The new Sigma 8-16mm F4.5-5.6 lens ($699 in the US) is the widest available lens for cropped sensor dSLRs. I’m a big fan of ultra-wide lenses and love putting my Sigma 10-20mm lens on my camera. Let’s see how I liked the Sigma 8-16mm on my Nikon D300, and look at some real-world photographs.

 

 

 

This photo makes the Sigma 8-16mm lens look larger than actually is!

 

Specs, Design, Focus and Operation

• Find out how the lens is constructed, how the auto-focus works, what kind of build quality it was, and how the close-focus performance is

Comparison with other wide-angle lenses & fisheye lens

• See what other wide-angle lenses compare with the Sigma 8-16mm. See test photos taken of the same subject with the Nikon 10.5 fisheye lens and Sigma 10-20mm lens.

Chromatic aberration, vignetting, barrel distortion, flare

Sharpness tests

• Find out which apertures give the best results, and what strange exposure problem I encountered

Sample outdoor photos

• See how the lens actually performs out in nature

Sigma 8-16mm underwater photos

• Underwater photos taken with the sigma 8-16mm lens

Conclusions for topside photography

Conclusions for underwater photography

• Find out if this lens is a good choice for underwater photography. Also includes comparisons with the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye

Discuss this review in our forums

 

Further Reading

Best underwater lenses for underwater photography

Review: Canon 8-15 mm Fisheye Lens

Sigma and Tokina fisheye lenses on a Nikon D800