Anything worth upgrading the sigma 120-300mm to?

al4x said:
The weight I can take off worth it - especially with a system I could carry it on hot days on my back

The cost is another matter.. Have to keep reminding myself is a hobby
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Yeah it's a hobby but hobbies are meant to be fun :D I know I definitely get more satisfaction from the shots this lens produces compared to the 100-400mm mk1 I had or the short lived 120-300 I had.

Putting fun aside, it comes down to priorities I guess! Luckily my priorities are all wrong so I spend spend spend lol
 
I'm not really considering the 100-400mm to slow

I think my options are

200-400mm 1.4tc canon (but really too pricey)
300mm f2.8 is II canon

Complete change to nikon and 200-400mm

Although the last is probably the best option I would have to swap 3 other lenses but it would be the cheapest option

200-400mm would allow me to drop my 120-300mm definitely, the 300mm f2.8 only might make that more painful with no zoom
 
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I think you need to get out there and really try F5.6 because it really isn't that bad.

My 200-400 has the extender engaged like 80% of the time and that makes it F5.6. Whilst I would never say no to having a faster lens with no extra weight or cost, that won't happen with current technology!

Most wildlife will be shot at F5.6 or smaller I would say since big lenses and TCs are used which makes it F5.6 or even F8
 
Very rarely do I think f5.6 is a deal breaker. I did have problems recent in the jungle but even a 300mm f/2.8 would be pushing iso 6400. The solution is a tripod, and then f5.6 is no problem again.


I think for tele lenses you need multiple lenses, a 70-300mm f/5.6 L ir 100-400 would make a nice light addition to the 120-300mm. If you need more reach then add a sigma or Tamron 150-600mm f6.3

I'm in Costa Rica now shooting humming birds, capuchin and howler monkeys, iguanas, agoutis, pelicans, owls, frigate birds and an amazing array of tropical birds, all with the Nikon 300mm f/4.0 and 1.4xTC o FF. Yes, sometimes f/4.0 is too slow, sometime 420mm f5.6 is still too short but getting that extra reach and extra stop is just impossible really. I Can't carry a 400mm f/2.8 around on such a trip even if I could afford it.

I mostly shoot around f7.1 with the TC just to get optimal sharpness and ensure sufficient DoF. Shooting wider apertures can actually cause issues, e.g you get a narrow part of the bird/animals body in focus and the head is blurred,
 
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How do you find the 300mm + tc in terms of usability? I find that I really hate taking it on and off.

For what you are going to shoot do you ever end up too close unable to get back? I doubt it is too much of an issue

In thinking about the 300mm f2.8 option
Don't think I've ever had dof issues with birds as they are usually so far away the focal plane is wide enough
I just don't like the limit of 5.6 for England dingy weather

With what you guys have said the 200-400mm tc really is perfect (except for the price)
 
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Having a 300mm F2.8 lens is nice but in reality, 300mm isn't much use for a lot of wildlife so you'll rely on TCs unless you're shooting large animals or anything in captivity. You'll also have to lump around the lens which isn't as heavy as some but still not particularly light.

If 300mm is a focal length you use a lot then that's fine but if you're likely me then you usually need more. With the exception of this builtin 1.4tc in the 200-400, I really wouldn't try to rely on them anymore as something to use all the time. 400mm or 500mm primes are better for wildlife but unless you've got lenses to cover the gap between 100-400mm then its a bit limiting imo.

Personally if I was in your place and knowing what I know now, I'd be looking quite a lot at the new 100-400 which is pretty light and very flexible. IQ seems good too from what I've seen mentioned and the price is reasonable compared to a new 300mm F2.8L mk2.

The new Sigma 150-600 is supposed to be good IQ wise but heavy and even slower at F6.3
 
I guess it would be if the 300mm f2.8 can take a 2xtc
If not might as well get the new 100-400mm



Yes if I'm out after birds then 300mm isn't really enough
300mm + 1.4tc is better and I think 300mm + 2tc would be best I'll get really (cost etc of beyond 600mm is just prohibitive)
So my sigma can't take a 2x and barely takes a 1.4x.
The 100-400mm wouldn't be usable most of the time with a tc due to light
The 300mm would likely permanently have whatever tc it could take strapped to it.. And doesn't have zoom

6.3 is definite no no. I wouldn't want a limit of 6.3 in England. If I lived in Spain or somewhere different story

I can absolutely see why you got 200-400mm +1.4tc
Good lens
Effectively a 200 - 600 with no need to take lens off
Every other option is a fairly substantial compromise
 
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al4x said:
How do you find the 300mm + tc in terms of usability? I find that I really hate taking it on and off.

For what you are going to shoot do you ever end up too close unable to get back? I doubt it is too much of an issue

In thinking about the 300mm f2.8 option
Don't think I've ever had dof issues with birds as they are usually so far away the focal plane is wide enough
I just don't like the limit of 5.6 for England dingy weather

With what you guys have said the 200-400mm tc really is perfect (except for the price)
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It is very rare to find yourself to close to an animal, even rarer that you can't back up. It does happen with some tamer animals. A good example is the iguanas I was shooting yesterday by the hotel pool, not afraid of humans so I could get with 1-2m. I could have backed away but simply pulled the the TC off, you get to learn to do this quite quickly. I have a small lower or case I hang off the belt.

I far more often find I wish I had a 600mm lens than find the TC is too much magnification.

The other thing is you can normally simply go for a closer crop of details. Instead of the head and body shots you get to photograph just the head showing the details. I have ended up with some bird photos recently where the bird landed right in front of my lens, great shot of the head with plenty of feature details, eye, beak extremely prominent.


Having a built in TC is nice but isn't a deal break for me. Nice and handy and might help you get a photo without the TC on occasion or add the TC.
 
al4x said:
I guess it would be if the 300mm f2.8 can take a 2xtc
If not might as well get the new 100-400mm



Yes if I'm out after birds then 300mm isn't really enough
300mm + 1.4tc is better and I think 300mm + 2tc would be best I'll get really (cost etc of beyond 600mm is just prohibitive)
So my sigma can't take a 2x and barely takes a 1.4x.
The 100-400mm wouldn't be usable most of the time with a tc due to light
The 300mm would likely permanently have whatever tc it could take strapped to it.. And doesn't have zoom

6.3 is definite no no. I wouldn't want a limit of 6.3 in England. If I lived in Spain or somewhere different story

I can absolutely see why you got 200-400mm +1.4tc
Good lens
Effectively a 200 - 600 with no need to take lens off
Every other option is a fairly substantial compromise
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The 300mm can obviously take a 2x TC but the question is, how often will you need that 2x TC? If you're going to have it glued on then I'd just get a different lens to begin with :/

It's also worth trying a lens with a 2x TC because you might not like the image quality you get out of it but you may also not like the negative impact it has on the AF performance.

When I tested my 2x TC I was disappointed to say the least! I can see why a lot of people don't even bother with a 2x TC
 
Phal said:
Having a 300mm F2.8 lens is nice but in reality, 300mm isn't much use for a lot of wildlife so you'll rely on TCs unless you're shooting large animals or anything in captivity. You'll also have to lump around the lens which isn't as heavy as some but still not particularly light.

If 300mm is a focal length you use a lot then that's fine but if you're likely me then you usually need more. With the exception of this builtin 1.4tc in the 200-400, I really wouldn't try to rely on them anymore as something to use all the time. 400mm or 500mm primes are better for wildlife but unless you've got lenses to cover the gap between 100-400mm then its a bit limiting imo.

Personally if I was in your place and knowing what I know now, I'd be looking quite a lot at the new 100-400 which is pretty light and very flexible. IQ seems good too from what I've seen mentioned and the price is reasonable compared to a new 300mm F2.8L mk2.

The new Sigma 150-600 is supposed to be good IQ wise but heavy and even slower at F6.3
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The problem is going beyond 300mm f/4.0 is quite challenging, which is why I'm stuck there. OK on canon you can get the great 400mm f5.6 but the 300mm f/4.0 with TC is supposedly as sharp and you gain a 300mm f/4.0 out of it. 400mm F/4 or f/2.8, 500mm f/4, 200-400mm etc are all completely different league in terms of price,size, and weight. And for many things 400mm is still not enough so you end up using TCs anyway.


I moved from a 70-300 and 70-200mm f/2.8 with 1.4xTC to the 300mm prime and TC, I don't at all miss the zoom for wildlife because as above, I almost never have sufficient reach anyway. I understand the appeal of the 200-400mm, I wouldnt say no to backing up a little from time to time. However zoom ability is something I would more happily trade versus reach, aperture, weight and cost.

The 70-150mm end of my zoom lenses were useful for landscape work.
 
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That's the thing with the 300mm f2.8
You get those other lenses with and without TC's

I don't see much use for 400mm 5.6 except weight and very cost effective

That's what I thought. You rarely get a scenario where you can't get back enough
Would be perfect if you could get a TC that had an on-off mechanism.

But I don't actually know what I'd use a 300mm fixed for.. If you do sport a zoom is very useful (especially motorsport.. The sigma is spot on for this
If you do wildlife 300 isn't enough

I can't even think of any reason to chose a 300mm prime if I wasn't planning on a TC
 
I really thinking you're too hung up on this F5.6 barrier and I can relate. It's only really since I got the 7d2 that I decided to just go with the flow where ISO is concerned. The 7d2 has the best Canon crop sensor so I figured I'd test it out and it's been pretty good.

On my 70d I was a bit like you, very concerned about not letting my ISO get too high but looking back, I think I might have been a little too hung up on it. Obviously having plenty of light and being able to get the ISO down to 100 is ideal but life isn't fair I guess lol :)

With good light I've even thrown another 1.4 TC on and used the 784mm or thereabouts that I get and gotten reasonably good results and that's shooting at F8. You can actually shoot F8 on the 70d with AF if you do it in liveview :)

If it wasn't for this 200-400, I think the only thing that would really get me excited now is that new 400mm DO mk2

The builtin 1.4 tc on this 200-400 still isn't perfect but it's not far off. You're not allowed to engage/disengage whilst AF is active or it might break something expensive and require repairs! This means that I usually give it a second after my finger is off the AF before I switch over and this can be tricky to do when handholding.





Have a look at what you can really do with that 400mm F5.6 :) https://www.flickr.com/groups/24121876@N00/pool/
 
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At 400mm f/5.6 gives a lovely soft background most if the time and a DOF sufficentities keep the subject sharp. Even if you had a 400mm f/2.8 you will want to stop down to f/5.6 or smaller frequently. The 2.8 is to deal with emergencies or noisy background or foreground.

People get hung up on f-stops instead of consideribg physical apertures. 400mm f/5.6 is the same aperture as 20mm f2.8 or something 100mm f2.0. A 400mm f2.8 cannot be hand hold, so what is the difference to using a 400mm f5.6 on a tripod?

Thinking if getting a sigma 150-600mm f/6.3 6.3 seems terrible but the aperture is still 95mm big, letting in loads of light. The background will be very blurred, then subject sharp and in focu. I can hand hold it, travel with it (the big lrnses sobt fit as carryon on mostn airless, do yiu want to check in a 8000gnp lens?) and not spend the same as a car.
 
The 150-600 is a really interesting lens BUT the thing putting me off replacing the 120-300 is that the f/2.8 at 300mm is very useful for lower light conditions (rainforests and handheld later in the day). Yes ISO can help but it only goes so far, if you need say 5 stops more shutter speed then halving the difference is great, relative to having to increase the ISO from 400 to 12800. I'd much rather be able to whack the aperture up to f/2.8 (from f/5.6) and then only have to put the ISO up to 3200.

The alternative is to take a 70-200 f/2.8 as well, but that just means more weight and faf.

I'm taking my 120-300 with me to west Africa in a couple of weeks, it'll be interesting to see how it copes in the forest and how the forest differed to Costa Rica, which was generally quite bright, at least where the animals were.

Hope you're having good time there D.P., whereabouts are you? It's one of the places I'd like to go back to some time in the future.
 
This year I'll give my sigma a good go. See what I get.

If most of my pics are 300mm and f2.8-f5.6 I know I'll need the 300mm f2.8
If I find I'm at 5.6 in a lot of pics the 400mm f5.6 could be a companion utility 120-300mm
Or even the new 100-400mm
 
al4x said:
This year I'll give my sigma a good go. See what I get.

If most of my pics are 300mm and f2.8-f5.6 I know I'll need the 300mm f2.8
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I guess it's worth considering whether those F2.8 shots would have been fine at F4 or F5.6 and whether a longer lens would have been better.

The downside to longer lenses is that they're usually slower but there's also less need to crop so it's not a massive difference in the end result sometimes.

My old 100-400mm wasn't that sharp so dealing with F5.6+average lens meant I wasn't too impressed by a lot of the shots. A sharp F5.6 fares a lot better I think!

Those 400mm F5.6 lenses are pretty cheap compared to everything else so even if you only rent one for a weekend it might be worth a go :)
 
True
I was out yesterday with sigma after a few small birds and even though I was really close with 1.4 300mm was barely usable and this was because they were on a feeder so kept coming back. No way would I have been close enough without that bird feeder incentive

It 2 sunny but done cloud and to keep iso below 1000 I was at 4.0 (min with tc) and 4.5.
Even that iso limit wasnt enough to freeze the birds wings at all
Stopping down to f7.1 just either pushed the iso up, or reduced speed to far

It would have been the exact situation your lens (or even a prime 400 with extender) would be ideal
But 5.6 was my real limit. Even iso at 1000 is more than noticeable on 70d
And if the 300mm f2.8 can take 2x tc that would also have been viable
 
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What kind of exposures are you using for these birds?

Having used a 2x extender, I don't think I'd bother again :/
 
Phal said:
What kind of exposures are you using for these birds?

Having used a 2x extender, I don't think I'd bother again :/
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I can't recall. I don't think I had enough light for above 1/1000 f4 at any point without iso being above 1000

If the 300mm f2.8 can't take a 2xtc well then it isn't worth the outlay over the sigma really


One option I have looked at was 500mm f4 mk1 but the weight is extreme for hand held. I could hand hold it maybe, would have to try it. Looks like 3.8kg. But carrying it around I'd need it on some sort of backpack vs over shoulder
A 500mm f4 could probably take a TC and push it all way to 700mm
 
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