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Home >> Digital Camera Accessories >> Lenses
Sigma 120-400mm f/4.5-5.6 AF APO DG OS HSM Telephoto Zoom Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras | List Price: $849.99
Discount Price: Too low to display
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Brand: Sigma
Binding: Electronics
Features: - Three SLD glass elements and a rear focus system provide optimum image quality throughout the entire zoom range
- Minimum focusing distance of 150cm (59.1) makes it useful for close-up photography
- Dimensions - 19.7 x 19.7 x 19.7
- Weight - 5.4 pounds
Use a tripod. [Posted on 2008-07-05]
This is one big hunk o' lens (5 lbs) that benefits greatly from the use of a sturdy tripod and a remote shuter release. The photos I took were acceptably sharp on a tripod, but it takes a steady hand, even with the OS, to get similar results hand-held. I'm not yet convinced that the OS, especially at the 400mm setting, actually gives you a 3-4 shutter speed advantage. Maybe this will improve as my technique improves. I was also suprised to read in the isntruction sheet that you must wait approximately 1 second after pressing the shutter release half-way to get a stable image. Is this common to all image-stabilization lenses? I was also somewhat confused by the OS instructions which call for OS 1 for camera shake, and OS 2 for subject travel accross the horizontal plane. Since the instructions also warn against using OS while the camera is on a tripod, this seems inconsistent with the stated use of OS 2. The HSM autofocus is very quiet, but sometimes has difficulty locking in on the subject. This is probably not much different from similar lenses of this type (I've read identical complaints about the Nikon lens). However; the all-the-time manual focus over-ride comes in very handy in those cases where the auto focus system is having a hard time. Having had the lens for just a few days I think that, for the money, it will fill my occasional need for a long telephoto lens.
Another Sigma with calibration issues [Posted on 2008-09-13]
I bought this lens after returning a 150-500 for back and front focusing issues on a Nikon D700. Well, the 120-400 suffered from the same problems. My copy had bad back focus at 400mm. Using the D700's AF Tune function I could compensate to get it to focus correctly at 400mm, but that introduced severe front focus issues from 120-250mm. Overall, I could get the 150-300mm range to focus well if I gave up on the 120mm and 400mm ends.
As with the 150-500 order, Amazon's shipping department did a totally inadequate job of padding the shipping box. There wasn't enough airbags in the box to prevent the Sigma box from sliding around let alone protect it on all sides. In all, my two Sigma lens orders received the same level of packaging attention as the book and DVD orders I've received over the years. This is a very bad situation for anyone interested in purchase precision optics from Amazon.
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