Customer Reviews

Sigma 70-300mm F4-5.6 DL Macro Super Lens for Nikon-AF Camera

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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I own two Nikon N80 bodies. I used to own Nikon lenses only. Then I had trouble with the Nikon zoom and traded it in for a Sigma. Funny thing - the Sigma focused more clearly and easily than Nikon's own lens! I also own a Tamrom 1.4 teleconverter which did not work at all with the Nikon lens - but it works beautifully with this Sigma lens. I recently got some wonderful closeups of butterflies using the teleconverter with this lens - hand-held! I highly recommend this lens.
To add a PS: I wrote this review in 2001, and now in 2005 I still own it and it still works great, no repairs needed. It's a little bulky by today's standards, but great optics for the price.

As a telephoto zoom, this lens is very versatile. Its a fine (100-135mm) portrait lens. Its great for sports or animal photography (135-300mm). With the macro feature, its wonderful for taking photos of flowers and nature. And with its long telephoto capability, it makes a cool girl watching lens. For capturing the mood of summer or of being on vacation, nothing says it better than a pretty girl photographed in the location in local attire. (With a telephoto zoom lens, even for a portrait, its easier to separate the subject from the crowd or background in order to frame the composition perfectly.)

As a Nikon owner, I use this lens with my Nikon N-90, which has a flash sync speed of 1/250th of a second, fast enough to hand hold with a telephoto lens. I also use the dedicated Nikon SB-28 flash which has a zoom head to extend the flash's range; and when combined with the Nikon "D" lens mount on the Sigma lens (which tells the camera subject distance) and Nikon's 3-D Matrix Metering, this combination of equipment allows me to shoot telephoto fill-flash in broad daylight (with no extra thinking required. Just compose and shoot). Nothing makes the subject pop -- in terms of brightness and color -- more than fill-flash. I'll usually use the Sigma 70-300 in this set-up to capture animals or people. (My friends are always amazed at the brightness and color saturation of my photos. They think I use special film.)

I also employ this lens/camera/flash combination (using 400 or 800 speed film) to photograph my son's basketball games indoors. By using a fast enough film, I can perfectly balance the ambient light with the flash to create perfectly natural indoor sports photos. (Using flash makes the color of his jersey pop. Attempting to shoot indoors using only available light will leave the colors murky.)

When I'm out and about, I'll normally carry, as a back-up to my Nikon/Sigma set-up, an autofocus point-and-shoot 35 mm camera (such as my Olympus Stylus DLX 28-90) so I don't need to change lenses. (It's much easier to whip out the autofocus camera for the wider angle shots than it is to switch lenses. It's also much lighter to carry.)

What's best about the Sigma 70-300 is that it does all of the above -- at a very affordable price. If you're looking for a great telephoto zoom, this is the lens to get.

I'm a (new) military photojournalist, and I shoot for a hobby, too. I tend to stick with the budget accessories so I can still afford groceries. I bought this lens used, with two filters, for $120. I needed a telephoto lens that would be good for shooting aircraft in flight and stuff like that, mostly outdoors. For what I paid, this lens is great. Yes, it's far inferior to the stuff my office supplies us with, but so is the price. The zoom ring, at least on mine, is very stiff. I don't know if that's just mine or a quality of the lens. The other reviews are correct, you need a good amount of light for this to really be effective. However, if you know what you're doing in Photoshop, you have nothing to worry about. For me, I like a soft, portrait-like photo in almost all situations, and in the newspaper things don't print sharp at all, so I use this lens for both work and play. It's light, and pretty compact. I really don't use the macro. Bottom line, I am happy with this lens, but I would like to eventually spend more on a nicer one.