I was lucky and purchased a truly mint condition used Sigma 170-500 for use with my Nikon D80 10.2MP DSLR w/grip. It has been an excellent investment. I have not used any other brand of lens in the 300 to 500mm range, where I use this lens the most (primarily for wildlife and nature), so I cannot compare one vs the other. What I can say is that, when using a tripod with a remote shutter release, the results of images throughout the focal range has surpassed my expectations, especially considering what I paid. And, even handheld, the percentage of shots that were perfectly in focus was pretty good, though nowhere near the nearly 100% when using my tripod. As a note, I use a Manfrotto Bogen 3221W with 804RC2 pan/tilt head. And, on that subject, the Sigma tripod collar is excellent and operates smoothly. At times the lens can be a bit slow focusing, when compared to, say, my Nikon 55-300mm Zoom Lens, but the difference has not been that much to make me dislike the lens in the least. I am quite sure that the Nikon 200-400mm f/4G Super Telephoto Zoom would surpass this lens in every way, but for the price I would expect that to be the case. The colors are very nice and there is good contrast in the images I have taken. The depth of field produces a sharp and clear main object and a great Bokeh (blur) in the background. The zoom operates very smooth throughout, no stickiness or hang-ups. It can suffer from chromatic aberration (CA) in very high-contrast situations where the background is quite bright and foreground objects are dark. There is definitely lens creep, no way around that unless you decide to use a band. For me, I simply have the strap around my neck and hold the camera in my palm, with the lens pointed up, when walking. Keep in mind that this is not a light weight lens. I cannot give it 5 stars for honest all-out performance only 4. For the money, however, I am very pleased with my Sigma 170-500 and would recommend it to anyone who needs to have more than 300mm focal range and does not want to (or cannot, like myself) lay out thousands for a solid performing lens with this focal range. Added Nov 19, 2012: This lens will work in both AF and MF mode with camera bodies that have the motor to drive the lens, such as a D80, D100, D3, etc. It will only manual focus on models such as the D40, D60, D3000, D5100, etc.

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Inexpensive.
Good image for the money.
Fast manual focus.

Slow AF.
Image suffers at extremes.
Big and heavy - but what affordable 500 isn't?

This lens is good value for the money. It is affordable and can indeed produce good photos in general.
I use a sturdy tripod and D70 + D200 Nikon. Both combos work fine.
While AF is slow - it always is when you chase birds etc. - so I use manual focus in anycase! Problem solved!
Being a little careful toavoid full zoom extension can indeed produce very good results - and while showing on a state-of-the-art HP Monitor in 20" size - the images are very,very acceptable.
Want the best - pay for it - 500 prime for 5,000 or use this freely and have a great time getting photos that you otherwise could not...for a very reasonable price!

Similar Products Used:

Nikon VR's - all levels of mm.
Sigma zooms - all levels of quality and size.