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Sigma 300 F2.8 EX HSM APO-Your opinions needed please (1 Viewer)

christineredgate

Winner of the Copeland Wildlife Photographer of th
I have today come across a used Sigma 300F2.8 at a reasonable price.Has anyone on BF ever used this lens esp with a 2x.The only reviews I can find are on the Fred Miranda site.Quite varied,a couple of chaps said some screws fell out of the mounting!!!!,others said it was a great lens,others rubbish.I realise it would not be as sharp as the Canon 300F2,that lens I could never afford,and I can never see a used Canon lens.Should it produce sharper images using the 2x than the non existent Canon 400F5.6.There would be a slight drop in magnification.
Would I be better to wait for the Canon 400F5.6. I have tried the Gallery,but no images are shown using this lens,so perhaps it is not for BF members ,which speaks for itself.Incidentally WE are selling this lens for 1k off its normal retail price,so do you think there may be probs.
Any advice greatly appreciated,many thanks,
Christine
 
Hi Christine

I've got the new DG version of this lens and, used in conjunction with a Sigma 2x DG TC (giving 600mm f5.6), the performance is incredible. It is performing far better than my Sigma 50-500 f4-6.3 although there is a cost in weight (2.4 kg for the prime v 1.85 kg for the bigma). Probably not fair to compare a fast prime against a zoom though. I suspect I'll use the lens on its own for pelagic work (the main reason for purchase) and close landbirds, with 2x TC for flight shots of raptors (2nd reason for purchase) and more distant landbirds, and with stacked TC's (2x and 1.4x) for small passerines/record shots of anything important which is very distant.

Lack of BF members using this lens could just be down to most seeing zoom as a more affordable option, or going to bigger prime lenses (500/600). I think that for pelagic work this lens is preferable to the bigger prime lenses and I know that many of the very good seabird shots which grace the pages of the popular birding press were taken using 300mm prime lenses. This is also the focal length being used in the cetacean/basking shark photo-identification projects around Mull.

So, an excellent lens but not necessarily meeting most birders requirements.

martin
 
Any example pictures, Martin?

Christine, if the worst thing someone can find to say about a lens is that you have to be careful about making sure the tripod mount screws are tight, they're struggling to find something to complain about!

Overall I thought the Fredmiranda review page to be very positive - the lens gets an overall rating of 9.3.

Stupid comments like "Why would anyone with quality equipment waste their money on third party lenses anyway? There's always problems" and "I will never purchase an off brand lens again" (yeah, like Canon stuff never breaks! ;)) should just be dismissed out of hand: ignoring this nonsense, there's much to take encouragement from in those reviews.

OK, the lens is the size and shape of a bucket, but an optically superlative bucket, I'd suggest!

;) ;) ;)
 
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christineredgate said:
thanks,Martin and Keith.Yes,Martin have you any images taken with the lens you now have ,please?.

All of these were taken with the 300mm f2.8 + 2x Sigma DG TC. The ones taken on 5th february were in horrible murky light. The Siskin was in much better light the following day. No post image processing has been carried out other than to convert from NEF to jpeg.
 

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Hi Christine,
I use the Sigma 300 f2.8 (non DG) with both x1.4 and x2 converters and the quality is superb! Without a converter the lens is staggeringly good, with a 1.4x is superb and even with 2x the quality blows away images taken on my Sigma 80-400 OS zoom, but that monster front element weighs a lot - best results on beanbag/tripod. The pic of the Red throated Diver and Turnstone in my gallery is taken with it + x2 converter and the shots of Nuthatch, LT Tit and Coal Tit taken without any converters. Can't praise it highly enough - and at about 1/3rd the cost of comparable Canon hardware.
 
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Martin and Geedup,many thanks,I put Sigma 300F2.8 into the search gallery yesterday,but it just said no images,but thanks ,Geedup,those are excellent shots.I only want to use this lens on a tripod with the 2x converter.Having searched for weeks looking for used 400/300 F2.8 ,I guess this is the best I am going to find.I am just hoping it will be sharper than Canon's F5.6,with the extender,as that is the lens I have been hanging around waiting for,but as it is F2,then hopefully I have made the correct choice.It should arrive tommorrow,so hope to have a test run in the local river!!
Thanks again,for all replies,just hope I have made the correct choice.
 
Although I don't have this lens I did look into getting one a while back... from what I saw a read it's an excellent lens, it works very well with both 1.4x and 2x tcs - in combo with these two tcs it has a nice range of focal lenths. The only thing that put me off it was the cost, having already got a 500 f4.5 I couldn't justify it.
 
martin kitching said:
All of these were taken with the 300mm f2.8 + 2x Sigma DG TC. The ones taken on 5th february were in horrible murky light. The Siskin was in much better light the following day. No post image processing has been carried out other than to convert from NEF to jpeg.

For some reason these look far darker than they did on my PC.

martin
 
martin kitching said:
For some reason these look far darker than they did on my PC.

Isn't post capture editing software wonderful? I'm sure I could save time and do a better job if I used Raw Shooter Essentials to do the editing before saving the files as jpegs though. Keith, any thoughts?

martin
 

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christineredgate said:
It should arrive tommorrow,so hope to have a test run in the local river!!

It was a lens you were asking about wasn't it??? :)

I have just splashed out on one of the DG versions of the 120-300 f2.8 which was designed starting with a 300 prime. Even if it isn't quite as good as the DG I don't think you'll be dissappointed, with or without TC.
 
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Everyone,very reassuring.It had better be okay,as I have just cancelled some home decorating,I spent the money on the lens!!!.Hopefully tommorrow I will post a couple of pics,fingers crossed.
Incidentally on the suject of Sigma lenses I am sure this chap said he had a Sigma 50-500 for £499,and he also mentioned the other Sigma that some members are using,the other one which goes to 500.Like the one Salty sold.
www.camtechuk.com 01954 251 715.
I also purchased a used 2x,so all in all,not a bad deal for used items.
 
PWG said:
Even if it isn't quite as good as the DG I don't think you'll be dissappointed, with or without TC.
Essentially the only difference is the internal coatings, Paul - the DG lenses are apparently better at suppressing internal reflections - so optically there should be little or no difference.

Hi Martin,

for what it's worth, I use Nikon View and Nikon Capture for my (ahem!) workflow - I review the pics in NV, then open the ones that might be keepers, in NC.

It's pretty quick and easy doing it like that, but a big part of why I use those two is that I'm still on Win Me: if I was running XP I'd probably use RSE.

In any event, my NC workflow is to crop the image, adjust the EV and contrast if necessary in "Advanced RAW", USM (generally 20-30% intensity, 5% halo, 0 threshold) and then save to jpeg.

Any additional minor tweaking gets done with Photofiltre, a very useful little freeware application: to my mind if the picture can't be dealt with there (as opposed to the heavyweights on my PC like the Gimp or PSP 9) it probably wasn't worth keeping in the first place.

With apologies for hijacking the thread, I've attached some examples from St Mary's today, of the NV/NC/Photofiltre workflow (the helicopter coming through at barely lighthouse height did kinda bollocks things up for a while..!)
 

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Yes,I had a go today.Cannot upload any of the shots as the Gallery says they are all over the file limit,very odd,as they are re sized to 800 and 72 in the bottom box,but I have put a help query post on the forum and will go and see if anyone has replied.Mixed feelings.Not as sharp as the 100-400,but that could be 'cos I was handholding,albeit sitting down.The focus was spot on,and focussed straight away with the 2x.But I was pointing the cam up to the chimney pots(on a tripod),so the light was not very good.But it is okay to handhold,I just need to remember it is non is ,and not to move quickly after taking the shot.But ,yes it is a good lens,and after reading the thread re the 400F5.6 and that Canon may bring out a different version,which will be more expensive,then I guess I have made the right move.F2.lenses are expensive,so I think I was lucky to find this one,but will keep practising.It is the first Sigma lens I have been able to use with no auto focus problems.It is very quick and sharp.Cumbersome,but not too heavy.
 
Keith Reeder said:
Essentially the only difference is the internal coatings, Paul - the DG lenses are apparently better at suppressing internal reflections - so optically there should be little or no difference.

Keith, thanks for that. When these companies bring out this stuff they add all sorts of letters etc.. but don't always explain what they are in simple english.

Paul.
 
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