slrgear.com review of sigma 120-400 OS HSM

For those interested this was posted yesterday. Didn't see it here. http://www.slrgear.com​/reviews/showproduct.p​hp/product/1184/cat/31

Doesn't look too impressive, sad. Looks like the next lens on my wishlist is still the 100-400..

I agree, too bad, I think they missed the boat.
If they worked on the optics and charges $1000 or maybe a touch more and gave better optics than the 100-400, they would have had a better lens in my view.

I think they did the right thing to keep the EX label off these lenses. Seems more like a replacement/upgrade for the 135-400mm zoom than the 80-400mm OS EX.

Now we know why this lens is not an EX lens.

The lens they tested shows what appears to be a strong amount of decentering. I wonder how good a good copy is in comparison.

i rather go by what users post here then a review.
From alot of pics people have posted with this lens it seems to be very nice

AngryCorgi wrote in post #5828814
The lens they tested shows what appears to be a strong amount of decentering. I wonder how good a good copy is in comparison.

This is an important point, Tom. How good a lens turns out to be cannot be determined on a test with one copy. Get two, then it starts getting better, but still not determinative. Get multiple reviews, and user reports, and cumulatively, with time, we get a good sense of how good a given lens is. It really comes down to time and multiple reviews and user reports.

If a given copy performs extremely well in a test like SLR Gear, it most likely is an excellent lens. If it performs poorly or below average, we cannot determine much for sure. A good finding cannot be a bad copy, but a bad result or performance certainly could be just a bad copy.

LR, what in the world is that avatar? The kobe picture went well with your title (after watching finals), but this one is just flat out scary!

AngryCorgi wrote in post #5830146
LR, what in the world is that avatar? The kobe picture went well with your title (after watching finals), but this one is just flat out scary!

Let's be clear about this: the KOBE avatar had no relation to my title by the TF. The title is in relation to my, ummmm..."famous thread". Leave KOBE and my Lakers out of this "Flat out embarrassing" is what we're going to do to the Celtics next year though.

LightRules wrote in post #5830162
Let's be clear about this: the KOBE avatar had no relation to my title by the TF. The title is in relation to my, ummmm..."famous thread". Leave KOBE and my Lakers out of this "Flat out embarrassing" is what we're going to do to the Celtics next year though.

Seen your "famous thread" . " Flat out Embarrassing ", fits the Lakers bettter . News flash, Celtics will win 3 titles in a row !

Hope to see more images from this lens as more people buy it.

LightRules wrote in post #5829586
This is an important point, Tom. How good a lens turns out to be cannot be determined on a test with one copy. Get two, then it starts getting better, but still not determinative. Get multiple reviews, and user reports, and cumulatively, with time, we get a good sense of how good a given lens is. It really comes down to time and multiple reviews and user reports.

If a given copy performs extremely well in a test like SLR Gear, it most likely is an excellent lens. If it performs poorly or below average, we cannot determine much for sure. A good finding cannot be a bad copy, but a bad result or performance certainly could be just a bad copy.

"However, at 200mm and above, image sharpness starts to worsen. Our sample copy of the lens also showed some centering issues at this focal length."

I didn't read all the comments but the above seems to be the only thing I can find when going back. Looks to be some decentering at 200mm (I'm assuming since they said at this length and not lengths that it was found at only 200mm). If they thought that the decentering was strong and affected the test, they should have re-tested. So you can read the 200mm graph with a caveat. But unless there are more reviews that show otherwise, I'll make my views on the available information at the current time. Either case, I'm not impressed as this is certainly no dust duster.

Looking at their graph, decentering seems strongest at 200mm and in the opposite direction and to a lesser effect at 400mm. So is this a bad copy or a sign of poor design? Some sample variability has to be taken into account but looking at the general trend of how it performs, it's optics at 400mm is not that impressive unless stopped down a few stops. Seeing as many times if not most, that the lens will be shot close if not wide open to preserve the lowest ISO and fasterst shutter speed possible, I'm interested in how the lens performs wide open at the long end more rather than stopped down to f11 or 16.

For the individual it matters more also how they use the lens. I've worked with lenses that would have been considered crummy in a high tech review but there was one Cook lens I always shot at f4-5.6 for table top food stuff and in that range it was the best lens for the job, but in a regular set or on people it would have paled compared to all the Zeiss lenses we had available.

Going back over my favorites in LightRoom I've noticed that probably 90% of the shots I've taken with the 24-105 were shot at 75mm and above of people and it's fantastic. So when others get upset about it at 24mm I think yes sometimes that's true but it's not as critical for me and my copy looks really good all the way from 35-105 and even stopped all the way down when using extension tubes on closeups. Now that's a big plus because I like to do that and lately have been choosing the 24-105 to be the lens of choice for most of my close up work.

When I was first looking at getting an 85 1.2, I was told of several local working photographers who prefer the 1.8 because they are using it a lot for aerials, now that would be one place the money probably would be wasted on a 1.2, not an area where creamy bokeh matters nor does being able to shoot in low light.

Tee Why wrote in post #5830361
"However, at 200mm and above, image sharpness starts to worsen. Our sample copy of the lens also showed some centering issues at this focal length."

I didn't read all the comments but the above seems to be the only thing I can find when going back. Looks to be some decentering at 200mm (I'm assuming since they said at this length and not lengths that it was found at only 200mm). If they thought that the decentering was strong and affected the test, they should have re-tested. So you can read the 200mm graph with a caveat. But unless there are more reviews that show otherwise, I'll make my views on the available information at the current time. Either case, I'm not impressed as this is certainly no dust duster.

Looking at their graph, decentering seems strongest at 200mm and in the opposite direction and to a lesser effect at 400mm. So is this a bad copy or a sign of poor design? Some sample variability has to be taken into account but looking at the general trend of how it performs, it's optics at 400mm is not that impressive unless stopped down a few stops. Seeing as many times if not most, that the lens will be shot close if not wide open to preserve the lowest ISO and fasterst shutter speed possible, I'm interested in how the lens performs wide open at the long end more rather than stopped down to f11 or 16.

Well, I did not read the review, I just looked at the results. Regardless, the de-centering issue does not appear to be a slight one, in terms of APS-C performance. The sweetspot is closer to the edge of the frame than the center --- that is fairly strong decentering, particularly for those looking to shoot on a crop camera. The 400mm wide-open issue is there and odd, but the decentering still shows on the FF results and when stopping down, you see the flaw reverts to the decentering issue even on the APS-C results. All of the samples we have seen from this lens on POTN at 400mm show that stopping it down 1/3 stop results in an enormous gain in performance. Again, I would like to see a solid copy without decentering problems in a test like slrgear performed.

If this were an old 80-400 OS, I can understand not being interested in bothering to acquire a good copy, but this lens offers better AF and better OS, and I think is worth one more look. After all, surely anyone purchasing such a strongly decentered lens would have sent it back to Sigma (just as many of the Canon dust-pump users have done) to have it repaired.

LightRules wrote in post #5830162
Let's be clear about this: the KOBE avatar had no relation to my title by the TF. The title is in relation to my, ummmm..."famous thread". Leave KOBE and my Lakers out of this "Flat out embarrassing" is what we're going to do to the Celtics next year though.

Well, I hope so. I can't stand the Celtics.

I've had this lens for 3 weeks now and am very happy with it! At 400mm f/5.6 it is a touch soft but really not a problem. Easily correctable in post proccessing. Most all the use I've given it have been outdoors with good lighting. Airshows, boats, birds etc.and that is what I got it for!!