (like the corporate users/purchasers Matt cited) to stick to Nikkor branded lenses - in case of this particular lens - the Nikkor 10.5mm FE - it ain't so much about cost it's about the brand, for such customers sticking to the Nikon/Nikkor brand constitutes a 'safe buy' and a more easily defended purchase decision.

Anyway, it's just idle speculation on my part.

Andrew

It is a little more involved than that.

The Nikon 10.5 for example is totally integrated within Nikon Capture/NX, which has built-in ability to correct things like chromatic aberration, vignetting and distortion correction specifically for this lens during raw conversion. This is another convenient aspect of the pairing.

Doug Aurand said:

That's one reason the Sigma lenses are so popular, they're made for more brand of cameras. Duhhh

And while the 10.5mm may produce better quality, its at the cost of needing more shots, 6+Z+N vs 4+Z+N and the Sigma 8mm can do 4Tilt + Nadir eliminating the Zenith

And on the Internet, I've yet to see any visible difference in final output.

The quality of Virtual Images diplayed on the Web, shot with similar quality cameras by similarly skilled photographers on the same quality panoramic heads, using the same stitching software are indistinguishable as to what lens was used.

Doug Aurand
Albuquerque, NM