Sigma Reviews

The zoom range and macro mode make it a very useful all-around tele-photo lens. I have taken some very sharp macro shots and have had no problem with vignetting.

My interest is urban wildlife and this lens can cover just about all my needs. Its range and macro mode make it the lens I keep on my camera. I use a manual SLR and have not had a chance to test the auto-focus.

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.

I wanted to rate the review of this product by Gary Joye, but I could not access it from the customer review section. The intro of this review was shown to me as a related product to other Sigma lenses.

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 have owned this lens for a couple of years. It is a reasonably good consumer lens, with some softness in focus, especially on the long side. The autofocus works quickly on both my Minolta cameras (Maxxum 7 and Maxxum QTsi), and works in relatively low light.

On the down side, it is relatively slow (in terms of aperature), as you would expect from a consumer zoom, and when fully extended you will have difficulty getting a narrow depth of field, even when opened wide. Thus, I would recommend this lens only as a stop gap to fill in your lens kit. The fact that this extends from the portraiture sizes of 100 and 135mm all the way to 300mm lets this lens fill in some considerable gaps in a lens kit, but if you buy this lens I would recommend starting to save for a good 100mm and 300mm prime lens or a professional level 80 to 200mm zoom.

In terms of comparing to other lenses, this is less expensive than the 100 to 300 Minolta lens, though lacks some of the features of that lens that are especially useful on the Maxxum 7, appears to be a better lens than the 75-300 Minoltas, and has more range than the 70-210 Minoltas, plus it has the Macro feature.

Please note that in rating this lens I am considering price as well as capability; if rated purely on capability, of course, I would have to rate it lower to leave room for the professional grade lenses that cost five times as much.