eK-gadgets info

Canon SLR (single-lens reflex) owners now have an answer to Nikon’s 18-200mm ultrazoom–as long as they’re willing to buy a non-Canon lens.

Japanese lensmaker Sigma this week announced it’s begun selling its 18-200mm ultrazoom for Canon SLR cameras.

These lenses are flexible, but typically have lower image quality than zoom lenses with narrower ranges or “prime” lenses with a fixed focal length. They’re convenient, though, and often are called “vacation lenses” because they’re popular with people who don’t want to carry a big, heavy bag of better lenses.

Sigma’s new lens is available for Canon cameras now; later models will arrive for Nikon and Sigma’s own SLR cameras.

There aren’t any optical tests yet for the Sigma lens to compare it to the Nikon, but a little compare-and-contrast with the rest of the specs:

• Sigma’s costs $820 compared with about $750 for Nikon’s.

• Both lenses have image stabilization technology, called optical stabilization (OS) in Sigma’s case and vibration reduction (VR) in Nikon’s. Nikon says its second-generation technology will give four F-stops of improvement, meaning that a person who can take steady images at 1/125 second without VR can shoot at 1/8 second with it. (Even if your camera is steady, moving subjects still are blurry, though.) Sigma is mum about the gains from its OS technology.