Woo hoo! The new lens is here.
Of course, the UPS guys like to make you sweat so the thing arrived at 4:30 after I'd almost given up. And after a month of glorious sunshine, we had thick overcast and rain today. That limited me mostly to some macro tests (sunshine returns tomorrow). I didn't buy this lens for macro but I did some tabletop tests to check it out. It's performing extremely well.
The figure below is a small resin model of the Metaluna Mutant that I use for all of my macro tests (wouldn't be surprised if I've posted a picture of him here before...but this is more about the lens). He's about 2 3/4" tall. Well, the 50 cent piece indicates his size.
The top image is taken at 50mm, f8, 1/20sec. The bottom image is a 100% crop of part of the top image. For those not familiar with the term, a "100% crop" refers to a small portion of the image which is reproduced at full size since, obviously, the entire image is too big to post. I took a 600x600 pixel portion of the top image and posted it at 600x600 pixels...100% of the actual size.
I'm delighted with the result. Excellent sharpness, contrast and color. Full marks.
![](http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q14/Brent_Gair/misc/siigmac1a.jpg)
![](http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q14/Brent_Gair/misc/siigmac1b.jpg)
And here's a note about cost:
When the lens arrived, I owed PST, GST and a small duty charge of $8.94. When it's all converted to Canadian dollars, the grand total inclusive of everything (taxes, duty, UPS shipping) was 544.00CDN. I just checked Henry's in Canada and they show this lens in stock with the 4/3 mount for $669.00CDN. But they charge $9.95 shipping and you still pay the PST and GST so it works out to $760.00CDN to get the lens to me. So I'm still ahead by $215.00CDNby ordering from the US.