Andy Bright
2nd in command
Registered: August 2002
Location: Herts
Posts: 6485
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Review Date: Sun July 19, 2009
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: None indicated
| Rating: 0
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Posted on behalf of Lozninja
Please! read the instructions on the main review page... upload the product, then add your review.
Im' Posting This review Because There Doesn't Seem To Be Much Information On This Lens On Any Forums When I Needed Information Or Advice .
I Picked Up This Lens Second Hand , Bargain it had only been used a few times .
I opened the Box & the lens is all niceley solidly packaged in a proper sigma lens case with decent foam & interior padding .
On pulling out the lens you can see this is a well made & solidly Constructed casing made of alluminiim and is quite large and bulky . It comes with a support handle etc so you can attach to tripods or monopods or for help ith carrying the lens and camera whilst walking etc.
There 3 Electronic switches on the side of the lens , one is a lock , one is a Optical Stabilizer Switch and one is for manual or Auto Focus . All of these Switches are easy to use and are in sensible easy to reach places.
I'm attaching my lens to my Nikon D300 and i need more zoom for wildlife etc without the expensive price tag of the upper end lenses . I know as a rule you get what you pay for with equipment but the feel and quality so far on this lens is very pleasing.
On first walkabout with Sigma the first thing you realize is that it is quite weighty espicially when fully extended to 400mm , looking through the viewfinder focus on a object and i realize now how much i'm wobbling . Turn on The Optical Stabiliser hold steel take a shot and you hear the Optical Stabiliser Correcting the Lens .
There are 3 Settings on the Optical Stabilizer : Off / 1 / 2 . Postion off Is for tripod use etc , Postion 1 is handheld and postion 2 is for panning shots etc. The lens takes approx 1 second to fix the shot in position 1 and does the job very well .
The lens focusing and speed is very good indeed and has nice quite motor, i took several shots in HUSH HUSH Situations and lens didnt scare or frighten anything . Infact the actuall size of the front lens with a hood on is more daunting to animals etc than the noise of the lens.
All in all its done a very fine job indeed it handled everything that i've thrown at it . Focusing resonably quick . Even if you need to slightly adjust the manual focus you quickly just manually the focus ring , which is also a decent size about a quarter of the way up the lens .
All though i dont like tripod shooting ( prefer Walking ) , When used on a tripod you get some nice clear shots . Not quite real crisp profesional shots but very good for most people usage.
My friend uses the Nikon 400mm f2.8 ED VR AF-S , Now that does produce some lovelly crisp clear shots . But unfortunatly you have to have very large budget for one of these as since i dont i'm quite happy so far with my sigma .
All in all the sigma is a budget lens and it performs very well . I don't think you can go wrong with the price as the images it produces are very good .
The only thing i will add is it states in the owners maual that its " NOT WATERPROOF " too many curcuits inside etc so keep this in mind if your planning on using it in harsh environments .
Theres a picture below i took the first day out with it not the best but hay i'm still practicing .
Hope This Help's
Lozninja
Im' Posting This review Because There Doesn't Seem To Be Much Information On This Lens On Any Forums When I Needed Information Or Advice .
I Picked Up This Lens Second Hand , Bargain it had only been used a few times .
I opened the Box & the lens is all niceley solidly packaged in a proper sigma lens case with decent foam & interior padding .
On pulling out the lens you can see this is a well made & solidly Constructed casing made of alluminiim and is quite large and bulky . It comes with a support handle etc so you can attach to tripods or monopods or for help ith carrying the lens and camera whilst walking etc.
There 3 Electronic switches on the side of the lens , one is a lock , one is a Optical Stabilizer Switch and one is for manual or Auto Focus . All of these Switches are easy to use and are in sensible easy to reach places.
I'm attaching my lens to my Nikon D300 and i need more zoom for wildlife etc without the expensive price tag of the upper end lenses . I know as a rule you get what you pay for with equipment but the feel and quality so far on this lens is very pleasing.
On first walkabout with Sigma the first thing you realize is that it is quite weighty espicially when fully extended to 400mm , looking through the viewfinder focus on a object and i realize now how much i'm wobbling . Turn on The Optical Stabiliser hold steel take a shot and you hear the Optical Stabiliser Correcting the Lens .
There are 3 Settings on the Optical Stabilizer : Off / 1 / 2 . Postion off Is for tripod use etc , Postion 1 is handheld and postion 2 is for panning shots etc. The lens takes approx 1 second to fix the shot in position 1 and does the job very well .
The lens focusing and speed is very good indeed and has nice quite motor, i took several shots in HUSH HUSH Situations and lens didnt scare or frighten anything . Infact the actuall size of the front lens with a hood on is more daunting to animals etc than the noise of the lens.
All in all its done a very fine job indeed it handled everything that i've thrown at it . Focusing resonably quick . Even if you need to slightly adjust the manual focus you quickly just manually the focus ring , which is also a decent size about a quarter of the way up the lens .
All though i dont like tripod shooting ( prefer Walking ) , When used on a tripod you get some nice clear shots . Not quite real crisp profesional shots but very good for most people usage.
My friend uses the Nikon 400mm f2.8 ED VR AF-S , Now that does produce some lovelly crisp clear shots . But unfortunatly you have to have very large budget for one of these as since i dont i'm quite happy so far with my sigma .
All in all the sigma is a budget lens and it performs very well . I don't think you can go wrong with the price as the images it produces are very good .
The only thing i will add is it states in the owners maual that its " NOT WATERPROOF " too many curcuits inside etc so keep this in mind if your planning on using it in harsh environments .
Theres a picture below i took the first day out with it not the best but hay i'm still practicing .
Hope This Help's
Lozninja
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www.Digiscoped.com
also, if you're particularly bored, try www.andybright.com - mediocre aviation photography
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