Sigma 70-300mm F4-5.6 APO Macro DG Opinions please

maddog.mark

maddog.mark

Suspended / Banned
Messages
3,467
Name
Mark
Edit My Images
Yes
As the title says, I'm thinking of buying one of these. It looks like a reasonable lens, although I've not had a play with one yet.
I'd be really grateful for any views good or bad on this lens. It will be going on the front of a 400d.
Thanks
 
A lot of people have this lens and my opinion (as it seems with other people too) is that the lens is ok, but it is far from brilliant. In the right conditions it can be sharp and lovely, in the other maybe 85% of conditions it is pretty soft. It is very rarley that a shot over about 220mm is sharp on mine. Its a good lens if you want a cheap zoom. But you do get what you pay for :(
 
I love mine - shot this with it during my first tryout:

fatsia.jpg
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
A lot of people have this lens and my opinion (as it seems with other people too) is that the lens is ok, but it is far from brilliant. In the right conditions it can be sharp and lovely, in the other maybe 85% of conditions it is pretty soft. It is very rarley that a shot over about 220mm is sharp on mine. Its a good lens if you want a cheap zoom. But you do get what you pay for :(
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response, as you say you get what you pay for I. If I had a spare £900 I'd go for a nice piece of white glass but I don't:shake:

Marky H nice shot, was this with the macro facility on the lens?
 
I have it, and I love it.
I've yet to use an L or similar lens, so I have nothing to compare it to, but so far its treated me really well.

I think its probably best that I haven't used an L yet, because no doubt I'd throw the sigma in the bin in disbelief. :P
 
I had one before my Nikkor 18-200mm AF-S lens.

The only thing I wasn't a fan of was the focus speed; so no HSM. AF-S is Nikkor's equivalent.

Otherwise I was actually quite surprised as to how well the photos came out.

When I went to the Goodwood FoS 2007, it was a really, really, **** day. It was wet, cloudy, cold, etc.

But I thought I did well with my sports shots. Obviously having only to shoot one car at a time did help, so probably wouldn't be any good at the Nürburgring!
 
Some examples:

bike.jpg

morgan.jpg


OK, barring the, erm, bar lol, look at the car:

ferrari.jpg

ferrari02.jpg
 
I have one and it's fine up to 200mm, after that it's still ok but softer. Well worth the money if you can't afford better.
 
Great lens in terms of sharpness and colour, it can feel a bit cheap and slow at times though. Here's a shot I was very happy with using my Sigma 70-300 APO.

butterflysmalles9.jpg


This is 300mm @ f/6.3, no editing.
 
I have one for my D50 and it's very nice, mine is pretty sharp even at 300 mm, but it's not a particularly good one for use with, say, close-up filters (although with those you have to stop down quite a bit anyway).
The lens itself is of decent optical quality, but it's AF is a little slower, but still faster than my manual focusing skills for now and it's quite useful for tracking some birds like seagulls, etc.
I've even managed to get some photos of swallows with it, although the miss amount was pretty big, there were not many keepers.
In good light or with a tripod, it's a nice lens.
 
Agree with the above its a good starting lens which i've personally found to be OK, here is two of my favs shot with mine....

rob-1.jpg


rob-2.jpg
 
i had the sigma and also the canon 75-300 usm
the canon was slightly sharper which surprised me as the canon dosent get that good a review but the sigma has the macro mode which is handy far from pure macro but quite handy
they also both worked ok with the kenko 1.4 teleconverter on good light
 
Thanks for all the feedback folks.

Glen that first shot is superb, was that at 300mm?
 
My first lens really. Bought a D50 with the 18-55 lens and needed something with a bit more distance because I wanted to do some wildlife pictures for a college course. So....

Limited by lack of funds and such, I bought the Sigma 70-300mm but not without a LOT of review reading and stuff and after all the researching I did, I was happy when I decided on this lens and, after having it for nearly a year now, I'm still happy I bought it.

301352-292d11ab-c6dd-4a24-aa76-8525d3e61803.jpg


Probably my best picture taken at 300mm.
 
Used mine for all my speedway stuff prior to last winter and I have to say I loved it. A lot of folk say that it's slow to focus in low light but I didn't particularly find it so although if I ever swap back to it again now from using my 70-200 L I do notice the different a bit I must admit! For the price though you're not going to get a lot better IMO.

Never found an issue with sharpness either - this is a sample shot using it

386840173_4e14c203a9.jpg


If things weren't sharp it was usually "operator error" in my experience - perhaps mine was just a good one?!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top