300mm 2.8 lens choices

Darren h

Darren h

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Darren Hopwood
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I'm looking to get a 300mm lens and i have a budget of £3000. It'll be used for birds and also some Motorsport.The two i'm interested in is the Sigma APO 120-300 F2.8 EX DG OS HSM sport or a used Nikon AF-S 300mm 2.8G IF-ED VR (MPB have some for sale) I've had a Canon 300 2.8 prime so i'm assume the Nikon version is of an equally high quality but had no dealings with Sigma. I've heard good things about the Sigma but not heard anything of the new Sport version. Any input would be appreciated to make my mind up.

Kind regards,
Daz
 
Nikon 300 f2.8 is one of Nikon's finest, my input would be that the Sigma would only be preferred if you need the zoom :)
 
I had the Sigma 120-300 and it was excellent, the newer OS ones get even better results. However, if using for birds,then the majority of the time it will be at 300mm,with a 1.4 tc on quite often. If I was buying again, I would plump for a second hand Nikon 300 2.8 prime.

Saying that, Mark Malloy uses the Sigma zoom with very good results.

@markyboy.1967
 
Cheers Fracster! If i didnt have a longer prime then i would have the Nikon 300 VR with a 1.4 and 2x convertors. With having the 600f4 already then the flexabity of the Sigma makes more sense to me. I use with a 1.4tc all the time and it comes in very very handy. As Ade said the newer version and the sport version is meant to be superb for the money but Sigma dont have a decent 2x convertor for the lens.
 
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Is VR/OS a must? If not then a Nikon 300 2.8 AF-S non-VR can be picked up for less than £2k. I owned one until earlier this year and it was ridiculously sharp. Only sold it to move to a 500 f4.
 
markyboy.1967 said:
Cheers Fracster! If i didnt have a longer prime then i would have the Nikon 300 VR with a 1.4 and 2x convertors. With having the 600f4 already then the flexabity of the Sigma makes more sense to me. I use with a 1.4tc all the time and it comes in very very handy. As Ade said the newer version and the sport version is meant to be superb for the money but Sigma dont have a decent 2x convertor for the lens.
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Sorry to hijack but has anyone tried the 120-300 sport with the new 1.4x and sigma 2x converters I'm hoping with sigmas recent attitude and success these may perform very well with said lens. I am looking at the same options but on a Canon.
 
markyboy.1967 said:
The sport performs very well with the 1.4tc but the quality falls quite a bit with the 2x tc.i haven't tried myself but all images and tests i have seen seem to back this up.
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I don't think it falls significantly worse than the Nikon prime + Nikon TC's. I will say that you *must* use the Sigma TC's with it as the performance is horrible with Nikon's TC's.

The prime is slightly shorter and slightly lighter, but I would probably choose the zoom (motor sport).

Sigma 120-300 w/ Sigma 2x (earlier versions of both).

Blue Gray Gnat Catcher by skersting66, on Flickr
 
markyboy.1967 said:
Thanks for posting that steven, could you put up your exif tot i have a look and how much sharpening was involved in this image.Cheers.
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Exif and full size view on Flickr. Everything pretty standard for me except I used a higher ISO in order to stay at f/8 due to the 2x TC.

I didn't do a great job of masking the BG ISO noise removal (added blur).
 
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I recently bought the 120-300 sport and an really enjoying it. Before that I had a canon and sigma 300 prime. The canon was an F4 though.

The zoom on the sport is proving really useful. Even if it's just to knock back from 300 to 250, it means I can get the full image in without moving. Sometimes getting back further just isn't an option.

If I was always shooting at 300 and then cropping to get closer I would definitely have bought the 300 prime, but as it is I like a little more flexibility and the sport gives me that without coming up short on image quality

There are a number of images on my flickr using the lens in the first couple of weeks ownership. Although it's canon fit not nikon
 
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I have both the Sigma 120-300 & Nikon 300 VRII. Both are good, the Nikon is better
 
I owned the nikon 300mm f2.8vr1 until recently and I can say its a fantastic lens. At 300mm it's excellent. You hardly notice using a 1.4tc on it, even the 2x TC impressed me and was very usable. The only reason I sold it on was I found I was taking teleconverters on and off in the field whilst lying I front of animals and wanting the ability to swap between wide and close compositions quickly. I ended up swapping to a 200-400 f4 vr2 for the zoom. I do sometimes miss the 300mm f2.8 but having a zoom is useful for me. The real test to see if the swap was worth it for me will be water voles in the spring as it's where I had the teleconverter issue the most.

If you don't need a zoom then the 300 f2.8 and 1.4/2x TC's give good versatility, I'm guessing for birds and Motorsport a fixed focal length isn't going to be took much of a problem.
 
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