Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 OS - Has Landed!

[Overread]

:mrgreen:

Makes my 70-200mm f2.8 look small and feel light!

The other oddity is zoom and focusing being reversed on the barrel - my pinky finger will have to get used to focusing with it when needed. The light outside is also dull as anything (good old cloud cover ) so nothing really to report on testing yet. A few f7.1 ISO 800 1/80sec shots came out not too bad (considering the less than ideal settings and exposure), though at 300mm and 1/80sec I think I'm pushing it a little near the limits of the OS (the kind of speed where you need a good pose and a wall to lean on to get away with it).

 

[analog.universe]

Sweet! Look forward to seeing some shots, this lens has always intrigued me. I'm particularly curious to see how it does at 300mm f/2.8.

 

[Markw]

Ahh! Wnderful! I've been lusting for this lens for quite a while now. Looks absolutely spectacular. I can't wait to see what you can do with it. Please post some test shots at all the extremes when lighting is good!

Mark

 

[Overread]

300mm shot - the pot came out a little sharper than the birds so I'm thinking either the AF nabbed the pot as opposed to the birds or maybe a tiny bit of focus adjustment is needed (I'll do proper tests for this). Still this thing is heavy - its going to take a while to get used to the new weight and that really does show up when I've experimented with the 2*TC.

No proper 600mm test shots yet, but I can say that image quality makes a big jump between wide open and one stop down (as expected).

 

[rexbobcat]

Which one of your children did you sell in order to buy that lens? I'm just kidding.

I hope the autofocus works well. When test-shooting the Tamron 70-200mm it was like nails on chalkboard for me, and it was slooooowwww, and none too accurate.. Of course, this isn't a Tamron, but it's third-party so I'm just curious.

 

[Overread]

I've not compared it to my 70-200mm directly but the AF is certainly fast enough when on the bare lens itself - no complaints here. Becomes a bit more pedestrian in speed with the 2*TC, but even the 70-200mm also slows down, its a fact one can't get around and that you'll only get better with dedicated primes.

It's also super quite on both AF and OS .

 

[MLeeK]

OH, AM I GREEN WITH ENVY!

 

[jaomul]

Thats one big piece of equipment. How do you find sigma lenses working with teleconverters, is the image quality good

 

[2WheelPhoto]

NICE!

 

[Robin Usagani]

Do you have to use a sigma tC?

 

[Overread]

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7202/6896372259_e108768d23_o.jpg

Canon 7D - Sigma 120-300mm plus sigma 2*TC at 600mm
f7.1, ISO 400, 1/320sec taken on tripod with OS off.
Follow the link for flickr and fullsize version

Only capture sharpening applied by default by RAW processor - nothing else adjusted nor changed from default output.

Not quite as good as my 70-200mm MII with a 2*TC but honestly good enough for me! I've tried some wide open but I can't ever seem to get anything that comes out good so I think f7.1 is a fairly hard line limit for this combo - but with a zoom pushed twice its focal length that is to be expected.

And Canon teleconverters will fit to the 120-300mm so you don't have to use Sigma brand ones

 

[dxqcanada]

Still this thing is heavy -

@ 3kg ... that is not a lens I want to handhold for too long.

 

[LightSpeed]

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7202/6896372259_e108768d23_o.jpg

Canon 7D - Sigma 120-300mm plus sigma 2*TC at 600mm
f7.1, ISO 400, 1/320sec taken on tripod with OS off.
Follow the link for flickr and fullsize version

Only capture sharpening applied by default by RAW processor - nothing else adjusted nor changed from default output.

Not quite as good as my 70-200mm MII with a 2*TC but honestly good enough for me! I've tried some wide open but I can't ever seem to get anything that comes out good so I think f7.1 is a fairly hard line limit for this combo - but with a zoom pushed twice its focal length that is to be expected.

And Canon teleconverters will fit to the 120-300mm so you don't have to use Sigma brand ones

Better than I expected with a teleconverter.
Not bad at all.