Sigma APO 150-500mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM - Bigmos

In2Photos wrote in post #5688541
Looks pretty good Rob. How do you like it so far? Give us your thoughts.

To me its quite light ( see sig ) feel's nice in the hand and easy to swing up onto a bird in flight just did that with this shot OS is slower to startup than IS but that should not be a problem .
The zoom ring is tight but it will ease off with use im sure.
I think its well made although im sure the felty outer surface will were off with use not that that bothers me at all.
its a shame it does not have a limit switch as it does take longer to focus if you lose the bird SO dont lose it
The triopd ring is nice and big enough to hold onto when carrying the len's /camera and on that plate at the back your thum almost fits in the gap between the camera and plate (ITS AT THE BACK OF THE TRIPOD PLATE ) but it feels sharp as the gap is just a little small well it is for my thum .
I bought the lens mostly for aircraft and a little birding and im sure it will do the job nicely AF is very fast on my MK3 in fact it suprised me just how quick it was .
Iv only shot at 500mm at the moment as this should be were it would not be at it best However it is very good at 500mm f6.3 It does need a fair bit of light ( i like fast SS when hand holding )but if your happly to shoot at 400 iso and above then it will be fine in bright non sunny day's
the bottom line
Im lucky enough to be able to buy most things i want and would not be bothered if i lost money having tried something and not likeing it then selling it on at a loss .
Im keeping this lens, i like it and it fills a zoom gap (dont like the 100/400 ) its a nice range has OS fast AF and from my small tests the IQ is very good and must be close to the ef 100/400 .
1/2000sec f6.3 iso 500
Rob.

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GyRob wrote in post #5688928
To me its quite light ( see sig ) feel's nice in the hand and easy to swing up onto a bird in flight just did that with this shot OS is slower to startup than IS but that should not be a problem .
The zoom ring is tight but it will ease off with use im sure.
I think its well made although im sure the felty outer surface will were off with use not that that bothers me at all.
its a shame it does not have a limit switch as it does take longer to focus if you lose the bird SO dont lose it
The triopd ring is nice and big enough to hold onto when carrying the len's /camera and on that plate at the back your thum almost fits in the gap between the camera and plate (ITS AT THE BACK OF THE TRIPOD PLATE ) but it feels sharp as the gap is just a little small well it is for my thum .
I bought the lens mostly for aircraft and a little birding and im sure it will do the job nicely AF is very fast on my MK3 in fact it suprised me just how quick it was .
Iv only shot at 500mm at the moment as this should be were it would not be at it best However it is very good at 500mm f6.3 It does need a fair bit of light ( i like fast SS when hand holding )but if your happly to shoot at 400 iso and above then it will be fine in bright non sunny day's
the bottom line
Im lucky enough to be able to buy most things i want and would not be bothered if i lost money having tried something and not likeing it then selling it on at a loss .
Im keeping this lens, i like it and it fills a zoom gap (dont like the 100/400 ) its a nice range has OS fast AF and from my small tests the IQ is very good and must be close to the ef 100/400 .
1/2000sec f6.3 iso 500
Rob.

Thanks for the synopsis Rob. Very helpful.

Very good review Rob and very decent results AFAIC. Seems a bargain.

I've been following this thread for quite a while now since I've ordered the 150-500 lens. I got a call this afternoon that the lens has arrived. I'll be picking it up in the next day or two.

From the images I've seen in this thread, I must say I'm quite happy with the output. Even the cropped images look impressive.

Thanks for posting the pics. I'll share my views after I pick it up and test during the weekend.

Cheers !

Girish wrote in post #5696075
I got a call this afternoon that the lens has arrived. I'll be picking it up in the next day or two.

In a day or two? I'd have been out the door the second I hung up the phone.

well this is about as good as i could get out of it today at 500mm wide open - lens resting on the car roof 1dmk3 1/640 f6.3 iso 200 bird about 25ft away .
Rob.
jpeg taken from raw and pp'd

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GyRob wrote in post #5697203
well this is about as good as i could get out of it today at 500mm wide open - lens resting on the car roof 1dmk3 1/640 f6.3 iso 200 bird about 25ft away .
Rob.
jpeg taken from raw and pp'd

Nothing wrong with that shot!

Quality of lens (perfomance) depend also from the camera. If you have camera with 12 mp or something like that, photos will not be so good as with camera of 6mp

In2Photos wrote in post #5688349
Or rather the high variation between those that know what they are doing and those that think that they know what they are doing. I am starting to think that most of the early adopters are just throwing shots up just for the sake of it. If they spent the time on the shots like they normally would I think the results would be much better.

Its true that there will be variation in the users skill that must be taken into account when viewing samples but its a fact that the quality of Sigmas can vary quite a bit between copies.

The samples shown here so far do look good. I'm looking forward to the 100-400 comparison (hint hint Lightrules)

Mil wrote in post #5697273
Quality of lens (perfomance) depend also from the camera. If you have camera with 12 mp or something like that, photos will not be so good as with camera of 6mp

Oh yeah!

evandavies wrote in post #5697285
Its true that there will be variation in the users skill that must be taken into account when viewing samples but its a fact that the quality of Sigmas can vary quite a bit between copies.

I know this, but so do some Canon lenses.

Mil wrote in post #5697273
Quality of lens (perfomance) depend also from the camera. If you have camera with 12 mp or something like that, photos will not be so good as with camera of 6mp

Huh?

Mil wrote in post #5697273
Quality of lens (perfomance) depend also from the camera. If you have camera with 12 mp or something like that, photos will not be so good as with camera of 6mp

Sorry, you lost me here.

Mil wrote in post #5697273
Quality of lens (perfomance) depend also from the camera. If you have camera with 12 mp or something like that, photos will not be so good as with camera of 6mp

Nope.

The resolution of the camera has no relation to the quality of the lens.
It just determines the maximum resolution of the image captured from that lens.

Besides why would that be a consideration as there aren't many 6mp DSLRs being used anyway?

What Mil meant was most likely: Lenses which were perfectly fine on our film cameras and low res digi cams, suddenly appear less than stellar on high res digi cams. The lenses didn't get any worse, of course, but we suddenly see/discover their limitations.

@evandavies: Don't underestimate the number of perfectly happy 10D users out there.

evandavies wrote in post #5700698
Besides why would that be a consideration as there aren't any 6mp DSLRs being used anyway?

Like Rudeo said, there are many, many 300D, 10D and 1D classic users out there, from 4 to 6mp. Again, too many people fall for the high resolution hype, and if you don't crop alot/print anything larger than an 8x10, all those pixels aren't doing you much good, other than psychologically, where you know you could print a 20x30 or larger, but don't. Printing an 8x10, for example, only requires a 4mp shot.

Anyways, this is a discussion for a different post, not the Sigma archives.