Sigma 50-500mm Lens advice

badrano · Jan 12, 2014

I'm looking to replace my unrepairable 70-300mm lens and have my eye on the Sigma 50-500mm f/4-6.3 EX DG HSM lens. There have been times where I wish I could have gone further than 300mm. Up till now, I've mostly done air show shots.

Any advice, suggestions on this lens. Also, I'm eying a used one from B&H. It's about $200 more than a new Nikkor 70-300mm.

Thanks,
Omar

KmH · Jan 12, 2014

It's a good lens for the price. I had 2 of the Sigma 150-500 mm for a actions sports photography business because ! already had the 50-150 mm range covered with other glass.

There are 2 versions of the Sigma 50-500 out there.

apaflo · Jan 12, 2014

badrano said:
I'm looking to replace my unrepairable 70-300mm lens and have my eye on the Sigma 50-500mm f/4-6.3 EX DG HSM lens. There have been times where I wish I could have gone further than 300mm. Up till now, I've mostly done air show shots.

Any advice, suggestions on this lens. Also, I'm eying a used one from B&H. It's about $200 more than a new Nikkor 70-300mm.

Thanks,
Omar

Hi Omar,

I peeked at your profile to see what kind of camera you use (D7000), and also found another article you posted that for some reason got no responses at all about Nikon's 80-400mm lenses. That article provided a little more background about how you will use the lens. One thing is missing, how do you use the images? Do you make 8x10 prints, 16x20's or 24x30's? Or is it only for web viewing? Or potentially for any of the above...

Here's the thing, the Sigma 50-500mm is a 10x zoom, which means many compromises. If you must have that range, at both ends, there isn't anything else. If there is any other way, it will probably provide better image quality. But rest assured that a lot of folks who are not super critical, mostly because they rarely ever print large, just love the Sigma 50-500mm.

The Nikon 40-400mm lenses are either (the original version) old and slow or (the new version) significantly more expensive. I would expect you can get good pictures of an airshow with both. Shooting birds in flight is a genuine pain with the older version, as it is just too slow. Clearly, if the price is worth it, the newer Nikon 80-400mm is a lens you would love.

There's a new Tamron 150-600mm lens that will be available next week, which is certainly worth looking at. If the MTF charts are any indication, it will be sharper at 600mm than the 80-400mm is at 400mm! The 80-400mm is smaller and lighter, and has rounded diaphragm blades.

Hence, if the price is left out, it looks like the Sigma 50-500mm is best only if the wide angle part of its zoom range is essential to your needs. The Nikon is best if lighter weight and smaller size, along with the 80-150mm range are important. The Tamron is best if the long end of the zoom range is important, and in particular if large prints are the target.

The Tamron is listed as $1069, the Sigma at $1509, and the Nikon at $2700.

badrano · Jan 13, 2014

Thanks for the detailed reply. True, I didn't go into as much detail on this post as I did on the post about the 80-400 lens. At this point, all the air show photos are just kept electronically. I don't think I would ever print an 8x10 or larger.

I do realize that there will be some compromises with a 10x zoom lens...just don't know exactly what the compromises would be and if they would be significant to me. This is one reason why I was also looking at the 80-400 because of the smaller zoom factor. I believe the Nikkor 80-400mm lens is an FX one so for my D7000, the focal range is more like 120-600. Thinking about this in this manner, the 50-500 is actually 75-750.

I have found that I have used the full 70-300 range on my old lens. I've even had to quickly change to my 18-105 lens at times to get below 70mm. Probably the ideal setup would be to have two bodies with a zoom lens up to 200mm and then the other lens for > 200mm. Thinking about now, my 70-300 was probably 105-450mm.

Oh, what shall I do...such a tough decision to make here, I can't handle the stress. :sillysmi:

j-digg · Jan 13, 2014

I say wait to see how the Tamron 150-600 mentioned above performs. It's looking pretty good so far. Don't pay too much attention to focal length * crop factor math, especially if you don't have a "full frame" basis for comparison.

apaflo · Jan 13, 2014

badrano said:
Thanks for the detailed reply. True, I didn't go into as much detail on this post as I did on the post about the 80-400 lens. At this point, all the air show photos are just kept electronically. I don't think I would ever print an 8x10 or larger.

That is very significant. At least if it actually turns out that way. If you have a lot of nice shots and a couple years down the road decide to start printing, it might be a heart breaker...

But if you only display via a computer the difference in sharpness of all these lenses simply isn't important. Downsizing an image is a very effective low pass filter, and that eliminates all of the high frequency spatial detail of a sharp high resolution image!

What's left are the focal length ranges, price tags, and convenience. That 600mm at the long end of the Tamron is signficant for birds or wildlife and probably for airshows. The 50mm at the short end of the Sigma and it's shorter minimum focusing distance are significant for much of the "environment" around you with almost any kind of work. And the lighter weight of the Nikon lenses is significant if you hand carry this thing all day! You will have to put your own priorities on which means more.

I do realize that there will be some compromises with a 10x zoom lens...just don't know exactly what the compromises would be and if they would be significant to me. This is one reason why I was also looking at the 80-400 because of the smaller zoom factor. I believe the Nikkor 80-400mm lens is an FX one so for my D7000, the focal range is more like 120-600. Thinking about this in this manner, the 50-500 is actually 75-750.

Ignore all this confusion between FX and DX, you only have a DX camera and the only comparsion that makes sense is just the real focal length of each lens. If you later get a full frame body you can then worry about comparing conversion factors, but then it will also make a very visible difference too.

As long as you are downsizing all images for viewing with a computer the 10x zoom's compromises are virtually all going to be invisible to you.

I have found that I have used the full 70-300 range on my old lens. I've even had to quickly change to my 18-105 lens at times to get below 70mm. Probably the ideal setup would be to have two bodies with a zoom lens up to 200mm and then the other lens for > 200mm. Thinking about now, my 70-300 was probably 105-450mm.

Two bodies is a very good idea! I typically have a 24-120mm f/4 lens on one body and then something picked specifically for some given type of work on the other.

But until you have an extra body you'll want to consider just how important that is. The best telephoto would be the Tamron, but it is also the most limited at the short range. The Sigma has a much shorter focal length, and a $400 plus difference in price tag too.

Oh, what shall I do...such a tough decision to make here, I can't handle the stress. :sillysmi:

Such a dilemma! And no matter how badly you deal with this question, the next one will no doubt be worse!

badrano · Jan 14, 2014

Wow...thanks for all that feedback!

I see your point about down the road and I am one of those kind of people that try to plan for the future. If I get really good at this, then I could see trying to print larger prints.

I spent some time last night looking through my airshow pics (last year was the first set of pics with the D7000) and I would say about 90% of the aerial pics are at 140mm+. Other than the static shots, there are some aerial shots (because I was so close to the flight line) at the 70-140mm range. Having said this, it would seem the Tamron lens would be my best choice given focal range, price and IQ.

Since I only seem to hit a few airshows locally a year, I think it would be more cost effective for me to rent another body just for that for now until I could justify a 2nd body. One of the local shops rents a D7100 for $75 for the day and since airshows are typically on a weekend, they consider Sat+Sun as one day if you pick up the rental after 3pm on Fri and return it by 10am Mon....not a bad deal. Other than an airshow, I can put up with changing lens back and forth if needed and when I'm paying off the Tamron lens I can get a 3rd lens to fill the 105-150 gap.

So, the waiting game begins to see how the Tamron 150-600mm lens turns out.

Steve5D · Jan 14, 2014

I've got an old one that I use for those rare occasions when I'm shooting wildlife.

I've found that mine is pretty much razor sharp throughout the range.

Would I buy it again? I dunno', but only because I don't know that my use of it these days (I used it far more in the past) would justify the investment. As for whether or not it's a good, solid lens, it certainly is...