Sigma 100-400
I love long lenses, but I am also not such a fan of lugging a lot of weight around. The Nikon 70-300 was actually one of my favorite lenses, which led me to also go for a Nikon 200-500. The extremes of these long lenses are not really that different actually, and the weight has kept the Nikon 200-500 at home for more than one occasion. So when my Nikon 70-300 started to go wonky (I used it for about 10 years) I decided to give the Sigma 100-400 a try.
At 100-400mm this is a bit longer than the Nikon 70-300, but it is not that much heavier, about half the weight of the Nikon 200-500, which is a welcome addition. Considering that on an APS-C body this lens would be like a 150-600mm this is a great bargain for a very long zoom without the added weight, now it will be even harder for me to get the Nikon 200-500 out of the house. However, the short end at 100mmm is still quite long, which almost requires a second camera (or lens) to cover you for wider shots.
As expected, like any equipment manufactured in the last 10 years, this thing is really good. I use it handheld, and you can check some of the pictures below. The important metric is how many shots I need to get what I want, and I need very few shots to get good results with this one. I just started using this lens, so I will need a bit of time to update this page. Of course the most annoying thing about it is that the zoom ring works the opposite way to all Nikon lenses.
| Price | Not that expensive |
|---|---|
| Weight | Heavy, 1200g |
| Good for | People, landscape, animals |
| New or used | About 700 new |
This works great on the Full Frame camera. However the short end is still very long making this a bit like the Nikon 200-500 a lens that you need to pair with something else. Since this will then only cover the long range, why keep on a Full Frame body?
This lens becomes a 150mm-600mm lens on APS-C camera, making it a very long lens in a very compact package. You will need something for anything else, but this will get you all the details you want. Perfect for animals, landscapes. To be honest 100mm on the short end would be very long for most cases, so this is actually a better lens for the APS-C camera than for the full frame.
Gallery / see also
The Nikon 200-500 and the Sigma 100-400 side by side. These two lenses are surprisingly comparable actually. The short end for both of them is quite long so it does nto matter that much if you have 100mm or 200mm and the long range is actually very long, and there is not that much of a difference between 400mm and 500mm.
I am as happy as the goat is in this picture with this shot.
This is actually 600mm, as it is shot with a Nikon D500.
A center 1:1 crop from a flower.
This is an almost center crop from a shot by a Nikon D850 at 1:1 pixels. Note that this is 2% of the shot.
This is the full shot of the ladybug. It may not look ikpressive, but check the other crop from this frame.
I love this lens for capturing such details.
These pages are for Amateur Photographers and not really for seasoned photographers and professionals. I have no affiliation or commercial interest with any brand/make. I write from my own experience. I ended up using mainly Nikon, so I am more familiar with this brand than others. See price for notes on pricing as well as photography related links.