Sigma 50-500 mm F4-6.3 APO DG HSM Optical Stabilised lens for Nikon Full Frame and Digital APS-C SLR Cameras

Product Information

When I'm shooting with it at 500mm I find that I can hand hold it in good light, and the AF doesn't hunt too much, but I have to take a bunch of photos to find the one I want to keep. Sigma shows us the minimum focus distance and the resulting maximum reproduction ratio right on the lens barrel as shown below.

I have not become aware of any deficiencies I can notice in a technical sense, so I have no problems with its focus, or sharpness, or colours or fringing, or vignetting, or speed, or noise etc. everything works for me just I would expect it to; I think it does the K-5 justice and vice versa. Of course, you may not need to buy as many lenses and when viewed from this perspective; this lens is a reasonable value. I can give my subjective review - it is great, certainly I have got some fabulous pictures. It is particularly good for nature, in the zoo I had a great time getting head-shots of all the animals. Also at an airshow I got a few excellent pics (for me). It is almost always at full zoom 500mm, only for some portraits I have zoomed out reallyColors appear accurate, but contrast is not as good as some of the other options - none of which have this focal length range of course. To me it was overall a bit of a dissapointment. I really wanted to like this lens but it just didn't meet my expectations. The conditions have to be absolutely perfect (which rarely are) so this kind of makes the lens obselete. For the much cheaper manufacturing of the 80ED that originally turned me off on that tube, I would have preferred that the Sigma had the better night performance. Wildlife, always needing all the focal length you have, is one of the most common subjects for the Sigma 50-500.

Here is the 50-500's max aperture at measured focal length ranges along with a comparison to similar lenses:A lion shot through a wire mesh on a Nikon D70 with an exposure of 1/40sec at f/7.1 and the lens at 320mm. It is not too heavy to handhold, but a support will be welcomed if you intend to have it in shooting position for long periods of time.

Lenses usually have the same minimum focus distance spec applied across their entire focal length range, but not always. It is a lens that for its price performs brilliantly & can produce stunning action shots that many users would not be able to afford to take with the high price of other lenses in this focal length.

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CA (Chromatic Aberration) is well controlled with some showing in corners at 50mm and from 400-500mm.

This lens has in all a nice build quality, good IQ and is very versatile because of it's range but it is slow, a bit heavy and need full daylight. You may need to buy a tripod which is resistant for up to 6kg, just to give a stable base when shooting. If money is not an issue, than buy one of these pro-lenses which start around 5000 USD and skip this one. On a budget and just for fun, I think the Bigma is the best what your money can buy. I'm happy with this lens ! DO NOT waste your time and money on the 150-500mm HSM. That lens performed even WORSE than the BIGMA. Infact, the BIGMOS and BIGMA are worlds appart in IQ even though they should technically be identical.The 300mm results show a significant turn for the worse and 400mm wide open aperture results are noticeably worse than the 300mm results. I’m currently in my second two week rental of this lens. Note that is second rental, not second week of the first rental. I think from the fact that I opted to rent it again, you may be able to guess that I rather like it. I use this lens as a complement of my (14-24, 24-70, 80-200 f2.8) Nikon lenses with a Nikon D700 (full frame) camera. I am a parent that uses the Bigma on a Canon 30D to shoot action shots for my daughters soccer team. The filter size of this lens is diameter 95mm and the lens is supplied with a step down ring enabling digital cameras with an APS-C size image sensor to use an diameter 86mm filter. It is, however, not possible to use a Polarizing filter with the step down ring.