Name: Sigma 170-500mm f/5-6.3 DG APO Aspherical AutoFocus Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon EOS Cameras
Brand: Sigma
SKU: SG170500DEOS
Price: 729.00 USD
Availability: Discontinued
Rating: 3.67 (3 reviews)

Sigma 170-500mm f/5-6.3 DG APO Aspherical AutoFocus Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon EOS Cameras

Sigma 170-500mm f/5-6.3 DG APO Aspherical AutoF...

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Buy: Sigma 170-500mm f/5-6.3 DG APO Aspherical AutoFocus Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon EOS Cameras Lens Series: Sigma DG

great tool to use for out of door shots and for wild life

Great Buy

This lens is fuzzy at all focal lengths.  I have had it for less than a month and I am not satisfied with any of the results when I try to print a photograph above a 5X7.

The lens is easy to use and if the optics where better I would recommend it to anyone.  Since it is fuzzy, I would recommend saving your money to buy a better lens.

Maybe I got a lemon of all the Sigma 170-500 zooms.

Save for A better lens

I have owned this lens over 3 years now. I have probably shot well over 60,000 frames with this lens alone. This lens has been used on several Canon DSLR's. Five Canons have failed, but not this lens. Despite being used frequently on boats, including kayaks, and even once being immersed in salt water in Monterrey Bay, this lens continues to perform extremely well. Durability should not be a problem for even rugged professional use of this lightweight push-pull zoom.On Canon cameras, this is an f5 to 5.6 lens, not a 6.3. This seems to be an added bonus of the Canon mount.The resolution of this optic is quite remarkable. I have no problem getting large prints to 24 x 36 inches that show very high detail and are extremely sharp. While not a match to my Canon 135/f2, I would not trade it (optically) for Canon's AF 300mm optics.Optically, my sample is a very strong performer. In fact, from 250-500mm at f8, this performs as well, and in some cases, far better than Canon's much more expensive offerings.I compared this to a 500 f4 IS and resolution and sharpness are about the same at f8. IF you need a 500 f4 for the f4 aperture and can enjoy the comfort of a tripod then the Canon is the way to go (for several thousands $$ more).However, if you are shooting fast moving daylight subjects such as birds in flight, planes, or racing, this lens will perform as well as much more expensive glass. Subject acquisition is much quicker because you can zoom in after acquiring your subject in the view finder. This lens is also very fast handling.I also had the misfortune to compare the lens to a new Canon 300mm f4 IS that I purchased last fall. While I could have gotten an extremely poor example of the Canon 300mm, I suspect not. I had never thought anything good about the optical quality of the 300 f4 before. I had been hearing about how much Canon had improved that lens. Unfortunately what I found was that I could crop the image area taken with the 170-500 Sigma lens to half the frame AND STILL have better sharpness and resolution than the Canon 300mm f4 IS.While that hopefully means that the Canon 300 was defective, the performance of several other competive (and much more expensive) lenses in this telephoto range did not match this Sigma 170-500.The AF performance of my Sigma on my Canons seems to be just as fast as the 100 - 400mm or 300mm f4 or 2.8 Canon lenses, except in low light, where the 300mm f2.8 easily does better. Flare is very well controlled, so well that I don't use the hood. Contrary to a belief stated in a test report I read many years ago, this lens can be used very successfully to photograph small birds. The disadvantage is in the focusing mount. It only focuses to a little more than 10 feet. This will still give you a very tight detailed shot of a warbler or hummingbird at 500mm, but forget getting any closer at 300mm. Ten feet is what you've got.While this lens can be used with a thin 12 mm extension tube to get closer, it will not work as a true zoom. It will work as a verifocal lens. That is, you will have to refocus as you change the focal length.The other sore point is something lacking of possibly limited usefulness on a modern AF SLR anyway. The focus ring has no damping and a very short range. Combined with an AF/Manual switch that is difficult to reach and the typically poor screens for focusing on most cameras today, you are not going to be focusing manually much at all.If the mininum focusing range were brought in to 7 feet and the focusing ring was replaced with a wonderful focusing clutch such as is on the Tamron 90mm f2.8 SP AF or the Tokina 12-24mm f4, I would not hesitate to give this lens a very strong 5 stars. Optically, this is truly a five star performer for a zoom lens.(BTW, while I do not like teleconverters, there are rare exceptions where I do recommend specially matched teleconvertors with a lens. This is not one of them. A good example would be Canon's 1.4x convertor, and only Canon's 1.4x convertor with their 135 f2. -- But I would strictly recommend against using ANY teleconvertor on this SIgma lens. There are no tele-convertors at this time matched to the 170-500. You are far better off cropping.)

Sigma 170-500mm f/5-6.3 DG APO Aspherical AutoFocus Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon EOS Cameras

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