Sigma 70-300 APO Super II 200mm vs 300mm comparison shots

[nitsch]

There have been lots of posts recently talking about the Sigma 70-300mm APO Super II lens and several people asking for example shots taken with the lens wide open at 300mm.

I have no idea whether these are good or bad in the big scheme of things as I have nothing to compare it to, but all I know is I'm more than happy with it given the price I paid (around 100 GBP).

Shots taken inside, with 300D on a tripod at ISO400 using autofocus. I took a shot at 200mm wide open f5.0 (actually turned out to be 190mm but close enough!) then moved further back and shot at 300mm wide open f5.6. I have resized the full shot from each and included a unresized 100% crop alongside it to show the detail. It is softer at 300mm than it is at 200mm which I guess is to be expected.

Hope someone somewhere finds these useful.

Cheers,

Nick :)

190mm f5.0 ISO400 full shot

http://www.nitsch.co.uk/photos/200.jpg

190mm f5.0 ISO400 100% crop

http://www.nitsch.co.uk/photos/200crop.jpg

300mm f5.6 ISO400 full shot

http://www.nitsch.co.uk/photos/300.jpg

300mm f5.6 ISO400 100% crop

http://www.nitsch.co.uk/photos/300crop.jpg

[tim]

Seems a bit softer at 300mm, I wonder if usm/smart sharpen would clean that up.

[nitsch]

Yes it does get softer at 300mm although to my mind not to an unacceptable degree and indeed all the wildlife pics I have taken so far at 300mm have sharpened up nicely with some USM work in Photoshop. Bear in mind also that this is wide open, stopping it down to say f8 also improves things.

[cfcRebel]

Those are really nice examples. Thanks for taking the time to do the test. I am quite happy with the results you have there. It sure is a cool lens for the price.

[condyk]

This will be useful for folks considering the pro's and con's of this lens. The first shots are pretty good and the 100% crop would clean up nicely in PS without too much effort. The 300 are not so hot and I would reject these personally rather than waste time in PS.

I'd like to see a shot at 300mm in as close to optimum conditions as you can manage. This would really give folks an idea of what a reasonable benchmark is for 300mm. Don't think it matters really if it's outdoors, but tripod mounted and use the same bottle as it's got lots of elements that can be picked out for assessment.

[ron chappel]

Thanks very much for doing that nick-it helps alot ! !

I can see now that mine is just slightly worse than yours at 300mm (relative to 200mm) so i'm more sure now that mine is abit below average.(d*mn sigma quality control)

I'll sell mine soon (just bought it new for a good price so won't lose much ) and maybe try another example one day

It doesn't look too good though.Besides yours and mine i've seen hints from several others that the image quality at the long end has trouble beating the cheap canon 75-300.
I KNOW* that this lens can beat the canon but,man,they don't do it consistantly :(

* http://www.pbase.com/argylemonkey/lens_comp

[aparmley]

Nick how does one obtain 100% crops... I keep asking this all over the place and still I can't get an answer.. Say I have a photo, I want to post a 100% crop of it, do I simply take my cropping tool and set the dimension to 4.8in x 3.2in (orginally file size 48in by 32in) ?? Thanks for your help...

[c3p1]

I am no expert by any means, but I think you enlarge your picture to 100% in your photo editor and then crop out a small portion. That makes it a 100% crop.

[aparmley]

. . . then crop out a small portion . . .
You'd think a 100% crop would be the entire 100% of the photo... ie the orginal... hmm the search continues..

[NeoteriX]

You'd think a 100% crop would be the entire 100% of the photo... ie the orginal... hmm the search continues..

100% is the original, but when you specify "crop" you're cropping a part of it out. :) The size of the crop doesn't have to be specific.