Minolta Sigma AF 800mm 5.6 APO

First Light
Notes: haven't yet received my gimbal that I ordered, so these were taken "by hand" leaning on the top of a low wooden fence. The area I usually go for birds is heavily overgrown right now and hard to find anything(particularly with the lens being fairly immobile until I get a decent mount). Goodly amount of red-purple fringing, used +26 red/cyan, -9 blue/yellow in Camera Raw to eliminate. Lens sometimes focuses slowly and hunts, like a macro lens. It has a focus limiter (which limits focus to 50 ft to infinity) that speeds things up significantly. Makes an occasional harsh sound while focusing, as if the gears have had some wear. Lots of dust inside lens. Appears to have slight backfocus, which I have not tried to measure and fix yet. The following shots were taken at about 30-50 feet from the subject, wide open f/5.6. The first is to show the bokeh, and the last three show some 100% pixel crops. No output sharpening on the cropped pictures. This is not a lens for casual shooting--takes some preparation to get the lens out, hood attached, and find some decent support. Even with carbon fiber support, you're looking at at least 25-30 pounds for lens, hood, camera, gimbal and tripod.




Edited by rsjaffe - 23 July 2011 at 22:05

Swiftyspix wrote: rsjaffe wrote: Swiftyspix wrote: Ahemmmm! Review??? Photos??? Bump..... This past week had family visiting so no playing with the new lens--it's a bit awkward doing family portraits with an 800mm lens that has a minimum distance of about 22 feet. I'll get it tested real soon. Sounds like the perfect "Mother in Law" portrait lens!

Yes. Have her pose near a cliff.

"Sorry can't focus. Too close—please back up a bit. More... More... More..."

rsjaffe wrote: Swiftyspix wrote: Ahemmmm! Review??? Photos??? Bump..... This past week had family visiting so no playing with the new lens--it's a bit awkward doing family portraits with an 800mm lens that has a minimum distance of about 22 feet. I'll get it tested real soon.

Sounds like the perfect "Mother in Law" portrait lens!

Swiftyspix wrote: Ahemmmm! Review??? Photos??? Bump.....

This past week had family visiting so no playing with the new lens--it's a bit awkward doing family portraits with an 800mm lens that has a minimum distance of about 22 feet. I'll get it tested real soon.

And getting proper support for this lens may cost me almost as much as the lens did. Lens + camera is a good 18 pounds. My tripod is marginal (Feisol CT-3442) and a gimbal for something this long and heavy is mandatory (if I don't want to do an accidental face-plant with the whole shebang).

Getting a gimbal this week, will limp along with the tripod but gimbal plus lens plus camera pretty much hits the max load for the tripod.

Yep, enjoy it RS. BTW, I think you've got the 'pod for the 200-500/2.8 there.   

Doesn't have to be expensive. I recently sold this Superball (BALLA) below for $250 - retails for much more. It would hold the 800mm easily. The tripod that it's on is an Induro A413, cost me $63 on Amazon one day. It's huge.

I use it with a Gimbal as well.