Sigma EX 70-200 mm f/2.8 AF APO HSM Lens

ndancona · Jan 28, 2014

Anyone use this lens or used it in the past?

I recently acquired this lens and beginning to regret having decided to get it. I cannot get a sharp image shooting handheld no matter what I try. In comparison a friend has an old Nikon 70-200 f2.8 lens and absolutely loves it. He uses it in low light at slow shutter speeds for concerts and similar stuff and gets great results.

No image stabiliziation on this lens so I keep my shutter speeds fast. Still, shooting at 1/500 or 1/600 I cant get sharp images.

Can anyone say something good about this lens? Or have I wasted my money?

ratssass · Jan 28, 2014

I have the lens and love it.That being said,I have read,here,of bad units.

robbins.photo · Jan 28, 2014

ndancona said:
Anyone use this lens or used it in the past?

I recently acquired this lens and beginning to regret having decided to get it. I cannot get a sharp image shooting handheld no matter what I try. In comparison a friend has an old Nikon 70-200 f2.8 lens and absolutely loves it. He uses it in low light at slow shutter speeds for concerts and similar stuff and gets great results.

No image stabiliziation on this lens so I keep my shutter speeds fast. Still, shooting at 1/500 or 1/600 I cant get sharp images.

Can anyone say something good about this lens? Or have I wasted my money?

I have the OS version and I love it, works like a charm. I get my best results if I stop down the lens a bit rather than shooting wide open, but even at 3.2 it will produce nice sharp images. I have read about some of these units needing to have the auto focus adjusted, that would probably be the first thing I'd check.

Dao · Jan 28, 2014

Can you try to do it in a control environment such as camera on tripod and shoot with a stationary object with artificial light or direct sun light and see if you can get a better result?

ndancona · Jan 28, 2014

robbins.photo said:
ndancona said:

I have read about some of these units needing to have the auto focus adjusted, that would probably be the first thing I'd check.

Click to expand...

What's a good test I can do to check this?

robbins.photo · Jan 28, 2014

Well the make actual cards you can use to take pictures of or for something quick and dirty I've often used street signs. The printed text usually makes it easier to spot focus issues

Sent from my LG-LG730 using Tapatalk

ndancona · Jan 29, 2014

here are some samples:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hypoxicphoto/12194805205/in/photostream/
at 200mm, f2.8, 1/500 exp

dog park 2 sml | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
at 200mm, f4.0, 1/320 exp

focusing is soft and not pin sharp. I know it's a moving subject but its the same when I shoot my kids or scenery.

Dao · Jan 29, 2014

My Sigma is not too sharp when shoot wide open @ f/2.8, however, it is not bad at all when stop it down a little bit.

This one is shot at f/3.5 @ 200mm

In order to really know if your copy is bad, you may need to tape a newspaper on the wall (or book case with a lot of books) and shoot it with the camera on tripod.

robbins.photo · Jan 29, 2014

ndancona said:
here are some samples:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hypoxicphoto/12194805205/in/photostream/
at 200mm, f2.8, 1/500 exp

dog park 2 sml | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
at 200mm, f4.0, 1/320 exp

focusing is soft and not pin sharp. I know it's a moving subject but its the same when I shoot my kids or scenery.

Well the images are too small to really evaluate properly and the exif data isn't available - The shutter speed of 320 at 200 mm is most likely a little too slow for a moving target at that focal length so I'm guessing you've most likely got some camera shake/motion blur issues on that shot.

The 1/500 shot looks better but it's hard to tell if this might be other issues such as a missed focus point from the size of the photograph. As Dao mentions your best results usually come from stopping down the lens a bit from 2.8, I usually go to at least 3.2 on mine if at all possible.

ndancona · Jan 29, 2014

Dao said:
In order to really know if your copy is bad, you may need to tape a newspaper on the wall (or book case with a lot of books) and shoot it with the camera on tripod.

I'll try this over the weekend and post some results for your input. If there is a problem, do you know if it is a very costly fix?

ndancona · Feb 2, 2014

ok I did the test. Took lots of images at various focal lengths and apertures. All at ISO 100, indoors on a tripod with remote shutter release. I put them in photobucket as not going to upload all images here. Lens Test Photos by danconanick | Photobucket

I put the exif info as the image title. Would really appreciate if you could have a look. I am inconclusive as to whether there is a problem or not.

FYI, I was shooting with centre point focus on the magazine, just below where it says "calculating depth of field". The shot with the bottles was just a dof test I did at the end since camera was set up and bottles were lying around. Surprisingly there seems nothing wrong with that image.