@paulbrogden10 wrote:
Hello guys I have seen a sigma apo 1000mm f8 prime for sale made in 1992 and am wondering if it be a good by for £500 would it be any good very little information on it . All I know is it is old no is or os has AF but wonder how it would compare to my sigma 150-600mm C lens. any help would be nice thanks.
Being an f/8 lens you need a camera that can AF with an f/8 lens. Also, keep in mind that even with a camera that can AF at f/8 like the 7D Mk II, it can reduce the number of AF points and functionality of the AF system.
Second old Sigma lenses often needed to be rechipped to work with newer Canon camera (too much current draw to stop down the aperture).
Third old lenses like that that weren't designed for digital cameras can have ghosting issues since digital sensors are more reflective than film, and lenses designed for digital cameras have additional lens coatings to prevent that.
So, I would certainly test the lens with your camera before buying it. Make sure it AFs with your camera. Make sure it works at all aperture settings with your camera. Beware of ghosting issues.
£500 is such a good price, I would expect there are issues with the lens. But, if it passes testing if it were me, I would probably buy it.
The lens is only fully compatible with older EOS film cameras. It can only operate wide open with most (all?) Canon digital cameras; otherwise the camera malfunctions.
It focuses very slowly: as I recall taking about 5s from MFD to infinity.
MFD without extension tubes is 50ft; which means missed shots. You just can’t back away from a bird fast enough to focus. With extension tubes the lens can be too dark for AF to work. Using this lens on a Canon 1d body, with a Kenko tele-extender, melted the power contacts of the tele-extender and ruined the tele-extender. Only use Canon tele-extenders and extension tubes; especially when your Canon camera has a big powerful battery.
AF is tenuous (and slow) with a 1.4x tele-extender and Canon mark II 1d. Pressing the AF a second or third time seems to ensure better focus.
Then lens shows moderate++ vignetting, which can actually be good since
it aids AF.
The Sigma 1000mm is a very dark professional lens at F8 (F11 with 1.4x), but the center of the frame seems to be brighter than F8. The Canon 1d camera thinks it’s a F5.6 lens, (another reader said the lens was equivalent to F7).
The overall sharpness of the lens seems to be very good, when; properly stabilized, focused, and the atmospheric turbulence is insignificant. I’d love to see how sharp this lens looked if I could somehow get the diaphragm 1 stop down (manually?), (without the Canon digital camera malfunctioning).
The Sigma 1000mm has significantly less contrast than the Canon 600mm.
Compared to the Canon 600mm, color fringing with the Sigma 1000mm seems much worse. At the same time the Sigma lens is magnifying the image 67% more than the Canon lens, (ie. the subject is defined using 2.8 times the pixels). When shooting a black and white test target, color fringing does not increase linearly outward from the lens center, as one would expect; not even for just ~blue or just ~red color fringes.
The Sigma lens has 2 low dispersion elements, while the Canon lens has 4 elements, and of better quality I believe. Backlit shots show distinct color halos with the Sigma lens. It’s my belief that these halos are more than just chromatic aberration. I think that REAL diffraction effects, (the ‘back light’ bending around the subject), are seen due to the extreme magnification.
The Sigma lens is not weather sealed.
The build quality of this old Sigma lens doesn’t compare to Canon. I’ve had to retighten many screws on the Sigma lens. I’ve put ‘lock-tite’ on many of the external screws.
Looking through the front of the Sigma lens through to the back, showed less dust than a Canon 600mm which had an image stabilizer repaired once.
With the Sigma lens the percentage of useable images I get, is less than half of what a Canon 600mm F4 lens will give you; with moving subjects it’s even worse. Yet under certain circumstances it gives better images than the 600mm.
Images with the 1000mm lens http://www.pbase.com/charlescrandall/flying_eagles (first 4 images)(images cropped to about 30% of full frame) and http://www.pbase.com/charlescrandall/image/110408746 (and next 3 images)(images cropped to 30% of full frame).