Canon 100-400L / Sigma 50-500 or 150-500

BigGreenMonster

BigGreenMonster

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I want to get a longer lens to extend the my range work wildlife shots - my 70-200 just is not long enough, even with the 1.4x.

Of the three zooms in the title, which would you recommend?
 
I saw about 40 100-400mm L at oulton park on monday so they're selling well
 
100-400 vote from me too. I've used the 150-500 and found it hunted more in lower light conditions.....with wildlife you need that speed. I can't really comment on the 50-500 as I've never used it, but from what i have read if you get a good copy of the 100-400 the IQ is slightly better than the Bigma.
 
i had a 50-500 sigma, it's a good lens for tripod work, hand held it gets progressively longer as you zoom, it ends up stupidly long and difficult to handle, IQ is pretty good though, i now have a 100-400 L and i can honestly say it's brilliant, the is is great and the glass is mighty fine, go and try both at a shop, i guarantee you'll end up with a 100-400
 
I faced a similar decision a couple of years ago. I wanted a telephoto for a wildlife holiday and I went to the big London branch of Jessops to look at the Canon 100-400L, the Sigma 50-500 and the Sigma 170-500 (which has since been replaced by the 150-500, I believe). It was absolutely no contest. The Canon completely blows away the two Sigmas in every dimension you care to look at - image quality, ergonomics, build quality, speed and precision of focus, .....
 
The canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 by far, its designed for your camera, faster autofocus, has IS, although an older generation of the technology, has been around for donkey years and is probably one of canons best selling lenses for the $$, Ok it has its problems, but significantly better than the 2 sigma offerings.

It's also lighter than the bigma 50-500mm which is really not a good lens, unless your shooting in good light. The bigma is f6.3 at 500, but it lies to the camera and reports it as f5.6 so the autofocus will work on the smaller sensor camera bodies.

The 150-400mm has to be stepped down significantly to get decent shots, so you need good light conditions to get anything worth while. Not a big fan of these budget zooms, promise lots, deliver very little.
 
Another Vote for the Canon 100 - 400 I love mine use it all the time. Tob build quality, awsume IQ, takes a bit of getting used too, I also use the 1.4X on my 1Ds and it is top notch.

Good luck with the "Mrs"

hehe
 
eeverson said:
I was having the same dilemma so thats made my mind up also... I need to find a way to sneak it into the camera bag without the wife seeing :D
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Just tell her she must have seen it before as you've had it for ages!
 
Furtim said:
Now just need to convince my better half!
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Since you've already got a 70-200L, that won't be necessary. Just ensure that she only sees one big white lens at a time. Therefore there is only one big white lens.
 
I need to find a way to sneak it into the camera bag without the wife seeing
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easy, wrap it up in a couple of OLD crumpled and dirty carrier bags and put it in a cupboard or suitcase or somewhere nobody looks very often, then start rummaging round everywhere trying to find "my big red screwdriver" or something then suddenly find the carrier bag with the lens in, then say "blimey, remember Bill johnson i used to work with ? he gave me this years ago, i forgot all about it, i wonder if it works, i'll try it later" then find the big red screwdriver that you hid in the same place :thumbs:

job done :D

if you don't fancy telling porkies, i'll pop round, knock on your door and when your wife answers......"can your husband make use of this ? "
 
I have been thinking of the same lens choices, but the push-pull part of the 100-400 puts me off a bit.
I currently have 3 twist zoom lenses, I am concerned I would get confused between them (closest being 70-300IS).
Another concern I think I have seen some people say that the 100-400 can introduce a lot of dust to the inside of the camera. I have had my camera 2.5-3 years, and as far as I can tell, in that time I have only had 2 bad dust spots.
 
there is a new sigma, 120-400 with OS and HSM, but its still not quite as good as the canon.
 
I don't have issues using a push pull lens when I do, its just that its an awful lens so I don't use it much :D

*not the 100-400L that isn't an awful lens - - - I WANT ONE*
 
Remember reading somewhere (ages ago) that the 1.4x extender does not work with the 100-400L. Autofocus was disabled I think it said although there was a workaround that involved taping up some of the contacts on the converter or lens. Is that still correct or has the current version of the extender remedied this?
 
matty said:
there is a new sigma, 120-400 with OS and HSM, but its still not quite as good as the canon.
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But about half the price, and I would say performs to 98% of the level of the Canon. Have a look at my Flickr for lots of motorsport and a few wildlife shots (which I'm crap at) taken with this lens. Put it this way, I'd rather have £600 in my pocket and the Sigma 120-400mm (with a much better OS system than the 100-400L) than the Canon lens
 
LensHud said:
Remember reading somewhere (ages ago) that the 1.4x extender does not work with the 100-400L. Autofocus was disabled I think it said although there was a workaround that involved taping up some of the contacts on the converter or lens. Is that still correct or has the current version of the extender remedied this?
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On the 1D bodies, the centre AF point will go up to f/8, but only as a horizontal line sensitive sensor, not cross point.
 
LensHud said:
Remember reading somewhere (ages ago) that the 1.4x extender does not work with the 100-400L. Autofocus was disabled I think it said although there was a workaround that involved taping up some of the contacts on the converter or lens. Is that still correct or has the current version of the extender remedied this?
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It's still correct, but it's not an issue specific to the 100-400L. You can use an Extender, and the metering and IS all work, but Canon DSLRs will only AF if the maximum lens aperture is f/5.6 or better (f/8 for 1D-series DSLRs). Using a 1.4x Extender makes the 100-400L into a 140-560mm f/6.3-8 lens, so it will only AF on a 1D-series. It is possible to tape over some of the contacts to fool the camera into believing there is no Extender present, so it will at least try to AF (though at f/8 it may struggle!). But I have no first-hand experience of how well this works or whether there re any downsides.
 
Phoned Park Cameras today to see about a trade in of some of my old kit and they quoted £500 for the 5D and £140 for the 10-22 EFS - not that they have the lens in stock at the moment mind you.

Are these reasonable?

*edit - not looking to sell these via this site so don't PM me please.
 
I would say £140 is poor for the 10-22mm EF-S when Park want £650 for a new one. I know they've got a business to run etc. etc. but you could do better than that to a bloke down the pub. :lol:

The 5D is almost certainly worth quite a lot more too, see what they fetch on ebay. Just my two pence worth.
 
I recently took delivery of my Canon 100-400 (bought through KERSO) and took it to Castle Combe on Monday. I was blown away by the reach of the lens and the quality of some of the shots (the crap ones were down to me!!).

I tried the Sigma 150-500 in a shop and whilst I liked the feel of it and the extra reach I was shocked at just how big it was and how much it weighed.

I've no experience with the other Sigma.

I didn't have the same problem as you have with getting it past the Mrs, I chopped her in for the lens!!!
 
wack61 said:
I saw about 40 100-400mm L at oulton park on monday so they're selling well
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Yes, they seemed to be breeding the longer the day went on :lol:

I also saw what was poss a 400mm or maybe a 500mm prime (not being used by one of the official press there) - nearly as big as the fella carrying it :lol::lol:
 
Furtim said:
Phoned Park Cameras today to see about a trade in of some of my old kit and they quoted £500 for the 5D and £140 for the 10-22 EFS - not that they have the lens in stock at the moment mind you.

Are these reasonable?

*edit - not looking to sell these via this site so don't PM me please.
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As waspjunior stated, the 10-22mm is going for £650 - 700 new, £140 for a trade is a joke and an insult and I won't give them the time of day (thats the offer that my friend got from London Camera X over a year ago when he want to trade in 20D (£190) and 10-22 (£140) for a 50D, he sold the lens privately with filter for £330, and still has the 20D), especially as they'll put the lens up for £350-400 2nd hand. The 5D are going for £700-850 2nd hand on their website. I would sell them else where.

Peter
 
StewartR said:
It is possible to tape over some of the contacts to fool the camera into believing there is no Extender present, so it will at least try to AF (though at f/8 it may struggle!). But I have no first-hand experience of how well this works or whether there re any downsides.
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There are some massive downsides to this, the lens will hunt alot, especially if light conditions aren't very good and that can damage things inside the lens, personally not a good idea. You can still manually focus the 100-400mm + 1.4x TC or 2x on a small sensor body like a 50D and as stated the 1D series will autofocus upto f8, where as the cropped sensor camera's are limited to lenses no great than f5.6, unless you want to use the lens as a manual focus lens.
 
pete.rush said:
You can still manually focus the 100-400mm + 1.4x TC or 2x on a small sensor body like a 50D
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If you manually focus with the extender (given that auto-focus won't work), will the focus confirm beep and flash still occur?

My eyesight isn't good enough to do a manual focus to any sort of accuracy. (perhaps I have chosen the wrong hobby here)
 
I don't think you get the focus confirming beep. I think the focus light will come on in the viewfinder though :shrug: MF is something I last used about 9 years ago on my Dads ancient Chinon SLR (manual film wind and everything!), so I'm not entirely sure what, if anything, a modern DSLR does to let you know focus is achieved.
 
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