Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I bought this lens to use with my Canon 30D for high school sports (soccer, football, baseball, etc). I already had the Sigma APO 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras and needed more focal length. Like the 70-200 F/2.8, this lens is big, heavy, and built like a tank. The bare lens is about an inch longer than the 70-200, but the 100-300's hood is longer than the 70-200's hood.
The zoom and focus rings are wide and move smoothly with just the right amount of resistance. This lens is sharp wide open. At the overlapping focal lengths, the 70-200 at F/4 is just barely sharper than this lens at F/4 (wide open). At 200mm, this lens is actually sharper (200mm is this lens's sweet spot.) At 300mm, the lens is still sharp wide open, but I like to stop down to F/4.5 just to keep things super-sharp. Up to 250mm, I would not hesitate to use it wide open.
This Sigma lens has HSM which means the focus is fast and quiet. The lens focuses a little slower than the 70-200 F/2.8, but I've found that the 30D is more of a limiting factor in focus speed than the lens is. Servo tracking is very good with this lens, the only time it can't keep up is when track runners are sprinting straight at me (although again, I think the body is the limiting factor here.) For almost every other situation, the focus will definitely keep up.
All in all, this is not an indoor lens by any means, but as an outdoor sports (or wildlife/nature) lens, it is awesome.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Sigma 100-300mm f/4 EX DG IF HSM APO Fast Aperture Telephoto Zoom Lens for Sigma SLR Cameras
This telephoto zoom lens provides a large F4 aperture at all focal lengths. With minimal light-fall-off, superior peripheral brightness is ensured. It's the ideal lens for digital SLR cameras.The new multi layer lens coating and lens design reduce flare and ghost, which is a common problem with digital cameras and also creates an optimum color balance through the entire zoom range.This lens uses two pieces of SLD glass elements in the front lens group and another two in the rear group for excellent correction of chromatic aberration. High optic performance is demonstrated throughout the entire zoom range.This lens incorporates an internal focusing system, which eliminates front lens rotation, allowing the use of a Petal-type Hood and more convenient to use of circular polarizing filter. Since focusing and zooming do not change its overall length, this lens is easy to hold and use.The use of an Apochromatic design and 4 SLD (The Special Low Dispersion) glass elements (two SLD glass elements are utilized in the front lens group and two in the rear group) provide for full correction of chromatic aberration and a high level of optical performance.The DG designation applied to certain newer Sigma lenses (mostly wide-angle and wide zoom type lenses) indicates that the lens is especially suited for use with digital SLR cameras. The DG lenses feature improved (more even) light distribution from image center to edge, especially at maximum aperture, compared to conventional fast wide-angle lenses. This is important in digital photography, but is also useful in 35mm photography, especially when slide film is used. Also, the shorter focal lengths are desirable, because most digital SLR cameras have image sensors whose dimensions are considerably smaller than a 35mm negative (usually by a factor of 1.3X to 1.7X), making the lens' angle of view equivalent to that of a longer lens on a 35mm camera.
