100-300mm internal zoom / internal focus f/4-f/32 9 blades 16 elements in 14 groups w/ 2 low-dispersion elements Content and images originally posted by DiggitalD
Reviews
DiggitalD's review
I've been shooting with the Sigma 100-300mm for a couple years now and have found it to be a decent lens. There are obvious improvements over entry level lenses such as Nikon's 70-300mm:
The build is solid (metal), although the EX finish likes to wear off, especially around the collar groove.
The motor is silent and smooth, as are the zoom and focus rings. The focus ring is nice and big, which is good and bad; it's easy to make adjustments whether you mean to or not. The autofocus is fairly quick, but not the greatest for photographing anything in motion; the camera is also to blame, as is the person using it, but I've had better results with other lenses. As a footnote: while photographing a beach volleyball tournament (women's, of course), the focus ring started coming loose and the AF assembly came apart. Sigma replaced the assembly, but it's a bad thing that it can happen in the first place. It otherwise worked like a gem photographing Kerri Walsh and Logan Tom - jumping around in those little....
It's tough to find any chromatic abberation at all, which is the first thing I noticed when shooting birds in flight.
The colors produced by this lens are good, although not great. The camera's image sensor and post-processing (or film type) weigh in heavily here, but comparing to other lenses, it comes off a bit muted or - to the optimist - neutral. Color is far better than entry level lenses nonetheless.
Sharpness - ah, there we are - is just OK. On lower-resolution cameras, it's generally great. On higher-resolution cameras, its good. On any camera with a 1.4X TC, it's soft around the edges until around f/11, which is not an option for high-speed, less-than-bright-light photography. A 2X TC will act as a great haze filter - giving every image that soft, dreamy look.
Overall, it's a good lens for the price. A number of pro and semi-pro photographers use it with good results. I bought it because the 80-400mm VR from Nikon has such slow autofocus + the Sigma is a continuous f/4. Other lenses with even wider zoom ranges scare me; lens tests show the contrast drop off radically at certain extremes, usually meaning that only a portion of the zoom range is really useful. Canon users are lucky to have the 100-400mm lenses. Nikon is really behind the times with so many products, leaving Sigma and Tamron to fill in the gaps. Nikon glass is better than Sigma, but Sigma is certainly more convenient.
Pros
- easy to handle
Cons
- coupling
- piant finish
postcardcv's review
I got this lens about a year ago to use along side my 500mm, as I wanted a good lens with a good close focus.
The lens feels great in the hand, zoom ring is easy to use while panning as is the large focus ring. The AF is fast and true, I often use this lens for shooting birds in flight and find it tracks very well. The lens takes a 1.4x tc well (becoming a 140-420 f5.6) though the AF is noticably slower. The lens delivers useably sharp shots wide open, though is better at f8 (which is what I tend to use it at).
This is a great short telephoto zoom and offers great value for money, it makes a good biridng lens, expecially if you also carry a 1.4x tc. Defintely better than the 170-500 that I used to use, though a bit more money too.
Pros
- fast AF
- constant f4
- easy to hand hold
Cons
- AF slows with 1.4x tc on
Jeremy's review
I like to have the versatility of a zoom lens within this magnification range, so, based on several good reviews, I decided to upgrade my old Sigma 70-300mm APO macro zoom. In some ways, I wish I hadn`t bothered! (I got many more sharp flight-shots with the older lens.) The lens is reasonably sharp, and, at least with my Sigma tele-extender, works surprisingly well (optically) with a 2x converter. The lens makes a good walk-around lens, perhaps when combined with a wider-angle zoom. I have found the zoom range useful for precise in-camera cropping on long-range landscape shots. However, the major reason I bought the lens was for in-flight photography of relatively large and approachable birds, such as gulls. For that, the lens (or at least my copy of it) stinks! For instance, I took the 100-300mm, along with a Sigma 500mm f/4.5 lens, on a day-trip to Gigrin Farm, to photograph the Red Kites. Using a Canon 20D, I figured I had a number of good shots taken with both lenses. But, on examing them in detail on my computer when I got home, every shot taken with the 100-300mm was out-of-focus! On the other hand, virtually every shot taken handheld with the much heavier Sigma 500mm f/4.5 was pin-sharp. I have since replicated these disappointing results several times. To cap it all, the autofocus mechanism recently stopped working entirely, and the lens had to be sent off for an expensive repair. To sum up: for static subjects, I would recemmend this lens. If you plan to photograph birds in flight (or any other fast-moving subjects), I wouldn`t! Instead, try something in the Canon range, like the 100-400, or the 400mm f/5.6. (I don`t know anything about Nikons!)
Pros
- Good zoom range
- reasonably sharp.
Cons
- Poor autofocus tracking.
