HELP PLEEEEAAASSE Sigma 300mm 2.8 prime or sigma 120-300 2.8 (1 Viewer)

Hi there,

I am new here, about 10 mins old. Brief listing of my gear, Pentax K-r, 100mm macro 2.8 WR, 50mm f1.7 A, 35-70mm f4 macro, 85-210 f3.5 and 18-55.
Canon 1Ds mkII and 22-55mm f4-5.6.
I have owned the canon for about 3 weeks now, the pentax is what i used to do everything with. Telephoto work i would use the 85-210. But then a few months ago i went to The Gambia and it was nowhere near long enough and i was really quite angry. i then decided to buy myself a 1Ds mkii, with the canon 100-400L in mind after christmas in the near. But at 5.6 at the long end it seems a bit slow. So i was looking up some alternatives the other day and i came across the sigma 120-300mm 2.8, has anyone here got any experience with this lens doubled up with a 2x TC???
Another candidate is the siggy 300mm 2.8 prime, again, anyone...any experience with this and a 2x TC (or 1.4)

Any help would be much appreciated, as i reeeeally cant toss up between these two lenses. I think i may have gone off the idea of the 100-400. (btw, i cant afford big 500 primes. and i dont want the 400 prime)

Hi, welcome to BF. I have moved your post to a more appropriate forum.
Best regards,
Andy

Might be a little late now but I have the Sigma 300mm F2.4 and have used it on a Canon 1D MKIII with a 1.4x extender when I was in the states last year and had some excellent results. As long as you have good light then the results shouldn't be to bad.

Certainly for bird photography the minimum that you can get away with is 300mm, anything less and you will have to be very close indeed.

Dealt with on this thread http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=2614016#post2614016

Hope my reply is not too late to be useful.

I recently owned the sigma f2.8 120-300 and used it with both the 1.4tc and 2.0tc. I specifically bought for a safari and took to Tanzania where I found it excellent. The zoom utility was v useful and optically it was fine. However, on safari I did not use the tcs very much as I did not need them. Back in the UK I intended to use it as my birding optic and here I struggled a bit. I found that in a fixed location (say a bird hide using a bean bag) I got some very good shots and in combination with the 1.4tc it was very good too. However, as a walk about lens I struggled, particularly in the gloomy UK weather, because it is a heavy lens and not particularly well balanced and I found it very difficult to keep it steady enough for sharp images. I struggled even more with the x2tc and found myself not using that a great deal. I also found BIF photos near impossible, but that might have been due to the limitations of my camera (a Nikon D5100) rather than the lens (and my poor technique).

In the end I sold the lens and tcs and bought myself a very reasonably priced used Nikon f2.8 300mm VR1. Although a heavy lens too I find this easier to use.

I have not used the Sigma 300mm prime but I have seen it and it is much less of a 'beast' than the zoom and on that basis I would be tempted to take a careful look at that.

There appears to be a lot of the last version of the 120-300 zoom (the one without the focus limiter) on the second hand market at the moment and, if that is your inclination, it should be possible to pick up a very reasonably priced one.

Not a very technical assessment but I hope it helps.

Incidentally, if you look in my gallery most of the images were taken with the 120-300 zoom coupled with the 1.4tc.

All the best

David