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Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 AF APO DG OS HSM Telephoto Zoom Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras
 | Format: Electronics List Price: $979.99 Our Price: $889.73 Your Save: $ 90.26 ( 9% ) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Average Customer Rating:   |
Features: Incorporating Sigma's original OS (Optical Stabilizer) function
An ultra-telephoto zoom lens covers a telephoto range up to 500mm and allows short perspective
Three SLD glass elements and a rear focus system provide optimum image quality throughout the entire zoom range
Super multi-layer coating reduces flare and ghosting
HSM ensures quiet and high-speed autofocus
Editorial Reviews:
This ultra-telephoto zoom lens covers a telephoto range up to 500mm and allows photographers to bring the subject close and short perspective. Sigmas original OS (Optical Stabilizer) function offers the use of shutter speeds approximately 4 stops slower. It is ideal for sports, wildlife and landscape photography with handheld shooting. Three SLD (Special Low Dispersion) glass elements provide excellent correction for chromatic aberration. This lens is equipped with a rear focus system that minimizes fluctuation of aberration caused by focusing. The super multi-layer lens coating reduces flare and ghosting. High image quality is assured throughout the entire zoom range. This lens incorporates HSM (Hyper Sonic Motor), which ensures a quiet and high-speed AF as well as full-time manual focusing capability. The addition of the (optional) 1.4x EX DG APO or 2x EX DG APO Tele Converters produce a 210-700mm F7-9 MF ultra-telephoto zoom lens or a 300-1000mm F10-13 MF ultra-telephoto zoom lens respectively. A removable tripod socket (TS-31) is included as a standard component.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great lens for the money
Comment: I have had this lens for about a week now and I love it. It is matched with a Nikon D300, which seems to be a good match. It is heavy, but I have no problems taking hand held photos at 500mm. The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is because of the weight and apeture limitations in low light conditions, but the alternative is to spend thousands. If you want it for the Nikon D300 - go get it. You will not be dissapointed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great bird lens especially for Nikon!
Comment: I like to do birding by walking around. For this my lens criteria are: longest focal length I can carry; image stabilization; high speed focus to catch birds in flight; no chromatic aberrations and excellent image quality. The closet Nikon gets is the 70-300mm VR AF-S lens which I used exclusively (until now).
I was on the fence about this Sigma lens until I saw bird images from the UK and Australia taken with a Canon 40D. So I bought the Nikon mount version and haven't looked back. My Nikon D300 has no problem autofocusing with this lens even though it's 6.3 aperture is smaller than the 5.6 Nikon recommends. It even works in all 3 focus modes which is probably more an attribute of the D300 than the lens.
I get birds over water and lakes I couldn't pull in at 300mm. In flight photos are sharp at 1/1250 sec. No visible chromatic aberation. OS works down to 1/250 sec at 500mm. It could be better but I haven't tried to push it more. I find best sharpness at f/8 - f/12. You can see bird images at Flickr (see member 'sbfledgling' sets and look for the lens in the title of 2 sets). You can click the 'slideshow' at upper right to see larger images. All photos were hand-held. Shooting data accompanies each image.
Mounted on the D300 the whole rig weighs about 6 pounds. It's a load to be sure but so far I manage.
I would recommend this lens to any user looking for a long range, hand-holdable, portable lens option.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Softness shooting wide open, OS is noisy
Comment: I was quite intrigued by the paper specifications and the other positive reviews. I used the lens on a Nikon D90 body and tried out some bird photography in late afternoon light. The lens build quality looks terrific and it has a very nice hood and case. Some of the problems I ran into were quality related and some just an artifact of a slow long lens. Auto-Focusing is reasonably fast. I got a lot of softness shooting the lens wide open (f6.3) at 500mm. You have to be very careful with focusing since the depth of field is extremely shallow (it's easy to misfocus on something ahead or behind the subject). The sharpness improved as I moved the aperture down to f/8 and smaller.
I also tried it with the OS (Optical Stabilization) Off (on a tripod) and On. For me personally, hand-holding below 1/200 seemed iffy. The OS was also very noisy and sounded unusual in that it was uneven. Further the unit continued to be noisy even after focus had been achieved and the shutter was half squeezed which I wasn't expecting. It takes a while to get used to the OS which seems to be different from Nikon. It takes a bit longer to kick in and you have to wait for this. This is probably something that takes a few days to pick up.
I've returned the lens since. I'm still intrigued enough to want to try out another one in case the problems I had were specific to the unit I had.
Bottom line, the lens build quality seems great and autofocusing is good. Expect some softness if you shoot wide open and long. You do have to make compromises getting a lens of this focal length at this price. The compromise is that most of your shooting will have to be on sunny days or with the ISO bumped up on cloudy days so you can shoot with smaller apertures and faster shutter speeds. Definitely worth a try.
Customer Rating:
Summary: EXELLENT, yes, thats the title for this beauty, EXELLENT.
Comment: Hello everybody right there on your chair reading this review, yes I know that after reading this review you wont buy this lens, I know that, I know that u will buy it after reading a lot of more reviews, but maybe yes u will buy it right now, I know that $1,000.00 is not easy to risk it, right? but, but buying this lens is worth the money.
After reading a lot of reviews, I desired to buy it, OK I got it, I took it to shoot some pictures of NEW YORK CITY at night, the pictures came ot beautiful, next day I took it to the park and shoot some wildlife, oh man, again what a great results, great lens at a great price.
The best of this lens is the OPTICAL STABILIZER (OS), it lets u shoot great pictures without a tripod even at 500mm, all my shoots were hand held, with OS on.
I included some pictures so that u can see the color quality that this lens offers. The most important point for me about this lens is that the pictures I took came out great even at 500mm. check the pics above.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent Lens
Comment: I bought this lens because I like to shoot photos at airshows. Shooting small fast moving planes at great distances is a challenge. This lens makes it much easier. The Optical stabilization is perfect. Sigma goes farther than Nikon in their stabilization. I have used Nikon VR lenses and did not get the greatest results when panning. Sigma solved that problem. The lens is sharp at both ends of the zoom, which is impressive. The focus is incredibly fast. Mated with my Nikon D300, this lens is producing amazing images.
Accessories:
 | Sigma 1.4x EX DG APO Tele-Converter AF for Nikon AF Cameras |
 | DigPro Adventurer Series Photography Backpack - Pro |
 | Lowepro Lens Case 4 (Black) |
 | Vanguard VT-126 Aluminum Digital Camera Tripod |
Technical Details
Batteries Included: 0Binding: Electronics
Brand: Sigma
EAN: 0085126737559
Feature: Incorporating Sigma's original OS (Optical Stabilizer) function
Is Autographed: 0
Is Fragile: 0
Is Memorabilia: 0
Label: Sigma Corporation
Manufacturer: Sigma Corporation
Maximum Focal Length: 500
Minimum Focal Length: 150
Model: 737-306
Publisher: Sigma Corporation
Studio: Sigma Corporation
