Sigma C 18-200 mm f/3.5-6.3 DC Macro OS HSM review - Distortion

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Sigma C 18-200 mm f/3.5-6.3 DC Macro OS HSM

27 June 2014

Arkadiusz Olech

6. Distortion

It is extremely difficult to correct properly the distortion in megazoom lenses. As a result at the wide angle you often see barrel deformations which level can get near -5%. At longer focal lengths you deal with ‘pincushion’ which value can exceed 2%. The chart we show below sums it up pretty well.

	Sigma 18–200 II OS	Canon 18–200 IS	Nikkor 18–200 VR	Sigma 18–200 OS	Tamron 18–200
18 mm	−3.96%	−5.06%	−5.40%	−4.40%	−5.14%
50 mm	2.44%	1.82%	1.59%	1.20%	1.78%
100 mm	2.09%	1.41%	1.46%	1.00%	1.38%
200 mm	1.78%	1.32%	1.21%	1.00%	1.17%

The newest Sigma C 18–200 mm OS, when stacked up against its rivals, fares very well. At 18 mm you get barrel distortion which value we measured as −3.72%. It remains undoubtedly the best result of all the 18-200 mm lenses we’ve tested so far. At 35 mm you deal already with pincushion deformations amounting to +1.83%. They increase to +2.12% at 50 mm focal length but then their level decreases. At 75 mm the distortion reaches +1.93%, at 125 mm it is +1.64% and at 200 mm it gets to +1.51%. The new model fares better than the old one at every focal length. Also when compared to the competitors its performance is superior – the distortion is a bit higher at the longer end of the focal range but that increase, compared to the results reached by the rivals, is not big; instead you get a far lower level of deformations at the wide angle. I think it’s a price worth paying.

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