Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 DG OS HSM Sport Lens

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snappit

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Ken
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Hi. Has anyone had experience of using this lens with an R series camera. I have just purchased an EOS R7. I need a 70 -200 and although the EOS RF 70-200 f2.8 is the obvious lens, at £2,600 is rather expensive for me. The Sigma is around £1200 and has excellent reviews with many saying it as good as the canon EF 70-200. I know it will work with the adapter, but my main concern is the weight and how it will balance with the smaller camera, as it has been reported as quite heavy. Have others used this and how do they find it? My main use for it will be Horse Racing photography so I won't be holding it up for long periods as you would in other sports so perhaps the weight isn't really a big issue (apart from carrying it around) but I'm mostly concerned with the balance especially as there is no battery grip for the R7.

Thanks
 
Once you put the adapter on the R7 virtually every EF lens IMO becomes a bit front heavy, I use mine with the Canon EF 70-200mm MKII and it's ok but I really do miss not having some sort of battery grip, so much so I have thought about selling the R7.

Have you thought about the F/4 version? much smaller and sharp wide open.
 
Thanks Mike. I am now considering an F4 as you can get a used one for around £400. My main concern with that is because I want to do more racing photography the light can get a bit lower at the end of the meeting or if it's cloudy, and the f2.8 would be a help. I have just been reading about people who have modified an old grip for the 20D to work with the R7. You can't use it for more battery power but it gives that extra surface area which may help with the balance.
 
If you do go for the f/4 then get the IS version, little dearer but it would help in low light. The Canon 2.8 MKII version is very good and could be had cheaper than the Sigma (used) plus it takes the Canon 1.4x III well giving you more reach if needed.

I saw the modifications they are doing to the 20D grip, seems to work ok but it's a lot of faffing about when you want to change the battery, for the life of my I can't understand why Canon haven't bought out a grip for the R7 as (from what I can see) they would sell bucket loads.
 
snappit said:
Thanks Mike. I am now considering an F4 as you can get a used one for around £400. My main concern with that is because I want to do more racing photography the light can get a bit lower at the end of the meeting or if it's cloudy, and the f2.8 would be a help. I have just been reading about people who have modified an old grip for the 20D to work with the R7. You can't use it for more battery power but it gives that extra surface area which may help with the balance.
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In a same way you can get 2.8 ii for well under £1000 now. It is no joy on tiny RF bodies. F4 feels so much better balanced. I prefer to keep mine on 5d whenever possible, and I also much prefer the ergonomics of 5d, and then 1dx and r6 is just an absolute last resort measure
 
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Would I be right in saying that for something like photographing horse racing you wouldn’t use it at F2.8 anyway as the depth of field would be too shallow ?
I may be wrong though but when I photograph larger animals using my 300 2.8 I very rarely actually shoot at F2.8
Ive had my 70-200 F4 since 2006 it’s excellent and light too
 
I use the sigma 70-200 2.8 and the sigma 120-300 2.8 on my dx2 both are very sharp lenses and love them both
 
LCPete said:
Would I be right in saying that for something like photographing horse racing you wouldn’t use it at F2.8 anyway as the depth of field would be too shallow ?
I may be wrong though but when I photograph larger animals using my 300 2.8 I very rarely actually shoot at F2.8
Ive had my 70-200 F4 since 2006 it’s excellent and light too
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I would use 300mm and longer lenses wide open at every opportunity because images look best in background areas, dof gains are minimal even at f11, keeping iso down, shutter speed up and so on. These lenses should have no sharpness issues right from wide open.
You don't want images looking the same like they were shot on some mega cheap 70-300mm f5.6
 
LongLensPhotography said:
I would use 300mm and longer lenses wide open at every opportunity because images look best in background areas, dof gains are minimal even at f11, keeping iso down, shutter speed up and so on. These lenses should have no sharpness issues right from wide open.
You don't want images looking the same like they were shot on some mega cheap 70-300mm f5.6
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thanks will try wide open next time , at this time of year I’m mainly photographing big cats at the zoo and every couple of years or so Africa
I have had issues in the past when focusing on the eyes the nose being just out of focus although that was quite close to a leopard up a tree and I was able to focus stack 2 shots so it worked out ok
 
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Just like to thank you all for your replies. In the end I decided to bite the bullet and purchase the canon rf 70-200 2.8. Yes, very expensive but found SRS systems had knocked £100 off taking it to £2629 where everyone else was charging £2729. I also got a Christmas discount code of a further 10% and then £190 canon cashback bringing it to a much more reasonable £2176. Still expensive but I thought getting the RF would make the most of the R7. Now looking for a 100-400 but will probably get a used version, canon, sigma or tamron.
 
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