Help with compatibility

[Shaun Fisher]

Hello all.

I bought my Canon 500D a few months back, my first DSLR and hoping I knew what I wanted out of photography, I bought just the body & bought the lens seperate off of E-bay.

The lens I bought is a Sigma, 28-200mm Aspherical IF for Canon (as publicised) yet when I take a photo (I can take one when I turn the camera on thats how I know it works), an error comes up saying "Communications between the camera and lens is faulty. Clean the contact lens.

This is all good and well, yet they are clean and the other option given by Canon is "use a canon lens. Thats fair enough I suppose.

So my question is Is the Sigma, 28-200mm Aspherical IF compatible with the Canon 500D?

If not, would anyone want one? I'm in Europe and am open to offers.

Lens is in good condition.

Thanks in advance.

Bosque

[sk66]

It's compatible. I suspect weak or misaligned contacts.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by sk66

It's compatible. I suspect weak or misaligned contacts.

Bingo. That, and the Sigma lenses are reverse engineered to fit the Canon mount: which means they may not work 100%

[inkista]

If the lens is old enough that it pre-dates digital SLRs, my suspicion would be that the lens needs rechipping. This is always the big danger of going to the 3rd party lens makers for bargains: future compatibility. Since they're reverse engineering, you can only really be sure that it will work with the current version of the mount. Once Canon tweaks the mount to add a feature, they'll only ensure that their own lenses work--they don't care if Sigma/Tamron/Tokina lenses do, and it's not like they open up the signalling protocols they're using to anybody else.

Communicating EXIF information was one big feature change.

[Shaun Fisher]

Thank you all for your replies. Once I'm sure it works on another camera I'll be sure to try and sell it on.

[Shaun Fisher]

Sigma 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 DL Aspherical Hyperzoom Macro

As a quick follow up & a huge help on selling it, is there anywhere where I can find out about which brands this lens will work on?

[sk66]

yeah, sigma's site...

[Shaun Fisher]

Well, its like some say: Theres no such thing as a stupid question.

Until now.