Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM Optical Stabilised Telephoto Lens Nikon AFD Fit

Product Information

Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc. In the Sigma 120-300mm F2.8 DG OS HSM S lens, Sigma employed an iris diaphragm with nine rounded blades, which has resulted in very nice bokeh in our view. We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective, so we've included several 100% crops for your perusal.

Go shoot a lacrosse game from the sidelines, or down the 3rd base line at a ball game, with runners full sprinting towards you....then i'll be satisfied that the review was a true test of this lenses ability. This is an easy enough lens for a man to hand-hold if you're a serious shooter, although if you're standing or sitting in one place for hours a monopod makes it much easier. The Sigma is a heavy lens, mine is a abot 3.2 kg, the Sports version is even heavier. But I usually handhold it. But a monopod would certainly be useful and I am thinking about buying one. Standing at a zoo and waiting for the right moment it is quite difficult with the heavy lens.The Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM Sports Lens is very sharp throughout the entire focal length range and across the entire 35mm frame with a wide open aperture.

Mounting a tele converter behind the Sigma 120-300 OS will make a much bigger difference in the MM values. Overall, the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 seems to be a good performer when stopped down. Unfortunately, its performance is not very impressive wide open, especially in the corners. The sweet spot of the lens seems to be at f/5.6 at all focal lengths. NIKON D3S @ 300mm, ISO 400, 1/1250, f/8.0 Lens sharpness has nothing to do with picture sharpness; every lens made in the past 100 years is more than sharp enough to make super-sharp pictures if you know what you're doing. The only limitation to picture sharpness is your skill as a photographer. It's the least talented who spend the most time worrying about lens sharpness and blame crummy pictures on their equipment rather than themselves. Skilled photographers make great images with whatever camera is in their hands; I've made some of my best images of all time with an irreparably broken camera! Most pixels are thrown away before you see them, but camera makers don't want you to know that.The zoom and focusing rings are well damped, almost to the extent of feeling stiff when new. They are both wide enough to get a good grip and there’s no looseness or movement. The lens does not change length when zooming or focusing with all adjustments happening internally. This is an excellent feature when using the lens on a beanbag as the focus ring does not turn during autofocus. Detailed specifications for the lens, along with an MTF chart and other useful data can be found in our lens database. Lens Handling

First, the alphabet soup of the lens name. The Sigma 120-300mm F2.8 EX DG OS APO HSM has a name that indicates that it's a lens with "superior build and optical quality" ( EX), has full frame coverage and is optimized for digital use ( DG), is optically stabilized ( OS), uses special low-dispersion (SLD) glass to minimize chromatic aberration ( APO) and has a Hypersonic motor ( HSM) for fast and quiet focus. Nikon's first use of an SR glass element (Short-wavelength Refractive, same as Canon's BR Blue Refractive compound) to reduce s p h e r o c h r o m a t i s m, also used in the Z 70-200mm f/2.8 introduced the same day. Thus, I did not retest this OS implementation's full capabilities, but of course used it during evaluation of this lens.The only noticeable difference I can find is that the sharpness goes from great to stunning once the lens is stopped down from f/2.8 to f/4 or beyond! Although not normally a problem with longer focal length lenses, distortion, either barrel or pincushion, is not in evidence either. Another issue is that the mass of the lens shifts when zooming. Every time I mount a lens on my Gimbal head I balance it by adjusting the fore/aft position of the lens foot in the clamp. This means that when my hands are off the lens and camera, it is self-centering (if the tilt adjustment knob is loose). What I noticed with the Sigma 120-300 f/2.8, is that if I centered the lens when zoomed to 300 and then zoomed out to 120, the balance shifted to the front of the lens causing it to pitch downward.

I never used the Nikon 300/2.8 VR. From what I read it is better in the corners wide open (which is not relevant for me). I guess AF will be a bit better, too. Distortion is so mild at either end of the zoom range that it will be hard to spot with the naked eye, Imatest managed to detect only 0.0225% barrel distortion at 120mm and 0.959% pincushion distortion at 300mm. These low levels of distortion should rarely need correction, but if they do then is should be relatively straightforward to do so, as the distortion pattern is uniform across the frame. The Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM Sports Lens is a physically beautiful lens that delivers also-beautiful image quality even with a wide open aperture.At 11.5" long (without the hood) and weighing in at just under 3kg (6.5 lbs) the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 EX HSM can't really be described as either small or light. It's certainly light enough to hand hold if the need arises, but prolonged hand held use can get rather tiring and the lens (and photographer) will be happier with it mounted on a monopod (for maximum mobility) or a tripod.