Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 EX OS

Fuzbal wrote in post #15779047
Maybe She can can run toward to you? I Need this lens primarily for sports, especially football so it would be more objective for me. If i can ask for that it would be awesome ;]

I have used the Sigma 500/4.5 on a D800 and a Sigma 50-150 on the Pentax K5 with excellent results, to shoot rugby, with resulting shots that sold to regional and local media. The Sigma 120-300 would have no problem whatsoever for football/rugby/soccer though of course the better the body the better the performance of the lens (within reason) !

gabebalazs wrote in post #15778882
This egret shot is amazing!!! I'd be proud to own that shot

Thank you Gabe

Sweet heron in B&W.

Fuzbal wrote in post #15779047
I Need this lens primarily for sports, especially football so it would be more objective for me. If i can ask for that it would be awesome ;]

I mainly shoot at f/3.2, but this one is at f/2.8 Send me a pm with your email and I'll send you the raw.

Fuzbal wrote in post #15778979
Someone can show me any moving object (on servo) shooted at f2.8? and 200-300mm?? I Need it in high resolution, it can by anything but i need to see it at f2.8 and moving (dog, bird or some sportsman like football player) But without a graphics processing/sharping etc, maby someone can send me some a raw ? It can help me to make decision to buy it so pls help ;]

I tried to shoot some examples of my running/trotting dog for you today. It was bright and sunny - ideal conditions for making life easy. Unfortunately I would say that the keeper rate was abysmal. When the picture was sharp it was bloody sharp, but that was probably the case for maybe 5%-10% of the images at best. Occasionally the problem was of my making, due to poor accuracy of AF point placement, but often it was just rubbish focusing. I think the camera (7D) is more a cause of the problem than the lens because....

a) I could see what appeared to be good tracking performance while watching the dog approach, but then as I started to fire off a burst of shots suddenly the focus would go right off.;

b) Using automatic AF point selection (yes, I understand the pitfalls and it is not my usual choice, but I was trying what I could to improve matters) the camera was just making ridiculous choices for the selected AF point. The thin DOF meant there should be no confusion between my dog and the plain, OOF grassy background, but the camera was picking featureless background as often as it was picking the dog.

On top of that, I suspect the lens is not quick to react, due to weight of glass, so when the camera does screw up it takes longer than it ideally should to get back on track.

Anyway, I uploaded some unedited examples from a single 3 second burst into an online album, resized to fit a full HD screen (1920x1080). You can see them as a slideshow here....

https://picasaweb.goog​le.com …eshow/586232411​0512422594

or if that link doesn't work (since Google seems to be playing silly buggers) please try this....

https://plus.google.co​m …37?authkey=COvo​n6fYuqaudA

Press F11 to go full screen. If your display is less than 1920x1080 the photos will be resized, which will compromise apparent sharpness. Still, I hardly think that 100% crops are required in order to see just how many duffers there are.

Bottom line, unless people are willing to confirm a high hit rate I wouldn't try to make any judgement based on isolated, cherry picked examples. I can show you such examples from today, but it wouldn't tell the whole story.

Of course, it may also be the case that I am an unbelievably dreadful photographer and have no clue how to use my camera.

EDIT : A short while after shooting these disappointing examples I returned my lens to Sigma for AF problems (second time in four months) and I think the problem may have impacted results shown here. Since the repair the results seem to be improved and I have a new post to share those examples - https://photography-on-the.net …p=16011332&post​count=3606

Love that Egret action shot!

I think I'm going to head out to the river and see if I can track and shoot birds in flight with the bare lens (I mean no TC, I do plan to have a body on it )

@tdodd, it was at servo? And high speed shutter priority? And central AF point ?

AI Servo. Back button focusing, trained onto the dog and tracked before starting to shoot. High FPS. Manual exposure at 1/1600, f/2.8, 200 ISO. Shot raw and converted in Lightroom 4.3 without adjustments other than resizing down to 1920x1080. In total I shot 257 frames, so this is just a small selection from one long burst.

Over the course of shooting I did vary the AF point pattern, from single point to expansion to zone to AFPS. I also varied AF tracking sensitivity from slow to fast towards the end. I generally found that centre point was more reliable than choosing a point above centre, whether shooting in portrait or landscape orientation. That's why my framing for these is a bit naff. I was trying to improve AF performance, not get great shots.

Here is an example from the sequence where I believe the camera has failed to meet its responsibilities....

https://lh5.googleuser​content.com …nshot%2520%2528​9%2529.png

and one where it did as expected (more or less)....

https://lh4.googleuser​content.com …nshot%2520%2528​8%2529.png

with almost identical focus point placement.

Hmmm i have 7d too ;/ The seller sent me a few samples and i was a little surprised that two identical shots of the TV remote control lying were hit differently (one was not sharp, the other a well-hit) If I have to worry about poor AF I'll have to forget about it... Ehh i dont know what to do now ;]

That's why I picked the 7D for my tests - because I saw that you have the 7D and I wanted to make the results as representative as possible for you. I don't use that camera much at all these days. I tend to prefer my 5D3, 5D2 and 1D3 over the 7D.

Here is another sequence, all within a single second, where the camera just goes off on one for no good reason....

https://lh3.googleuser​content.com …1920/20130402_2​24530_.JPG

Maby your sigma have some issue with AF? (Im fooling myself... ) But this one which i can buy may have the same issue. Ehh i think i will stay with my 70-200II or i will looking for some 300/2.8.

My 120-300 did have a failing AF last year and it was repaired under warranty by Sigma UK over Christmas. I haven't shot with it much since, due to the miserable wintry weather, but I have not noticed any problems with the AF since the repair. The nature of the problem prior to repair was that the AF would sometime work perfectly, sometimes not at all and sometimes like it was wading through treacle, taking maybe 15 seconds to creep towards its focus goal. The fault was random/unpredictable, but has not surfaced once since the repair. It seemed good enough when I was shooting motorsport with my 5D3 last week. Examples on this page - https://photography-on-the.net …ead.php?t=93459​2&page=208.

I could be wrong but I do think the problems here are down to the 7D and possibly the tricky subject matter. I do not see how the focus outcomes witnessed in my tests are likely to be down to the lens. A small focus error might be the lens, but a sudden, dramatic deviation from the expected focus has surely got to be down to some stupid instruction from the camera - like it's decided to start a focus search right in the middle of shooting. That would be my guess given the multiple examples where the focus is upon nothing whatsoever within the frame.

If the weather is OK tomorrow I will try again with another body. Unfortunately the conditions are not forecast to be as pleasant as today.

... back from the river. At last it was a nice productive day, although I totally froze my butt of (my hands especially).

here is a selection of the best photos from today, all shot with the Sigma 2x tc.
All of them 7D, except the last one, which is the 6D (since it was getting kind of dark)

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/29108710@N04/8​614552537/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/29108710@N04/8​615660006/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/29108710@N04/8​614552499/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/29108710@N04/8​614552627/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/29108710@N04/8​615660154/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/29108710@N04/8​614552363/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/29108710@N04/8​615660316/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/29108710@N04/8​615660352/

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #15783779
Love that Egret action shot!

Thanks Jake !

gabebalazs wrote in post #15785238
... back from the river. At last it was a nice productive day, although I totally froze my butt of (my hands especially).

here is a selection of the best photos from today, all shot with the Sigma 2x tc.
All of them 7D, except the last one, which is the 6D (since it was getting kind of dark)

A simply superb series Gabe

My favourites are the 1st (though not sure it's a family, the female is casting admiring glances behind her partner's back at his competitor !) and the last (what amazing light) !