Sigma 500mm f4.5 lens - Optical quality???

[CVP]

Right, quick question to the assembled PH photo masses, has anyone used one of these beasties and what was the quality like???

Mrs CVP and I are taking a lot of wildlife pictures now and her 300mm f5.6 and my 400mm f5.6 are OK, but we seem to be a bit short of reach of a lot of the wading birds/ other wildfowl that we are photographing. Also my 400mm f5.6 is very very slow in focussing. I can't add teleconverters to either set up as the image quality will degrade too much for us.

My thoughts are either a Sigma 500mm f4.5 HSM (new) or a Nikkor 300mm f2.8 AFS (second hand) plus either 1.7* or 2* converter, prices are pretty comparable between the two options (I have been saving for quite a long while on this one ). I've tried the Nikkor without any converters and loved the image quality, and I understand the new 1.7* converter is a cracker. Not tried the Sigma and can't find anywhere that stocks them so I could rent one for weekend before making a very expensive mistake.

Chris

[esprit87]

Haven't tried it personally, but I have seen some samples in the forums on dpreview.com - try searching the forums there.

I remember not being overly impressed at the time though, so if it was my choice (and I wish it was ) I'd go for the Nikkor plus converter.


Cheers

Magnus

[simpo two]

I'm a bit wary of converters as they can only reduce quality. I guess a mirror lens is too slow for you - so is the 300mm + cropping an option (seeing as you're starting woth 6.1Mp)? That's already 450mm is DLSR-land!

[Scooby_snax]

I have heard good reports on the 1.7 converter...I use the 1.4 converter regularly with the 70-200 VR f2.8 and am happy with the results......and so are my clients.
If you look in www.nikonians.com you will find commentary in there. As a message board I find the contributions a little more professional than the dpreview one

[CVP]

Cheers for the info guys.

I'm veering towards the Nikkor AFS 300 f2.8, seen a nice example second hand from a very reputable source. I took a look at the pictures on dpreview from the Sigma and they are nice but do not seem to be a "contrasty" as I have seen from the Nikkor.

Chris

[simpo two]

And the '2.8' part is appealing - so if you do use a teleconverter you have a bit more aperture from which to lose some!

[CVP]

simpo two said:

And the '2.8' part is appealing - so if you do use a teleconverter you have a bit more aperture from which to lose some!

Good point, only downside is the weight of the 2.8 but I can live with that for the light capturing ability

I wish Nikon would put the silent wave motor in the 80-400 as it realy can't keep up focus speed with fast moving objects. For travel type photography it's a cracker, but for fast moving wildlife it's not so good.

Although I did get this one near our house last weekend


The squirrel wasn't too fussed about us being there, he was more interested in eating nuts and other seeds.

Chris

[simpo two]

Smashing pic CVP - nice DOF amd lovely colours.

[CVP]

simpo two said:

Smashing pic CVP - nice DOF amd lovely colours.

Cheers

Also got this one
I think the composition of the other is better but in this one it's eating a hazelnut which I think looks better than the sycamore seed in the previous one. You can even see the crumbs on his chin

Apart from these the small wood also often has a heron visiting the pond, jays and best of all woodpeckers. Loads and loads of the little green ones with the red patch on their heads, but so far I simply haven;t been able to get close enough to get a good picture.

Also finally managed to get some of my pics up on pbase for better display.

Chris

[simpo two]

Couldn't resist sharpening and cropping:



Although your pic is a JPG, when I went to 'save picture' it would only give me 'untitled.bmp' as an option... odd.

[CVP]

simpo two said:

Couldn't resist sharpening and cropping

Excellent. How much sharpening did you use? It's one of the things I'm finding tricky in PS Elements to learn, just how much charpening to apply. I seem to go from an image still looking a bit soft to one looking pixelated with a very minor change to my settings.
Currently I generally use;
1. Sharpening - varying percentage (simply look at one screen to get best estimate)
2. Radius - 0.5
3. Threshold - 0

Any PS advice more than welcome.

Chris

[simpo two]

Well I confess I use the simple version: Filter/Sharpen. I know it can be harsh, but for web work it seems to do the job well.

[CVP]

Cheers. Will have a more detailed paly at home.

Chris