New Lenses - C&C

Heather Koch

No longer a newbie, moving up!
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Dog in the second shot is slightly OOF. Are those shot through a window? The tennis shoe looks sharp. With a 70-300mm lens at longer focal lengths, the shutter speed must be adequately fast to stop ALL camera movement and vibration AND all subject movement, or the results will be soft. Also, focus must be perfect too, or images will be soft. Speeds needed depend on the user, but think 1/500 second for hand-held shots made on the go.

Again, the dog shots look like they might have been shot trough glass, and as I mentioned, the second one appears to me to be out of focus by a foot or two. also, both were shot at 1/250 second, which is just not a fast enough shutter speed to ensure ABSOLUTELY sharp images....that speed is borderline. It's hard to acept, but speeds like 1/500 are far better, and 1/640 or 1/800 or 1/1000 will actually be better in many situations on many subjects.

If you have a tripod, you might try some experiments to see what happens at different speeds. Also, f/5.6 is wide-open; you might see better results at f/.1, as long as the shutter speeds are fast, and/or the camera is supported well.
 
Yes shot through a glass door. It was cold and I just wanted to see how the lens worked then my puppy ran on that hill, so I didn't have time to set the camera settings. I will try and shoot at a faster shutter. I did end up taking it out at night to shoot the moon and non of the shots were better than with my 18-200... Perhaps I didn't have the setting right, but did not impress me at all.
 
The Sigma shoots look really nice!

I cant wait to see what other outside shots you can get with it.

The only sigma lens I have is the 18-35 1.8, which I love.
 
I had a nikon 70-300 VRII lens and its one of the lenses I really wish I had kept.
never had sharpness issues with mine.
 
The Sigma shoots look really nice!

I cant wait to see what other outside shots you can get with it.

The only sigma lens I have is the 18-35 1.8, which I love.

Yes, I absolutely love this lens! Can't wait for spring to come.


I had a nikon 70-300 VRII lens and its one of the lenses I really wish I had kept.
never had sharpness issues with mine.

Perhaps it could be the software needs updating? The seller did mention that to me.
 
I have the Nikon 70-300 VR. It has a rep for being soft as you get out near 300mm, but I haven't found it too bad. Well, it was soft on my D90, but I've since replaced that body with ones that allow AF fine tuning so maybe that improved my opinion somewhat. It's not what I would call a "robust" build, but I've had mine close to 5 years without a problem. I like Sigma glass, but I have noticed that live view focus will not work on some of them (35 f/1.4 Art). Luckily I only use live view for macro.
 
Like others, my 70-300 will begin softening up around 225mm and beyond. I've found that to get acceptably sharp images beyond 200mm, I need to be at f/10 or above. Below that, and you can see the loss of sharpness. However, below 200mm, I'm hard pressed to find much difference between it and my 70-200 f/2.8 in terms of sharpness, regardless of the aperture, and it's a lot lighter. If I'm shooting in good light and lugging my camera around, I will often opt for the 70-300 over my 70-200.

That Sigma looks nice and sharp, though!
 
Thanks everyone!
 
Anytime I use my 70-300mm VR out near 300mm I try and stop down a bit if I want more sharpness and leave it at f/5.6 if I want to have a smooth background. Like Derrel noted it helps to have a fast shutter speed although I have a shot taken at 1/15 at 300mm of a still subject that looks fine.
It has been an excellent lens for my small travel bag and I often carry it around at events that are a full day, I do not have a super zoom.
 

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