As I wrote in an earlier post, I now have a SIGMA 50-500mm f:4.6-6.3 EX DG HSM APO zoom telephoto lens in my collection. Lately I have begun shooting with it a little more and so I thought I’d share some of my observations and a few photographic examples.
The first observation I made when shooting this lens actually happened over a year ago when I borrowed the lens from a friend–the same friend from whom I later bought it. The Sigma 50-500 is challenging to shoot well. There is no image stabilization, which is to be expected in a lens this long and this inexpensive
I’m not Ken Rockwell, so I can’t put any science behind this, but I have always felt like the Sigma 50-500 is soft compared to my other lenses. Here’s a shot at 50mm. Pretty nice.
Here’s the same thing at 500mm. It’s pretty soft, but withhold judgment for now. This was hand-held. I’ll show you some better stuff.
Here is another example. This was tripod mounted and lit with a Nikon SB-800 speedlight.
Here is a 100% crop from that same image. None of these have been processed other than adding my Copyright notice, resizing the long dimension to 700 pixels, and cropping this image.
Nice image, though a bit noisy. The bird exposures were done at 500mm for a 500th, at f6.2, and ISO 800. Here’s one more example for you to examine.
And the 100% crop…
I’m definitely not an expert with this lens, and I know that it is capable of better work than I am displaying here–I’ve seen examples elsewhere. Still, I think this is the type of output most less experienced photographers can expect.
I love the lens, and I’d buy another if it broke. You simply can’t get 500mm (750mm full-frame equivalent) any less expensively. I’ll leave you with one final shot. This is the moon (obviously) shot using a tripod at 500mm, for a 500th of a second at f8. I think it’s good. I did adjust this image for color, noise reduction, and sharpness–using Corel Paint Shop Pro Phot XI
Mr. Eiss, is this lens ( Sigma 50 – 500) a FX or is it a DX. I plan to rent one and try before you buy kind of thing but if the lens is a DX I don’t think I would go for it.
Great pics but what results did you get when printed to a large size like a 16 x 20?
Thanking you in advance for your reply. Ray
Thanks for dropping by, Ray. This lens is an FX (full-frame) lens, though of course it works well on DX sensors as well. I never printed an image I took with the Sigma at that size, but based on my review of images at 100% I think it would look fine. As I wrote, it does take some time to learn to shoot this lens well, and you want all the light you can get, but if you have good light, a solid platform, and a decent skill set, you can make very nice images with it.
I have just bought this lens through ebay and I am using it with my Nikon D5000. The lens does not have the AF/MF switch and when I tried it out I set the lens at 500mm and focused; using a cordless remote attempted to take a snap shot. all that happened was the focus setting changed. I have since been told to try using the lowest F setting, this worked on just one shot, when I tried a second succesive shot it did not. Has anyone a suggestion what to do or dirrect me to where I can get a user guide, or have I been sold a pup? Any help would be useful and please note I have only just started to take up photography so if I am asking a stupid question please bear with me.
Thank you very much for taking the time to stop by and comment. I apologize that it took me so long to release your comment (future ones from you won’t require my intervention) but we’ve had some family issues that have consumed our attention for the last few weeks.
I had similar issues when I first bought my copy of that lens. I found that it doesn’t hold focus well at 500mm, but needs to be backed off, just a hair. The other issue is really light. If you have a lot of light, you can take great shots with that lens. I even had some success hand holding it, though that is extremely rare. If you do not have a lot of light, then your approach of tripod mounting and using a remote trigger of some form is best. This lens is the one that finally convinced me I needed a new tripod and a good ball head. I spent over $1000 on a high-end Gitzo tripod and a Kirk Industries ball head. That improved the stability of my platform tremendously. My prior tripod had a plastic pan head (like they use for video) and with the weight of the big 50-500 on there it just shook no matter what I did.
You don’t have to go as nuts as I did on the tripod and head, but a rock solid platform is crucial to overall success with that lens, in my experience.