Damn it, soft sigma 120-300 f/2.8

The exif in his shots show F4.

To be honest, when I first bought my lens, I had the feeling it was backfocusing, until several weeks later, I dropped it, and had to be sent to Japan for a new AF ring. Upon returning I always said it was bang on perfect. I have a few backfocused shots in the early days.. But still, although focused 2% behind, the part which was focused was always very sharp.

Thanks Wazza, yes I was at F4 - in fact I don't think I've ever gone above F8 on the siggy!Some if them will have been less than 300mm though...
I shoot at F4 in those conditions and when I started out I had a good number of bad and OOF shots. I get fewer of them not, a lot less in fact. The lens has got no better so I can only assume that plenty of pratise is the cause...

windoze wrote in post #1995169
figures! finally got my Sigma 120-300 and ( to me ) its soft! STRIKE ONE ! For the price of this lens there shouldnt be any "issues". Well, it goes back today and hopefully by next week Ill have a new one to try. BUT, two strikes and its over for me.

Troy

Troy,

Forgive me if this has been covered already... I read through most of the thread but may have missed it.

The Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 zoom can NOT autofocus while you are moving the zoom ring. If you are zooming, you will lose focus. This is unlike other lenses that I've used, i.e. the Canon 70-200 f/2.8. When I first got the lens, I had a lot of trouble with OOF and soft images, and this was the cause. What I do now when using this lens is that I zoom to a focal length I intend to use (usually one extreme or the other), and then get my hand off the zoom ring entirely. This helped the lens, and you end up shooting it like a couple of rapid change primes.

Very good point Mike.
I forget how much of a problem this was for me when I started after using the 100-400L!