Sigma 400mm apo tele macro- any good? (1 Viewer)

[Boogieshrew]

Hi,

I have just bought this lens.

Is it any good?

I have read good reviews on the net but I'm very interested to hear what people here think of it.

I have the option to return it so it's no problem if you tell me it's pants.

Thanks

 

[a.dancy]

Image quality is not bad. In the old film days I got some pretty detailed shots with this lens. The focus is slow. My lens was chipped for digital though not all of these lenses are. Whether Sigma will put a chip in now is another matter. It might be worth stating what your budget is and what camera you have , or intend to have.

 

[Boogieshrew]

Image quality is not bad. In the old film days I got some pretty detailed shots with this lens. The focus is slow. My lens was chipped for digital though not all of these lenses are. Whether Sigma will put a chip in now is another matter. It might be worth stating what your budget is and what camera you have , or intend to have.

Thanks for your reply. I have gone off this lens now. I have google a lot about it and gone back to the drawing board.

My budget is as little as possible! I don't have a dslr yet. But my wife has anikon d3000. It would be good for me to get Nikon so we can swap lenses but I'm not tied to that because all I really want is a set up for nature/birds.
One that's not too big n heavy. Thats why I'm looking at 400mm. And maybe a TC if I need more mag.
Thanks again
BS

 

[Adey Baker]

I've had one of these lenses for several years, now. Mine is the HSM version for Canon and was re-chipped by Sigma (I bought mine in the January sales back in 2004 when it was a new but 'discontinued' item and the total cost including the lens and all postage charges to and from Sigma, etc. was £270, which makes it the best 'value' wildlife lens in the world to me!). Re-chipping is no longer possible, so it's not a great deal of use without it - the main problem being the lack of communication with the lens aperture which is not possible to operate by any mechanical means on Canon models.

As Adrian says, it can be a bit slow to focus (not drastically so) and using the focus-limiter switch will help a great deal in this respect as a relatively large part of the focus travel is in the close-focus area. It's a fairly old(1995-ish) pre-digital design but there again, the Canon 400mm F5.6 design is older and that's still going strong. My mate has the Canon version and without doing a scientific side-by-side check, there's very little 'real-world' difference in the finished prints that we produce - except when it comes to butterflies and dragonflies, etc., where I can fill the frame without too much problem with the subject whereas my mate then has to either crop his image or change to his macro lens to compete. I should emphasise that I've been using either a 300mm or 400mm lens of some sort for about 40 years, often hand-held, so a bit of practice is needed to get consistently sharp results.

Check my gallery here on Birdforum:http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/1805 where a large percentage of the shots are taken with this lens. Many of the butterfly shots from my Continental holidays were only really possible with this lens as time would not have allowed me to concentrate on each subject with my 50mm macro lens (not without getting a serious talking-to from my ever-patient wife, anyway!).

This test report: http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/306-sigma-af-400mm-f56-hsm-apo-macro-test-report--review found the lens to be slightly better than the Canon model on an 8Mp EOS camera. As the report suggests the focus-limiter and AF/MF switches feel a bit flimsy but I've not had any problems - yet.

 

[Boogieshrew]

Hi Adey,

thanks for the info. I have searched for chipped versions but they are the proverbial hens teeth. Shame, I think this lens would make a great budget entry to bird photography.
I'll keep an eye out for one but I'm not hopeful.

All the best
BS

 

[Adey Baker]

One of the regular advertisers in 'Amateur Photographer' magazine, 'Nicholas' of Camden High Street, NW1, have had the HSM version for sale at £575 for quite some time. At this price it really ought to be a re-chipped example but, as they've had it on sale for a lengthy period, I rather suspect it's just an over-priced non-chipped model.

Considering how well the Canon lens still sells, I'm at a loss to understand why Sigma don't still do this lens (in an updated, digital version). 135mm or 120mm-400mm zooms may be all very well, but in test reports they never seem to be at their best at the longest end of the zoom range, yet if you were to ask wildlife photographers, I bet they'd say that the vast majority of their shots were taken at 400mm anyway!