Flip Flopping on the 80-400's

Raff

I will be purchasing an 80-400 lens fairly soon. However, I want to get the best lens for my buck. My choices are Nikkor, Sigma, Tamron. It is my belief that of the 3 listed here, Nikkor would rank as best. Am I right? I will pay more for Nikkor if the image quality is superior to the others. But if the IQ is equal on all 3, then I'd love saving a few hundred bucks. Know what I mean?

jthomas

I suggest you browse the "Lens Lust" forum at the Nikon Cafe. Just do a search on "80-400" or something like that and you'll turn up a ton of expert opinion.

Scott_Quier

I have the Sigma 80-400 OS (link here) for EOS. IQ is great - really love it. The OS (Optical Stabilizer) works very nicely. The only down-side is the AF - it's just a tad slow and hunts a bit in lower light.

I have a few examples of what is possible (click on the image for the exif)



Original (JPG, I shoot raw and do conversion) is here should you be interested in a closer look.

Here is a tree-rat. This the center 50% of a Canon 20D image:


Hope this helps a bit.

Raff

Thanks guys.