Sigma 500mm F4.5 APO A-mount lens review by arescrew
 arescrew#1638 date: Jan-12-2007 | |
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| sharpness: 4.5 color: 5 build: 4 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 4.7 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | Sigma 50-500 / 4-6.3 EX APO RF Sigma 400 / 5.6 APO (second version, non-macro) |
| price paid: | 849 € (+25 € case) |
| positive: | Build quality Sharpness |
| negative: | AF Speed |
| comment: | I found this lens accidentally at ebay. Never searched for one of these, but at that price i couldn't resist. My copy was heavily used before, but optics are still fine (by the way, it's exactly that copy on the pictures here at dyxum). I hadn't the chance to use / test it a lot yet, so this is rather a "first impression" and will be updated as soon as more precise impressions arise. Sharpness: After the first shot "in the wild", i thought it wasn't that sharp as i expected, i noticed that sharpness increased from open aperture (4.5) to 8. But as is compared it directly to the Sigma 50-500, i saw that it is even sharper wide open, than the 50-500 stopped down to it's best apertures (above 8-11). But because it gets a little sharper stopped down, my rating is "just" 4.5. ultra-top lenses like the Minolta 600 / 4 might perform better. Build quality: Like a tank. This lens is pure metal. The build-in hood tends to tilt, the pervious owner never was able to unlock it from extended state (and hence never was able to use the case for it, that's why he sold it separately). I accomplished that with the help of a hair drier. :-) The cover for the AF-ring is slightly loose on my copy, but i think it's negligible considering the age of the lens. Color: i have not enough experience in judging this, but i didn't notice any drawbacks. Distortion rating: see above, but this lens will mainly be used for nature (not for architecture), so i think it wouldn't matter a lot. Vignetting: none detected. Flare: The hoods for this lens are extremly large. As you can see on the pictures here there's a build-in hood, that should do the job alone. But there's still an additional hood, that can be attached to the build in one. I can't imagine, that any flare could ever be visible unless you point the lens directly to the sun. The AF is VERY slow, and often doesn't find the focus at first attempt. Furthermore it often doesn't focus properly, but i think, this is mainly because of my main subjects (animals) which often, even with this lens, are smaller than the center AF-indicator. Smaller drawbacks: This lens is heavy, i never tried to use it without a tripod, because you'll need pretty much light and strong arms to do so (on 5D it's a 750mm!). But it's nothing i would rate as drawback. Try to find a lens with these attributes with noticable less weight. Another Drawback: it's very rare! In nearly one year of scanning ebay for lenses, my copy was the first one i ever saw in the wild; and i just know of one more copy of exactly this production series. accessories: My copy came with a metal case, a leather cap for the front lens, the additional hood and four filters (clear, yellow, orange, red; 30,5mm rear). Some sample images (500/4.5 vs. 50-500/4-6.3 vs. 400/5.6) Crop 500x500 (3.3 MB) http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~justus/500_50-500_400/v_klein.jpg Crop 1000x750 (8.4 MB) http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~justus/500_50-500_400/v_gross.jpg Original (out-of-camera), JPG-quality "standard", aperture 8 http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~justus/500_50-500_400/PICT7676.JPG |
; 10MPrating summary
- total reviews: 9
- sharpness: 4.78
- color: 4.33
- build: 4.44
- distortion: 5.00
- flare control: 4.78
- overall: 4.67