Sigma 400mm F5.6 APO Tele Macro

by Samir

 

Several days ago after reading a review at Photozone even if I already have another lens in that focal length (Tokina 400mm F5.6 AT-X SD) I decided to buy the Sigma 400mm f5.5 APO.

The shop that I (too) frequently visit had one lens in Minolta mount, and as it was sitting on their shelves for loong time the price they were asking for it was quite reasonable. It seems that sometimes it can be good to use not so popular cameras ;), because if the lens was in Canon mount it would have been gone long time ago.

My first impression with Sigma is: WOW!!! it is very sharp, it can resolve things that I can not see with naked eye, like raster patterns in printed pages and such as review at photozone is done in much more competent way, i will just make a comparison with Tokina.

Here you can see the difference in size, from left to right:

 

KM 17-35 F2.8-4 D ; Sigma 300mm F4 APO Tele Macro ; Tokina AT-X400AF 400mm F5.6 SD ; Sigma 400mm F5.6 APO Tele Macro

 

and here is a quick comparison between two 400mm lenses, the framing is not exactly the same because tripod mounts are positioned differently, so there is some difference between picture crops.

First picture bellow is a full frame from Sigma with marked areas that will be compared at 100% magnification, crops are from original JPEG files straight from camera

camera settings: sharpness: +2; contrast: 0

 

center crop:

 

corner crop:

 

high contrast transition

 

out of focus highlights

 

close focusing (both pictures are full frame, only resized)

 

 

And here are some of my subjective observations

build:

Sigma is longer, and heavier, it is almost hard to believe that both lenses are 400mm F5.6 seeing them side by side.
Sigma has removable tripod collar, Tokina has tripod collar, but it can not be removed

Sigma needs 77mm filters, Tokina 72mm

Sigma has focus limiter, Tokina has not

Both lenses have built in hood that can slide back when not in use

Sigma has AF/MF switch, Tokina has not

 

sharpness:

both lenses require sturdy tripod in order to get the best results, but as Sigma is heavier, my impression is that Tokina is better for hand holding.

Tokina does not deal with high contrast in the best way, and there will be some blue/purple fringing in areas with transition from dark to light, where Sigma does not exhibit any color fringing whatsoever

 

flare resistance:

Tokina seems to do better, but I need to use Sigma more in order to see how it handles in "real life"

 

AF speed:
both lenses are bit slow, perhaps Sigma should be given some plus points because of focus limiter, but without HSM (SSM) it can not be used for applications where fast and reliable focus is required, as usual only Canon and Sigma (not sure about Nikon version) have HSM

 

bokeh:

no comment yet, as 400mm is quite long it is easy to get a blurry and "creamy" background, even at F5.6

 

from my short experience so far, Sigma 400mm is a sharper and a notch better lens then it's smaller brother 300mm F4 APO Tele Macro, design and features are same, but Sigma has used different (better?) low dispersion glass in 400mm variant which is of course heavier and longer

 

some more samples from Sigma 400mm:

this morning we had a visitor in our bedroom, my wife could not believe her eyes when I went out and came back hauling tripod, camera and a flash, here is "the visitor" taken with Sigma 400mm:

 

 

and here is 100% crop from another picture

 

it will be difficult to decide which lens to keep because both have their qualities, but then my lensoholism might get better in future, who knows

 

PS
no animals have been harmed for this "review" ;)

 

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