Hi, I have a Cannon EOS700D with an 18-55mm and 55-250mm lens. I am perfectly happy with the results but because I am becoming tired of changing lenses for different situations am considering purchasing a single lens to cover both ranges and possibly extend the zoom. Due to limited resources I am I only able to consider used equipment and have narrowed the choice to 3 candidates. Sigma 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 DC Macro OS HSM Contemporary Tamron 16-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD Macro Tamron AF 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC LD Aspherical (IF) Macro. My main photography interests are scenery and wildlife, hence the desire for a long range zoom. Having read numerous reviews of these lenses I am no wiser as to which one would best suit my needs and would welcome any advice that can be offered. Many thanks, Dave
I'd have to dig further into reviews before recommending 1 lens over the other. Un-educated answer without researching these 3 is the sigma may be a good grab, i like them as a 3rd party brand over tameron, heard people get that lens, and it does have some macro ability. Spec wise they are pretty on par, your zoom range is almost the same so your looking at wide through telephoto.... you will only be able to get so close to things with 300ish mm but there is no real low cost option to get between 400 and 800 so 300 is probably your best zoom option without a dedicated really long lens just for birding or something. What I can tell you is your basically buy a swiss army knife so to speak with a lens like these. It does a fine job in many situations, but it is not a dedicated wide angle, telephoto, macro, etc... it is not going to have a really wide aperture like 1.8 or 2.8 where you can get a lot of light and a really soft bokeh for the background like in a portrait. Glass quality will be fine but its not a pro lens so it will be soft in some situations.
between the 18-300mm siggy and 16-300mm tamron the siggy seems to have better image quality with the tamron having worse chromatics as mentioned a long do it all zoom is a stretch for a lens to perform excellent through out esp at the budget end, i'm on EFM but like your body its crop sensor too, the way i went was for my native 18-150mm and the sigma 100-400mm for the wildlife side, if there is an ef 18-150mm lens it might be worth looking into splitting the focal range around the 150mm mark for better image quality, when i first started out i had the 15-45mm and 55-200mm lenses and its for the same reason i switched to a 18-150mm, it was around the 50mm mark switching lenses was a pita, for sure it would be great to find a 18-400mm that had the image quality, the other side of that is if i'm only going around town and not wanting to shoot wildlife i can just run the 18-150mm and not lug big glass around. for you one lens does all the sigma seems to be the first lens to try, if you can get it through mpb they take refunds if you not happy with a lens, if its down to you just not wanting the lens you'll pay the return shipping, if the lens is faulty or not as discribed they send out a courier and pay for the return shipping, i've never had any trouble returning a lens in either situation, they happy to refund etc if you not happy.
