Re: Sigma 20-200: great for skitouring (and hiking?)
HelBen85 wrote:
Luballs wrote:
i spent like 30 minutes on a reply but it crashed and didn't load, so here's a quick second take...
awesome work. i have resort skied with an a9/a1 in the past using the original 70-200g and 100-400gm. i also heli ski in BC every march. but this year i worked up the courage to try combining the two. obviously you are touring and i am mechanized, so weight is less of an issue to me, but i juuust barely chose the tamron 50-400 over the sigma 20-200. the 50mm was generally wide enough (the 100-400 always felt a little too tight but the 70-200 was pretty good for me in the past), but i am sure i could have come away with some awesome shots at 20mm too! ultimately i chose the tamron for fast action auto focus. i haven't used the 20-200 for action yet, but i feel sony>tamron>sigma in my experience when it comes to fast action AF. i will have to give the sigma a spin while resort skiing sometime though. stabilization wasn't a huge factor as i lived at 1/1000-1/2000 and f8 and my iso never went above a few hundred (even in cloud cover).
i am super happy with my camera gear, but more importantly i rigged up a perfect ski camera bag. obviously there's a backpack with avy gear, so i converted a thinktank speedtop crossbody sling bag to a hip bag/glorified fanny pack. i cut off the shoulder strap and ran a shimoda hip belt through a pass-through in the back and used some adhesive velcro. this allowed me to rotate the bag from front to side easily to grab the camera or ski. the magnetic lid is super fast and pretty secure but can be fully locked down if falling is more likely. i basically strapped collapsible poles away when photographing and got them out to ski and only switched "modes" a few times a day. this was necessary for the fast pace of loading/unloading the heli and getting action photos of a group of riders, but it would be easy enough to just set poles aside for landscapes or skinning uphill. anyways i am the skier in blue if you want to check out my setup.
Beautiful pictures!
What lens do you use (currently) and why?
thanks. these were entirely one trip using the tamron 50-400. i had an excellent copy of the 100-400gm and used it for skiing before, but the 100mm wide end is pretty limiting. the 50mm wide end makes a difference and usually feels just fine (i would love wider, but it was never an issue starting at 50mm). the size/weight advantage of the 50-400 is nice compared to the 100-400, and the 100-400 probably would not have fit in my thinktank fanny pack, but the 100-400 didn't actually bother me either.
the 100-400gm is definitely faster focusing and sharper. i was not wow'ed by the straight raws coming out of the 50-400 when first opening the files, as this was actually my first time using the lens. however i was always fine with the results after editing, so it really is "good enough." as for autofocus, i made the bet that the 50-400 would beat the 20-200 and i think i was right. i definitely dropped a few shots in a sequence that the 100-400gm probably wouldn't have, but if i had the focus area and location right on my end it hit 80-90%. that might be abysmal to a pro sports photographer, but i hate culling bursts of images more than anything else, so i don't mind a dropped shot or two making my job easier. heck, i don't even shoot my a1 at 30 fps ever. i never use more than 10-15 fps and already hate culling those.
oh, i also counted on the tamron being maybe better weather sealed than the 20-200? but who knows. the camera and lens were constantly covered in snow and i never worried about it and never had issues
Mar 28, 2026 at 06:14 PM
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