My experience has been a bit different than most others here, as I find this lens to produce very sharp images. I use it on a Nikon D70, and shoot RAW files. I've shot mostly in the focal length range of 400mm to 500mm, still good and sharp. drywall company near me atlanta ga

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Great optics - sharp even wide open, great color and contrast. Flair and AC are not bad to be noticed. Good tripod collar. My kids really enjoyed using this. | SF Concrete Pumping

Lens creeks terribly.

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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is slow and dust going in I am looking to clean dust from inside of the lens ?
but for price I pay working fine for me

looks to me slow but great and have sharp image , I was pay for canon sigma $1200 paint go off and dust go in ? but this older lens looks to me have all and is working fine on my sony A100

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sigma 150-500mm for canon
Tamron 70-300 mme for Nikon I do not likes

Great optics - sharp even wide open, great color and contrast. Flair and AC are not bad to be noticed. Good tripod collar.

Lens cap is a joke. Lens creeks terribly. AF not good for moving tracking, MF not accurate. Heavy (not the lens fault for sure, but still, it's heavy) To me a 1.5lb lens is not heavy, but 3 pounder is.

A great tele with crystal sharp image and beautiful color, if the subject is not moving. Basically this is a poor man's tele that happens to have great optics, yes, the optics is fantastic, but not much else.

AF is slow, tracking a flying bird is impossible for me. Manual focus ring is added as an afterthought for sure, it's loose with very limited travel, so not very useful at all. The lens creeks a lot if not careful. I bought a custom lens cap so I can actually close and open the cap when the hood is on. It's quite heavy. So tripod is very useful if not a must for this lens. The tripod collar is great though - smooth, secure and solid. Shooting slow moving or stationary animals in the zoo is perhaps the best use of this lens for me. The AF is quite accurate if you allow it to work its way through it.

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None. This lens is perhaps the cheapest 500mm tele out there today. With the Mark II out with HSM, this lens is even cheaper today, which makes this a great buy if you are not shooting flying birds. I tried the birds a couple times and give up - AF is just impossible - with 350D and 40D and 5D. AF Canon 70-200 USM is instant, on the other hand. But at 200mm, it's way too short.

Good value of money (of course can not compared with the L lens but alot better than the Cosina 400mm that I used before)

Heavy, blur photo in bad weather

I just bought the lens well used from a private seller at £230 (around $378 at current exchange) and tried tens shot with my Canon 20D. The photos at 170mm is quite good while 500mm is well acceptable. I picked a pine branch around 15m away at F76.3 and F7.2 and still see the spider web very clearly in hand-keep mode.

I, however, believed using tripod or monopod is a must to avoide handshaking as this is truly heavy monster. Without tripod/monopod or other supporting tool you can not make more than a few shots continuously.

Given that outdoor/wild life shooting is not something regularly and only are carried out in good weather, I still recommend to buy this lens as it is only 1/3 of the payment I paid for my Canon 300mm L USM and photo, in some certain conditions, are acceptable. Should the potential photographer is less than 170cm and 60kg weight he.she should think twice before going ahead due to its heavy weight.

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Cosina 400mm, Canon 300mm L USM

Sharp images, reasonable price

Very unforgiving of less-than-perfect technique, zoom creep if the lens is pointed downward, CA in certain situations with overexposed or very bright background with darker foreground objects.

My experience has been a bit different than most others here, as I find this lens to produce very sharp images. I use it on a Nikon D70, and shoot RAW files. I've shot mostly in the focal length range of 400mm to 500mm, still good and sharp.

It does suffer from chromatic aberration (CA) in high-contrast situations of very bright (overexposed) backgrounds with darker foreground objects, had that happen when shooting birds in trees a few times, but under most conditions, CA is negligible-to-non existent. I've used this lens mainly for nature stuff, but have also shot a couple college football games with it, and it worked great for that, sharp, great contrast, no CA.

It does demand that your technique be almost flawless. It definitely requires a sturdy tripod or monopod and ideally an f/stop in the range or f/8 to f/11 for the sharpest results. For the money, I am very happy with this lens.

Zoom range, quite reasonable image quality, price - it includes a tripod ring, a hood and a carry case.

No zoom lock, filter size, though mine (used) came with a uv filter, noisy focus.

This is a good lens for what it is - a "consumer zoom". You would have to spend a lot more money to get significantly better image quality such as provided by a Canon L zoom such as the 100-400 L. It can be hand held with an appropriately high shutter speed but I find its best used with some sort of support, even if its a monopod. I find I get the best images with the lens mounted on a sturdy tripod, stopped down a bit and using a remote shutter release. I use it on my Canon DSLRs but haven't used it on my film bodies.

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Canon 70-200 f/2.8L with 1.4x teleconverter, Canon 70-300 IS