Sigma 100-300 f4 or 70-200 f2.8 w TCs

Chase

I am thinking of getting a lens for doing sports, preferably a zoom and preferably under 1500 dollars all told. I have a tamron 28-300 (it sucks except for the zoom range) and would really like a constant aperture with a more sports oriented zoom for primarily outdoor bigger field sports (though i do shoot basketball occasionally) like soccer and lacrosse. Which would be a better choice, the 70-200 f2.8 (about $600 plus a 1.4 and a 2x TC) or the 100-300 f4 with a 1.4 TC. Or should i just scrap all of those for a canon 100-400 (though i dont like the variable aperture, i do like the IS for when i do some aerial stuff from a helicopter). Help me out with my problem here please. :scratch

BrettG

An interesting question, I'm making a similar decision right now myself. I'm trying to decide between a 100-300/400 or so and a 200 2.8 prime plus TCs (I'm leaning towards the 200 with Kenko TCs).

I figure that the 200 is a super lens (Minolta) and I can extend the reach with the 1.4 or 2x converters when needed. I think I'll spend a day with my 70-210 stuck on 200 and see if I can live without the zoom capabilities. (the Minolta 80-200 2.8 is too much $ for me right now)

One concern of mine (aside from optical quality) is size/weight and hand-holdability.

Interested in hearing other responses.

Chase

BrettG wrote:

An interesting question, I'm making a similar decision right now myself. I'm trying to decide between a 100-300/400 or so and a 200 2.8 prime plus TCs (I'm leaning towards the 200 with Kenko TCs).

I figure that the 200 is a super lens (Minolta) and I can extend the reach with the 1.4 or 2x converters when needed. I think I'll spend a day with my 70-210 stuck on 200 and see if I can live without the zoom capabilities. (the Minolta 80-200 2.8 is too much $ for me right now)

One concern of mine (aside from optical quality) is size/weight and hand-holdability.

Interested in hearing other responses.

My main concern is autofocus speed, and image quality and price. Weight doesnt bother me because i normally use a monopod for sports. I have a 300D though and its autoffocus isnt exactly "blazingly fast". Though I do hope to upgrade to a 20d within the next 6 months, preferably when its replacement is starting to show up on the market......

ziggy53

Rental
One thing folks here often recommend is renting equipment before purchase. If you can't borrow the lens long enough for a test and trial, renting makes some sense.

I've never rented photo equipment, so I don't have any recommendations, but maybe someone will chime in to help out.

ziggy53

Chase

ziggy53 wrote:

One thing folks here often recommend is renting equipment before purchase. If you can't borrow the lens long enough for a test and trial, renting makes some sense.

I've never rented photo equipment, so I don't have any recommendations, but maybe someone will chime in to help out.

ziggy53

My problem is i always rent much too expensive of gear and it ruins and spoils me. *cough*70-200 f2.8 IS *cough*

Plus i dont think any local place rents sigma gear, only name brand canon and nikon stuff.

DoctorIt

If you're talkin all Sigma, go with the 100-300. If you were comparing the Canon L 70-200 in the mix, its tougher. Canon is really losing out by not having a strong fixed aperture competitor at 100-300 in my opinion.

Regardless, I love my 100-300. My motivations and options were the same as yours. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Here's my review (I also have the 1.4x tc - 420mm at f/5.6 ain't bad )

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=7577

Chase

DoctorIt wrote:

If you're talkin all Sigma, go with the 100-300. If you were comparing the Canon L 70-200 in the mix, its tougher. Canon is really losing out by not having a strong fixed aperture competitor at 100-300 in my opinion.

Regardless, I love my 100-300. My motivations and options were the same as yours. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Here's my review (I also have the 1.4x tc - 420mm at f/5.6 ain't bad )

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=7577

Does the sigma 1.4 really not affect the focus speed?

How do you think it would do @ f4 under stadium lighting at night?

DoctorIt

Chase wrote:

Does the sigma 1.4 really not affect the focus speed?

How do you think it would do @ f4 under stadium lighting at night?

I can't detect any noticeable difference. Winger shot more sports with it than I have, and she didn't complain about it either. She did answer your second question though - at night, f/4 won't cut it. But where are you gonna find a faster 300mm for under $1500? Answer: nowhere. It'll have to do, or you'll have to sell some cookies.

Chase

DoctorIt wrote:

I can't detect any noticeable difference. Winger shot more sports with it than I have, and she didn't complain about it either. She did answer your second question though - at night, f/4 won't cut it. But where are you gonna find a faster 300mm for under $1500? Answer: nowhere. It'll have to do, or you'll have to sell some cookies.

I know, Im just wrnagling with whether i would rather have a shorter 70-200 available to do closer stuff at night (where it would probably work), or just get the 100-300 for all the times when i want longer stuff.

DoctorIt

Chase wrote:

I know, Im just wrnagling with whether i would rather have a shorter 70-200 available to do closer stuff at night (where it would probably work), or just get the 100-300 for all the times when i want longer stuff.

yup, keep scratching that head. Nobody can help you there. All I can say is that I love my 100-300. For the money, it has to be the best sport lens you can get.

there have only been a couple times I could really have used the f/2.8 aperture, but there were a LOT more times that the 300mm came in very very handy.

Chase

DoctorIt wrote:

yup, keep scratching that head. Nobody can help you there. All I can say is that I love my 100-300. For the money, it has to be the best sport lens you can get.

there have only been a couple times I could really have used the f/2.8 aperture, but there were a LOT more times that the 300mm came in very very handy.

I agree. I have a crappy 28-300 now and i use that 300 waaaaay more than i thought i would..... which is why im wondering to how the sigma f2.8 responds to a 1.4 and 2x TC

gus

I saw that sigma the other week for the 1st time...its HUGE !! I had considered it very closely for a long time...but man the weight in it & physical size was a lot more that i ever expected.

Gus

Bodley

Chase wrote:

How do you think it would do @ f4 under stadium lighting at night?

I use the Canon 1.4II and Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS combo on my 1DmkII (previously 20D) and it works well. But when afternoon rolls around, even more so at night under the lights, the 1.4II comes off because I must shoot below f4.0 for acceptable shutter speed. Even went so far as to acquire the 200mm f1.8 for night shooting. Yeah, it's short but Fast.

For me f4.0 is out of the question.

What about the 120-300 f2.8 sigma?

Greg

Chase

Bodley wrote:

I use the Canon 1.4II and Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS combo on my 1DmkII (previously 20D) and it works well. But when afternoon rolls around, even more so at night under the lights, the 1.4II comes off because I must shoot below f4.0 for acceptable shutter speed. Even went so far as to acquire the 200mm f1.8 for night shooting. Yeah, it's short but Fast.

For me f4.0 is out of the question.

What about the 120-300 f2.8 sigma?

Greg

Thats a pretty awesome lens.......but at 1800 bucks, i dont think i could afford it. I would also rather get a new body (upgrade to a 20d from a digireb). But that lens would be nice to have for sure......

Bodley

Chase wrote:

I would also rather get a new body (upgrade to a 20d from a digireb). But that lens would be nice to have for sure......

Never had the Rebel but Glass will last much longer than a body. The 20D body will be cheap in two years. Most seem to lean toward good glass average body beats good body average glass. Which makes sense. If you want a shot in light requiring f2.8 - it's the lens that will bring it home not the body. FFT

6 of one 1/2 dozen of another.

Greg

Chase

Bodley wrote:

Never had the Rebel but Glass will last much longer than a body. The 20D body will be cheap in two years. Most seem to lean toward good glass average body beats good body average glass. Which makes sense. If you want a shot in light requiring f2.8 - it's the lens that will bring it home not the body. FFT

6 of one 1/2 dozen of another.

Greg

Maybe more true for film...but i could really use the 5 fps, the larger buffer, the extra megapixels, and the high ISO ability of the 20d over my digireb. It would improve my photography more than a 2.8 lens i think. Especially since i MOSTLY shoot daytime stuff.

DoctorIt

Chase wrote:

Maybe more true for film...but i could really use the 5 fps, the larger buffer, the extra megapixels, and the high ISO ability of the 20d over my digireb. It would improve my photography more than a 2.8 lens i think. Especially since i MOSTLY shoot daytime stuff.

Yup.

it's all pointing at the f/4... I'm telling you, unless you a serious cash earning pro, you would be hard to not love the lens. And as Gus pointed out, the f/2.8 is a monster. the f/4 is big enough to be "cool" but not so huge that you need to borrow Andy's sherpa.

Mongrel

A few pics showing the size of these lenses...
I have the Sigma 70-200 f/2.8, Sigma 100-300 f/4, and the Sigma 120-300 f/2.8. I *had* (for a week) the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS. Here are a few pics to show you the relative size of them:

#1 Sigma, Canon, Sigma-



#2 Same as above with hoods-



#3 Sigma 100-300 mounted on a D-Rebel-



#4 Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 on a 1D, Sigma 100-300 f/4 on a 20D-




#5 Last but not least, the full line up-

DoctorIt wrote:

Yup.

it's all pointing at the f/4... I'm telling you, unless you a serious cash earning pro, you would be hard to not love the lens. And as Gus pointed out, the f/2.8 is a monster. the f/4 is big enough to be "cool" but not so huge that you need to borrow Andy's sherpa.

I agree with the above, the 100-300 f/4 is *easily* hand held for the most part. The 120-300 f/2.8 is *not easily* hand held-but CAN BE for a short time. I shot an entire lacrosse game hand held, it was tiring but not impossible. However, I would not want to shoot all day hand held with this lens ( I usually use a monopod with it).

Some other personal observations-

The 100-300 f/4 is such a wonderful lens that I found I could not part with it even after picking up the 120-300 f/2.8. I really needed to sell it to help pay for the 120-300, but in the end I like it too much to let it go EVEN though it's an overlap lens. The f/4 is very fast (AF), and has a wonderful character to it that I don't get with my other lenses. I did post some pics in the review that Doc IT did on it, so you can check them out if you like.

I don't think I have any shots from the 120-300 f/2.8 up anywhere yet, but I should shortly as I am processing pics from several lacrosse games I shot with it recently. I'll check back in here when I get samples up.

I totally agree that f/4 is too slow for night work, and honestly, even for late afternoon games (when the sun dips below the tree line), I am at f/2.8 to keep my shutter speeds up for sports. If you are not shooting action with the f/4 and are using a tripod for relatively still wildlife type work, it is doable though.

A word on teleconverters-

I have used the Sigma 1.4 teleconverter on all of the above with very good success (read: totally usable shots). Image quality wise I've noticed no image quality degradation on either of the 300mm Sigma zooms. If you have the light-go for it. The 120-300 with the tc at f/4 is a great combo. The 100-300 f/4 at f/5.6 with the tc, really doesn't show any loss of image quality, but (obviously) is *very* slow for a lot of situations. Again, if you have the light it is a great combo as well. I can easily recommend using the Sigma (or Canon for that matter) 1.4 TC with either. I have no hands on experience with the 2.0 TC's so I can't comment there.

To sum up-in my experience like the others above, at this time there just is no finer 300mm for the money than the Sigma 100-300 f/4.

Take care,

Mongrel

DoctorIt

Mongrel wrote:

I have no hands on experience with the 2.0 TC's so I can't comment there.

To sum up-in my experience like the others above, at this time there just is no finer 300mm for the money than the Sigma 100-300 f/4.

If Mongrel owning both the 120-300 and 100-300 doesn't convince you of what a great lens this is, than I don't know what will!

the only thing I can add is that with the 2x TC, you lose AF. At least you do on my friends D70 (sigma 2x TC + sigma 100-300mm f/4).

Chase

Yeah i am not interested in the 2.0 TC unless i were to get a 120-300..... I am thinking I will get the 100-300 for now until it earns some money to buy a 120-300 f2.8, if i really get more serious......so no loss of AF speed with the 1.4? D


Right now im shooting with a crappy tamron 28-300 f3.5-6.3......so f4 would be a HUUUUUUGE step up for me......

DoctorIt

Chase wrote:

Yeah i am not interested in the 2.0 TC unless i were to get a 120-300..... I am thinking I will get the 100-300 for now until it earns some money to buy a 120-300 f2.8, if i really get more serious......so no loss of AF speed with the 1.4? D

If you can detect any real difference in AF speed with that TC - come to my lab, I've got some other things you could trouble shoot, and I could save myself thousands in precision instrumentation.

Mongrel

Just passing this along if anyone is interested...
Sigma 100-300 f/4 EX for sale over at FM Buy & Sell:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/232385

also posted in our Buy & Sell Forum...

Awesome price on a great lens (if it's as advertised). I have no connection with the seller btw