Sigma 50-500mm?

Candid Arts · January 14, 2009

I'm curious if anyone has used this lens and what your results are with it in terms of sharpness at 500mm? I'm on a 1.6x crop body (Canon 50D) if that has anything to do with it...

I've taken a few shots of eagles and a cityscape type shot at 500mm and some (most) aren't that sharp. All were shot while using a tripod and either a remote shutter or self timer. No mirror lock up was used however. Ranging from 1/320 to 8 second shutter speeds roughly.

Anyways, just curious. Something like these results is why I don't ever want to even bother with third party lenses and try to stick with Canon's L series lenses as much and often as possible. But I see quite a few people on here with third party lenses. So is it something I'm doing wrong? Bad piece of glass?

I don't own this lens, but just rented it for my 3 week Alaska trip from borrowlenses.com.

Thanks for anyone's help and/or input.

JohnBiggs · January 14, 2009

I've owned this lens and it's not that sharp and lacks contrast. Especially if you are used to certain L glass. Different subjects are going to look better than others with it too. In all this lens has it's place if you need a 10x zoom. Did you try stopping it down to f13?

Also using a 10x zoom as a basis to say third party lenses don't compare isn't fair either. I just love my Tamron 28-75 2.8. And I'm not that impressed with the Canon 100-400 L.

JohnBiggs · January 14, 2009

Candid Arts wrote:

Ranging from 1/320 to 8 second shutter speeds roughly.

BTW, I would have tried MLU or faster shutter, but I know thats hard while working at those apertures. At 500MM vibrations get really exagerated.

ziggy53 · January 14, 2009

What John says is true. Most of the very long tele-zooms require considerable post-processing to produce best results, especially in less contrasty conditions.

I have the Sigma 50-500mm, f4-6.3 EX APO RF HSM (non DG) aka "Bigma" and it is a very good lens with a remarkable range.

Most people coming into the very long lenses seem to think that they can achieve similar results to the shorter length zooms but that has not been my experience. If you want the very best results you need to use primes in the 400mm and beyond range.

My very best long lens is (oddly) an ancient Vivitar 500mm, f6.3 that is usable wide open. I say oddly because Vivitar is not known for lenses of extremely high quality.

I also have 2 copies of the venerable Pentax 500mm, f4.5. This lens, especially in the SMC version and at f8, is about as good as it gets optically and can be compared with the Canon EF 500mm, f4.5. The Vivitar is actually better than the Pentax lens. (BTW, the EF 500mm, f4L IS USM "is" better and is one of those very special lenses worth the money if you need it.)

Anyway, the Bigma can produce acceptable results:

The following is at 50mm on a Canon 40D:

... and then the same position at 500mm:

Candid Arts · January 14, 2009

That second image of the rubble is something like the results that I've gotten, not very sharp. The bird photos that you posted are WAY clearer than anything I got with the many bald eagles that I photographed. There were plenty of daylight for all my photos, bright daylight for the most part. The camera/lens were pretty stable themselves, I didn't try stopping it down I don't recall, but MLU might have been a MINOR issue as well. This is my first time shooting with anything above 200mm, so it was a challenge. Some of my results were fine, I had a couple sheep and/or goat's that i photographed, as well as a couple moose, and the moon I think turned out, but one cityscape shot in particular, and almost all of my eagle shots were just not satisfactory.

I'm going to post my moon shots on another thread later to receive feedback as they are my first tries at it, but my main concern was my eagle shots. I'm pretty new to PP photo's, so don't know all the ins and outs yet to make my photos looks better and being able to compensate for a not sharp RAW image.

Thanks for all the input guys

rpcrowe · January 14, 2009

Romy Ocon's Gallery
http://www.pbase.com/liquidstone

Peruse this gallery for some great information, including info on the 50-500mm vs. 400mm f/5.6L lenses and other examples of Romy Ocon's equipment setip.

Cygnus Studios · January 14, 2009

I use the Bigma and love it. While it is heavy, and not the fastest lens on the block it does a pretty good job overall. The better the light, the better this lens will work.

kdog · January 14, 2009

rpcrowe wrote:

http://www.pbase.com/liquidstone

Peruse this gallery for some great information, including info on the 50-500mm vs. 400mm f/5.6L lenses and other examples of Romy Ocon's equipment setip.

Romy is awesome. Reading his posts on dpreview years ago are what inspired me to try stacking TC's for my moon shots. It defies logic, but produces surprisingly good results. That guy gets more out of his equipment than anybody I've seen.

His Bigma/100-400/400 shootout agrees with my findings comparing the Canon 100-400 to the Canon 500 F5.6 prime. At F8, you'd be hard-pressed to see any difference between those two lenses. At 5.6, the prime wins. It's clear the Bigma likes to be stopped down to F8 as well. However, the Canon lenses are noticeably sharper.

-joel

Tee Why · January 14, 2009

I had the bigma for about 3 years and for the money and at the place I was in (in terms of my photography skills and needs) it served me very well.

Bigma takes some skills to get used to. Mainly holding skills. It's not as sharp as a supertelephoto prime like the Canon 400mm f5.6L I replaced the bigma with. So the images are what I'd say ok to good with ok contrast. You cannot get the colors/contrast/sharpness that a prime lens or a top notch zoom will get you.

Then again, show me a 10x zoom with ring AF motor that goes to 500mm for under a grand. There is nothing out there like it. If you put it on a cropped sensor, you get a field of view equivalent to 75-750mm with optics that are more than usuable. Now that's impressive.

I'd also recommend considering the Tamron 200-500mm. It's range is limited and the AF isn't as good, but I hear the optics are a bit better and it's much ligter, smaller, and a bit cheaper.

Here is a gallery of planes shot with the bigma. The zoo gallery is mostly of shots made with the bigma and the last one is a comparison of the bigma to a Canon 100-400mm L lens which is about $400 or so more expensive.
http://tomyi.smugmug.com/gallery/889890_4RKt5#141286549_dn42B

http://tomyi.smugmug.com/gallery/575260_KeHMN#260786177_JcTzV

http://www.pbase.com/lightrules/bigmapump

Would I recommend it? It depends on if you want a 500mm reach, don't want to spend $8000 or so for a prime, and are willing to learn good holding techniques and processing techniques.

BigAl · January 14, 2009

Handheld:

Monopod:

Handheld:

Ergorest vehicle mount:

Handheld:

Check out my bird galleries (and my animal galleries for that matter).

Candid Arts · January 14, 2009

Were all these shot with the sigma 50-500? If so, at which focal length, aperture, shutter speed and ISO for each?

Thanks a bunch. And amazing photos!

BigAl · January 15, 2009

Candid Arts wrote:

Were all these shot with the sigma 50-500? If so, at which focal length, aperture, shutter speed and ISO for each?

Thanks a bunch. And amazing photos!

All shot with the Bigma, all at 500mm, all at ISO 400 and all at f8 (although I do use any f-stop). The shutter speeds, in the order of the pics, are:
1/1600s, 1/500s, 1/320s, 1/400s and 1/500s.

The last one is quite a hefty crop, which gives some indication as to the resolving power of the lens. I wouldn't swop this particular lens for anything.

Candid Arts · January 15, 2009

Wow! Well it must have been a camera setting, light issue, or operator error. Hopefully not OE, or camera setting. Hmm...Well I'll have to play around with this lens a little more then, but now I'm back in Portland and not many fun animals as accessible as there were in Anchorage and Juneau (wild, I'm not counting the Zoo or anything).

Great results though! I must have been doing something wrong.

ALTHOUGH!!! I had quite a few of some sheep on the hill side, almost all at 500mm and f/6.3, I had very pleasant results from. It had to be a lighting issue then and just not a fast enough shutter speed, and the sheep one were all hand held as well. Hmmm... I would imagine the tripod would be so much sharper even though the long shutter speeds at night or (not extremely low light) but still not like high noon or anything conditions.

Sorry for the babeling, I tend to think through my fingers.

GSPeP · January 15, 2009

Some pictures with the 50-500 Bigma on different cameras:

http://gspep.smugmug.com/gallery/275455_eeAWC

50 mm.

500 mm.

anonymouscuban · January 15, 2009

This post is really interesting to me. I am currently trying to narrow down a long lens for my Nikon D300. The Bigma is on my short list. I've rented the Nikon 70-200m f/2.8 which I found to be a great lens, but it's expensive and I would also like a bit more range. I currently have the Nikon 70-300mm VR which I got a good deal for used but I am not too happy with it. Really poor contrast on the longer end and not too sharp. I will probably sell it once I find the lens to replace it.

These pics are really compelling me to buy the Bigma.

jgoetz4 · January 15, 2009

Good Evening Folks,
It might be big, slow and clumsy to handhold, but there is no other 10x like it anywhere to be found. I sold mine last year, and have regretted it ever since. Here are a couple of shots taken at 500mm. The Oxon Hill manor was about 3/4 mile from my job site. The Washington Monument was about 2 miles away. Both hand held. The planet Saturn was about 800,000,000 miles away, on a tripod of course. Not bad. I will be getting the Tamron 200-500mm soon

Have a good evening

Jim...

jgoetz4 · January 15, 2009

The Washington Monument

jgoetz4 · January 15, 2009

And finally, Saturn...

Telecorder · January 16, 2009

Somewhat hard to compare

Candid Arts wrote:

Anyways, just curious. Something like these results is why I don't ever want to even bother with third party lenses and try to stick with Canon's L series lenses as much and often as possible. But I see quite a few people on here with third party lenses. So is it something I'm doing wrong? Bad piece of glass?

As others have commented, the Bigma is a rare system that covers its 10X range quite nicely for its price IF the user employs good long lens techniques.

Like most any lens system, a prime, with its tuned fixed elements will most always afford the best image quality over any zoom that has compromises for tuning the movable elements across the zoom range. But, then too, one must 'zoom' with one's legs.

The old adage is still true-->
Choose only 2 and only 2 of the following -->

Good-Great IQ;
Low Price;
Long Reach.

From my many readings of owners' comments on using the Bigma over the years, it would appear that the Canon-mount Bigmas are slightly more susceptible to need of fine tuning for best performance - more so than the Nikon mount version... http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1029&message=12833550

While your experiences with a rental system were less than satisfactory, Lensrentals checks their systems before sending so I'm leaning more to either/both user technique and system issues.

Unless you have a lot of experiences with long reach lenses and proper techniques, this would be my initial assessment of a probable circumstance.

It took me months to develop good long lens techniques after getting my non-DG Bigma. Since then, I've been more than happy with its capabilities.

Add to the mix of need for user technique being critical is the need for understanding of subject sizes/distances. Its been my experiences that subject distances greater than 250-300' is when one is hard pressed to achieve good or better IQ for large raptors. As one closes the subject distances to less than this perceived max, the IQ greatly improves.

I've come to the conclusion that subject sizes also dictate the maximum subject distance that will result in good-great IQ -- My imaging is mostly for larger raptors and have found that I need to 'prorate' the subject distances according to the subject size -- ie Mallard is ~1/2 size of an Eagle so the max subject distance for good-great IQ is 1/2 of 250-300' or 125-150' max. [Taking into account that IQ degrades when one needs to crop >30-50% of the original FOV for composition/frame-filling of subject]

Speaking for myself, the Bigma, for its price, is one of the best long reach systems that, given the right circumstances, is capable of producing stellar images.

FWIW, you may wish to review the extensive set of reviews on long lens alternatives (mostly Nikon mount) that I've posted at-->
http://www.dslrgeeks.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2726#post2726

My 2-centavos and I'm sticking to my biased opinion...

Schnauzer · January 16, 2009

An acquaintance of mine has the bigma. He thought it was great until he went shooting with a friend of his that uses the same lense. They swamped lenses for a while and he said the other guy lense was so much better than his he could hardly believe it. He was going to send his back and get another. If I remember right he uses a 1DMIIN.

M.MoranPhotography · January 17, 2009

Candid Arts wrote:

I'm curious if anyone has used this lens and what your results are with it in terms of sharpness at 500mm? I'm on a 1.6x crop body (Canon 50D) if that has anything to do with it...

I've taken a few shots of eagles and a cityscape type shot at 500mm and some (most) aren't that sharp. All were shot while using a tripod and either a remote shutter or self timer. No mirror lock up was used however. Ranging from 1/320 to 8 second shutter speeds roughly.

Anyways, just curious. Something like these results is why I don't ever want to even bother with third party lenses and try to stick with Canon's L series lenses as much and often as possible. But I see quite a few people on here with third party lenses. So is it something I'm doing wrong? Bad piece of glass?

I don't own this lens, but just rented it for my 3 week Alaska trip from borrowlenses.com.

Thanks for anyone's help and/or input.

If you're shooting exclusively at 500mm, you should just purchase a prime lens; if not... its a 50-500mm lens... you really do get what you pay for, and there's only so many optical tricks in sigmas proverbial bag, before you start seeing the limitations of a large range zoom lens ;P.

Sigma 50-500mm?

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