bought a Sigma 100-400

earthbound_ca wrote:

sirhawkeye64 wrote:

z2122 wrote:

Do you have other lenses that you consider?

I'm leaning towards the 200-500 F-mount despite it being heavy. It's a proven lens and for the money, a good deal I guess at $1400 USD. I had thought about the Tamron 100-400 again, because literally that would be $800 versus the Z for $2700. I mean the Sigma is probably sharper than the TAmron, but I think (from my tests about 2 years ago) the Tamron would focus faster, so that I found to be a trade-off. Honestly, looking for a suitable 100-400 has been a 2 year process, and is still ongoing honestly. Part of me says to just wait and get the Z next year some time....

I have both the 200-500 and the Sigma 100-400. They really are almost not comparable in terms of use just by virtue of size and also the differences (which may seem nominal) in focal length.

About AF speed and OS performance, I will suggest you ignore the Sigma's original reviews as well as perhaps a lens you handled two years ago: The firmware updates have taken care of the complaints (AF speed & OS stability) and, through customization with the dock, you can pretty much set the lens parameters however you like for stationary as well as moving subjects using the C1/C2 buttons. Much like the Nikon 200-500, with prudent use of the distance limiter, one can achieve much swifter AF performance compared to the full MFD-to-infinity range. Also, after the firmware updates, the 100-400's OS is now just about as good as the Nikon 200-500's truly stellar VR.

To piggyback on earlier mention of the 70-200 f/4G, I actually sold that lens after buying the Sigma 100-400 as the Sigma, while a fraction of a stop slower in the shared focal length range, was actually sharper wide open whereas the Nikon had to be stopped down to f/5-5.6 to get to about equal sharpness. (the Sigma is f/5-f/5.6 wide open between 100 and 200mm so, after stopping down, the 70-200 held only a 1/3 stop advantage at the long end... if I'm being generous to the Nikon!)

A benefit of the Tamron is the extra-charge foot if you're going to use it for landscape mounted on a tripod and want to rotate the lens in the mount rather than flip the tripod head 90 degrees. I did buy the ishoot foot for the 100-400 for tripod use and I don't mind flipping the tripod head when going to portrait framing.

Good luck in choosing! I don't think you can really go wrong with any of the choices mentioned here.

good to hear, that the sigma 100-400 is so good compared to the nikon 70-200 f4.

I will check next week how they both compare  and will see how good the sigma is, that I will get now. Half a year ago I bought a 24-200 Z and was surprised to see, that the IQ from the 24-200 was compareable to the 70-200. In the past I was always satisfied with the IQ from the 70-200, but I used it with 24Mpix cameras (D750, Z6) and never used it a lot nor tested it on my D800.