I'm kinda new around this place but not to photography, I've been an underwater shooter for a number of years, however
I'm off to borneo next year diving and land safari "Orangutans" to be exact.
I'm looking for a Nice Tele - Zoomer and have been looking at this Sigma 80-400mm F5.6 OS unit. as oppose to the Nikon 80-400VR
reviews on this site are excellent of the Sigma, However i have read one review from a so called pro on Photography review which disturbed me a little from this lens.
they quoted that the OS system will not work if this lens is Mounted (i.e) monopod..
I would have thought that using a monopod with this lens would only serve to enhance its ability..
i think most of the shooting will be done at 300 - 400mm end of the scale and due to the jungle forna i suspect its not going to be too light in there, so hence my choice of this lens, i expect that i'll be looking at the following exposures
400mm F5.6 1/125 to 1/250 using ISO 400 or a wider narrower aperture should the light allow
Do any of you folks have this unit Sigma 80-400 OS and have you had good results from it wide open and even , Monopods are not the most stable of supports so i expect that this lens will still function properly.
I'm not usually an ON-LAND shooter, so i want to purchase a lens that will serve me well and get me the results i'm looking for , that would be nice and sharp images under what may be difficult conditions.
Indeed, according to the user manual, you cannot use this lens with OS on a monopod or a tripod (also the case with VR and IS). That is probably because the technology is based on gyros, meaning the lens needs some "freedom" to move while the gyros are started...
But anyway, you do not really need to use a monopod. This lens allows you to shoot at very low speeds (I have included a few examples hereunder, the concert shot was 1/50 sec at 400mm f5.6) depending on how steady your arm can be... I am not really a tripod/monopod fan and I shoot 99% of the time hand held without any problem. This lens gives you excellent pictures throughout the range (a bit sharper at 80mm than at 400mm but nothing to worry about, my A4 - close to letter format - printouts are perfect).
By the way, I could compare with the Nikkor 80-400 VR recently and both lenses are excellent performers and very very similar (only serious differences are weight, construction, tripod collar and size).
There are quite a few Nikkor 80-400 users in this forum, some of them are tripod users (with VR off then), but they will probably agree with me if I say that this lens has become one of my favourites, because of the quality, the technical possibilities and the incredible versatility of the range...(with that respect the Nikkor or Sigma are the "same")
This lens even gives very reasonable performance used with a TC2x at 800mm f11.
I already posted the pictures I include here, they are just meant to show you what you can expect...
(all hand held)
Concert shot at 400mm f5.6 ISO1600
http://users.skynet.be/van.hooveld/DSC_5171.JPG
Two nature shots 400mm as well
http://users.skynet.be/van.hooveld/DSC_3476.jpg
http://users.skynet.be/van.hooveld/DSC_4416s.jpg
800mm f11 with TC (manual focus used - AF not avail)
http://users.skynet.be/van.hooveld/DSC_2835f.jpg
Close-up 400mm (distance was 2m approx) + crop to show sharpness at 400mm (on a D70 camera)
I had always thought VR or OS on a monopod would be fine since there is some movement. A tripod is of course different. Maybe we'll get a consensus here and that will help clear this up.
increasing ISO would be an obvious choice, however i'm not willing to compromise image quality, even using 1/125 on a monopod its hard to get a sharp image at 400mm.
hence my suggestions of a VR or OS lens.....
Greg, I would have thought the same myself, as even using my current 400mm setup i find it hard to keep the darn thing still....
The images are quite impressive that have been posted above, very sharp indeed.
