The first version of this lens earned the nickname Bigma for its 4.25-pound heft and huge size.
Now comes Son of Bigma ($1,600, street), lighter at a little less than 4.2 pounds, yet with a number of optical improvements including image stabilization.
Like the original, this 50–500mm boasts the broadest zoom range—10X—of any Sigma full-frame lens. That’s far more range than the Canon 100–400mm f/4.5–5.6 IS (4X) or Nikon 80–400mm f/4.5–5.6 VR (5X) stabilized full-framers.
A 75–750mm equivalent on most APS-C-sensor DSLRs, it has four SLD elements, Sigma’s HSM silent AF motor, and AF that allows manual-focus touch-ups. Its build is superb, with an attractive
finish and a removable tripod collar with grooves for a solid grip.
In our Test Lab, its SQF sharpness numbers were Excellent at 50 and 100mm. As expected, they dropped to Very Good then Good at 200mm and 300mm, respectively. At 300mm, it was just slightly less sharp than Canon’s comparable 100–400mm IS zoom. (Due to equipment limitations, we could perform SQF tests only on focal lengths out to 300mm.)
Our DxO Analyzer Version 3.2 tests of three focal lengths going all the way out to 500mm found only Slight-range distortion—a vast improvement on the original Bigma’s distortion scores.
Close-up capabilities were similarly impressive: The top magnification ratio reached 1:2.7 at 200mm, compared with only about 1:5 from the comparable Canon, Nikon, and older Sigma.
The OS results? Three users got sharp pictures at shutter speeds 2 to 4 stops slower than was possible without OS. Bravo!
Most shooters will use this lens on a tripod, obviating the need for OS. And the earlier version, while no longer in production, is still selling at $1,059 (street). The many other pluses of the new lens, though, may make it the better choice.
I commented on this post earlier, but my comment was apparently deleted. I'll try again - anyone interested in this lens will want to know how it performs at 500mm. No one purchases a zoom that goes to 500mm for it's performance at 100mm, 200mm, or even 300mm. That renders this test rather pointless.The quality of your magazine has been declining for some time now, and this is just another glaring example. This article is little more than a product advertisement, in my opinion.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with Ann. The old pop Photo would have taken many shots at 500 mm and reported on the quality. Other sites also take lenses out of the building and do real world testing. What has happened here? Why would anyone buy this lens and only be interested in tests up to 300mm?
It seems as though it's time for Pop Photo to buy new equipment able to test a long lens. 400 and 500mm isn't that rare anymore. Send your people out to do some real work for a change. This is disappointing.
I too am disappointed with the review, having used the first version it found it to be not just heavy as you mentioned but a terrible lens in general, it was very noisy, I've had birds be scared off from its motor noise at 50 yards or more. I found it unusually slow to focus and often searching for focus that my Canon lenses had no problems locking on. It was a soft lens at its aperture extremes making it more like those cheap store brand lenses with only 2 or 3 f stops to choose from.
The fit was sloppy and it was in general a bad lens. I know many others who have given it a try and were similarly disappointed. So I would expect Pop Photo to realize this and tell us if Sigma has made it faster, quitter, sharper, and more functional not just lighter.
Try a little harder next time and get out and use the lens.
Well not much left to say, except I too am very disappointed I just received the latest Pop Photo publication with hope that between the covers I'd find some good reading, but just more wasted paper.
As for this test of the Sigma 50-500mm (new lens) how about going out and taking some real world testing at 400 -500mm and do a real test this time. Delete the test you have now and replace it with some good hard facts and real work!
I would have to agree with the other posters. I need to see pictures in order to see what this lens can actually do.
Wow....I agree with the postings that indicated you should have done a real job in testing this lens. I would be interested only in the top en (400-500)....disappointing
I have had the lens since April. Unlike the other posters here I have been very happy with it on my Nikon D90. I have been experimenting with it as my primary lens since purchasing it. I have used it i a variety of settings, a variety of lighting conditions, with a variety of subject matter. Granted, I have only been taking pictures seriously with a DSLR since the fall of 2009, but, since buying this lens, I've been impressed with the results as have a growing number of people who have seen my work.
The lens is heavy, but it feels well built. Is it as good as similar lens costing several hundred to thousands more? No, But it is a usable lens and with a good eye and sense of composition it can lead to impressive results. For the price, one would be hard pressed to find a lens that compares, especially for wildlife photography - I've captures some very nice shots of birds, flowers and butterflies with this lens.
The only complaint I have is that my copy is among the ones that Sigma recently announced to have a defect with the autofocus system (mine just began to fail this past weekend). I am keeping my fingers crossed that the outcome is favorable in having the lens corrected under warranty. Would I buy another if I ever had to? Probably; especially since there's nothing that compares in this price bracket.
While I was reading the article I was thinking " what good is this w/o testing at 500mm Either it is very bad at that focal length or you need to rent some testing equipment. When I read the comments, I am not alone!
The problem is really the new editor. This guy is a novice photographer and thinks he knows something about photography. Not only does he give inaccurate information he has gotten rid of pros like Steve Sint who have more knowledge in their little pinky than he'll ever have in his lifetime. Bring in a real editor not a salesman!
How can you test a 500 mm and stay inside ?????
This is without vision and I wont accept this so called testing
I will find my tests elsewhere in the future
This isn't a test, but a piece of sales fluff. The longer focal lengths of this 50-500mm, from 300-500mm, lens are good for wildlife, airshows, and sports. As other readers have commented, those are the very focal lengths for which results are missing in the PopPhoto feature. It's difficult to conclude that there was any reason for the so-called "test" other than to populate an editorial page with something so that additional advertisements could be published. Suggest you either return to the professionalism of the past, or simply give up the ghost and join the legions of failed publications that can't cope with today's changed marketplace.
All this criticism of the test may be valid; however, the data given gives a pretty good idea of what the lens would/would not do at 500mm. More than enough information to know what would happen with a 20 X 24 print.
I have a nice Nikon lens that goes to 400mm now. The only reason I would consider this lens is that it goes to 500, so the test results are useless to me.
It does appear that PP is just doing advertisement for vendors instead of helping it readers make informed decisions about equipment they are considering purchasing. If this continues to be the direction you are heading, you are going to see your readership quickly decline.
A more specific direct comparison with the older version would have been very useful; the only thing directly comparable is the weight, which was not a great difference. I'm sure that a large market for the new lens would be users of the older version, but in the case of users of bodies with built-in stabilization, the most important comparison would have been image quality.
Real life testing would also have been very interesting
Come on... the reason it's better not to have equipment that tests out to extreme focal lengths is that the IQ seems ever reliably to nosedive towards them, and it would get embarassing. I mean, look at this progression here - exc, vg, good... it would have been very mediocre at 500mm, seemingly.
I think PP have actually strongly hinted at as much and not misled us, even while avoiding to embarass Sigma, who after all is a good and innovative mfrer and from whom we'd have expected more here. I think the old 50-500 was actually rather good (and the older 170-500 all right - even if it too did not fit the test equipment 10+ years ago), and maybe here we just have a bad sample.
On the subject of which, PP would do us all a great service to launch a deep critical probe into why manufacturing tolerances and QC at even the best non-German firms in the world have become so poor - just read the Fredmiranda and photographyreview comments on so many Canon L, pro Nikkor, and serious Sigma lenses, to name a few. And see how many 17-35/2.8s the Norwegian Bjorn Roslett (naturfotograf.com) had to try to get a really excellent Nikkor. And how often photozone.de has to get a second lens for testing, out of disbelief that the original's flaws were typical, or to try again without decentering or other manufacturing defects.
Which is the real pity and the real cover-up in the last 10-15 years of lens manufacturing and reporting.
On the whole I'm more suspicious of reviews which show a perfect performance from a lens - see the Sigma 15-30 on PP quite a few years ago now (... WOW!) - as one sometimes later has to conclude that they must have been conducted on copies selected by the supplying mfrer, and so are not representative.
PP should probably adopt a policy of testing at least three samples of any lens, obtained privately, and not only report on the IQ but on the spread of performance, awarding a large proportion of the points for designs which - whether through QC or tight tolerances - leave the factories at a uniform standard. It's really what used to happen across the board up till the 1980s, and still does in certain German firms.
The job of a review is to provide an honest, objective opinion of a product using thorough and reliable testing methods, not to refrain from embarrassing a manufacturer. I don’t believe anyone here suggested that popphoto mislead anyone - they simply failed to do a thorough review. Their technical testing of the lens is incomplete at best, and their real world testing is non-existent. Of course we can assume, based on the few test numbers that popphoto has provided, that the performance at 500mm will be quite poor. However, I for one don’t want to have to assume anything, when contemplating a purchase of $1500 or more. I want facts. Compare popphoto’s lens tests with those done by dpreview, or even photozone, and popphoto comes off looking like a bunch of rank amateurs. What would they do with a lens such as the f/4G ED VR AF-S Nikkor, since they have no ability to test beyond 300mm, and apparently no desire to walk outside the front door and snap some photos? Comment on what a nice case it comes with? Do testing right, or don’t do it at all.
I agree that someone needs to investigate quality control issues of the major manufacturers. Judging by my own experience, and the complaints of others, Sigma has a significant quality control problem. It would be interesting to see how all the manufacturers stack up in this regard. Nonetheless, even if the relatively poor showing of this lens is due to a quality control issue, an objective reviewer has no obligation to cover for the manufacturer. If the manufacturer can’t provide a properly functioning copy of their product to a reviewer, that’s their problem. The one bit of information that I can glean from this review is that this is a fairly mediocre lens in terms of image quality - no surprise, given the huge zoom range and relatively low price. Whether that mediocre performance is the result of a poor or over-ambitious design, or poor quality control is essentially irrelevant to me, at least with regards to this lens. Either Sigma has created a substandard product, or they’ve created a good product that they can’t manufacture with any consistency. Either way, the test results I’ve seen here and other places would prevent me from considering this particular Sigma lens. While testing multiple copies of a lens is a good idea, consumers shouldn’t have to purchase multiple copies of a lens, hoping to find one that performs up to spec.
The overall point I was making is that this review fits a recent pattern for popphoto. From lightweight technical articles to rights-grabbing photo contests(see Bob Krist’s blog for an interesting take on popphoto’s Travelographer of the Year contest, and their magazine in general), the magazine has been steadily sliding downhill. Knowing what it once was, having been a long-time subscriber at one point, this saddens me. I’m sorry to say that I no longer feel that popphoto serves the interests of the photo enthusiast.
I was being facetious as regards my opening comments... hence the "Come on (guys)..." It's always been a fine line for mags dependant on advertising revenue, between steadfast reporting and staying in business. It's all good when they really have found great glass to fawn to us over, but a real pickle when they have committed themselves to a review of an item that is disappointing. To be fair, the magazines' solution used to be to not test at all anything that they were not going to find good or better - an even more useless state of affairs. Remember the old Modern Photography (whose tests, when they chose to do them, were very good)?
I agree completely it does not matter how a lens turns out to be unsatisfactory in one's hands - we need a serious investigation of what has happened at Canon, Nikon, Sigma and others in the last 15 years (and why probably not at others, like Olympus, Cosina/Voigtlander/Zeiss, etc) in terms of the output quality, and if we continue to read tests at all we need a testing system that incorporates performance-spread into the reports. It's the only hope we have of ending this lottery system in which the odds of getting what one has paid for, even in prestige products from the best Japanese manufacturers, are not particularly high.
My apologies for misinterpreting your tone in the original comment.
I think you make excellent points with regards to more stringent testing. There simply aren't enough good resources available for photographers to gather information and make informed decisions. Someone needs to hold the feet of these manufacturers to the fire. As a Nikon shooter, I have concerns not only with quality control, but also with continuous product shortages and virtually non-existent customer service. Yet almost no one has been willing to take them to task for their shortcomings. Here's hoping someone takes your advice.
very nice review
Really?, not a single photo at 500mm. Really? I expect more.
I was looking for a long lens and wanted to decide between this and the earlier version on the basis of quality and cost and I requested popphoto for a comparison. I was very disappointed when I saw this review. Also, like others in here, I have to admit that there is a decline in the quality of this magazine over the last few months! We all (I guess so) like to see pictures taken at all focal lengths of these lenses when reviewed. we want review of lenses with photos taken with them rather than giving just the charts.we want this magazine to be more informative than being a marketting tool! we loved this magazine over years. New cameras, lens and new technologies coming out very often these days than ever before. So you got a lot to bring out to the readers.
I'm not saying that the magazine sinks as a whole. I admire the articles with tips, tricks all those kind of informations about taking better pictures and post touching techniques using editing softwares. That way popphoto still rocks. But we need more! more than what you do now. like in the god old days.
What a waste of our time. How does this review help me or anyone else decide which lens to purchase? Everyone has mentioned the incomplete results (not testing beyond 300mm) which by itself does your readers a disservice, but I would also point out that if the purpose of a review is to help the reader make an informed buying decision, you really dropped the ball by not comparing the image quality of this lens with that of the older version as well as Sigma's 150-500 (which, as I recall, you published an equally sloppy review of a few months ago).
i really don't care much about everyones view of the magazine. does anyone have anything to say about the lense? i really don't want a purchase that large blind!
I don't think the lens you reviewed is lighter than its predecessor. Sigma's own website lists the weight of the old 50-500 as 58.2 oz., compared with 69.5 for the new one. It's be nice if you could add OS and make it lighter, but it's hard to imagine how they could have done so.
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I commented on this post earlier, but my comment was apparently deleted. I'll try again - anyone interested in this lens will want to know how it performs at 500mm. No one purchases a zoom that goes to 500mm for it's performance at 100mm, 200mm, or even 300mm. That renders this test rather pointless.The quality of your magazine has been declining for some time now, and this is just another glaring example. This article is little more than a product advertisement, in my opinion.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with Ann. The old pop Photo would have taken many shots at 500 mm and reported on the quality. Other sites also take lenses out of the building and do real world testing. What has happened here? Why would anyone buy this lens and only be interested in tests up to 300mm?
It seems as though it's time for Pop Photo to buy new equipment able to test a long lens. 400 and 500mm isn't that rare anymore. Send your people out to do some real work for a change. This is disappointing.
I too am disappointed with the review, having used the first version it found it to be not just heavy as you mentioned but a terrible lens in general, it was very noisy, I've had birds be scared off from its motor noise at 50 yards or more. I found it unusually slow to focus and often searching for focus that my Canon lenses had no problems locking on. It was a soft lens at its aperture extremes making it more like those cheap store brand lenses with only 2 or 3 f stops to choose from.
The fit was sloppy and it was in general a bad lens. I know many others who have given it a try and were similarly disappointed. So I would expect Pop Photo to realize this and tell us if Sigma has made it faster, quitter, sharper, and more functional not just lighter.
Try a little harder next time and get out and use the lens.
Well not much left to say, except I too am very disappointed I just received the latest Pop Photo publication with hope that between the covers I'd find some good reading, but just more wasted paper.
As for this test of the Sigma 50-500mm (new lens) how about going out and taking some real world testing at 400 -500mm and do a real test this time. Delete the test you have now and replace it with some good hard facts and real work!
I would have to agree with the other posters. I need to see pictures in order to see what this lens can actually do.
Wow....I agree with the postings that indicated you should have done a real job in testing this lens. I would be interested only in the top en (400-500)....disappointing
I have had the lens since April. Unlike the other posters here I have been very happy with it on my Nikon D90. I have been experimenting with it as my primary lens since purchasing it. I have used it i a variety of settings, a variety of lighting conditions, with a variety of subject matter. Granted, I have only been taking pictures seriously with a DSLR since the fall of 2009, but, since buying this lens, I've been impressed with the results as have a growing number of people who have seen my work.
The lens is heavy, but it feels well built. Is it as good as similar lens costing several hundred to thousands more? No, But it is a usable lens and with a good eye and sense of composition it can lead to impressive results. For the price, one would be hard pressed to find a lens that compares, especially for wildlife photography - I've captures some very nice shots of birds, flowers and butterflies with this lens.
The only complaint I have is that my copy is among the ones that Sigma recently announced to have a defect with the autofocus system (mine just began to fail this past weekend). I am keeping my fingers crossed that the outcome is favorable in having the lens corrected under warranty. Would I buy another if I ever had to? Probably; especially since there's nothing that compares in this price bracket.
While I was reading the article I was thinking " what good is this w/o testing at 500mm Either it is very bad at that focal length or you need to rent some testing equipment. When I read the comments, I am not alone!
The problem is really the new editor. This guy is a novice photographer and thinks he knows something about photography. Not only does he give inaccurate information he has gotten rid of pros like Steve Sint who have more knowledge in their little pinky than he'll ever have in his lifetime. Bring in a real editor not a salesman!
How can you test a 500 mm and stay inside ?????
This is without vision and I wont accept this so called testing
I will find my tests elsewhere in the future
This isn't a test, but a piece of sales fluff. The longer focal lengths of this 50-500mm, from 300-500mm, lens are good for wildlife, airshows, and sports. As other readers have commented, those are the very focal lengths for which results are missing in the PopPhoto feature. It's difficult to conclude that there was any reason for the so-called "test" other than to populate an editorial page with something so that additional advertisements could be published. Suggest you either return to the professionalism of the past, or simply give up the ghost and join the legions of failed publications that can't cope with today's changed marketplace.
All this criticism of the test may be valid; however, the data given gives a pretty good idea of what the lens would/would not do at 500mm. More than enough information to know what would happen with a 20 X 24 print.
I have a nice Nikon lens that goes to 400mm now. The only reason I would consider this lens is that it goes to 500, so the test results are useless to me.
It does appear that PP is just doing advertisement for vendors instead of helping it readers make informed decisions about equipment they are considering purchasing. If this continues to be the direction you are heading, you are going to see your readership quickly decline.
A more specific direct comparison with the older version would have been very useful; the only thing directly comparable is the weight, which was not a great difference. I'm sure that a large market for the new lens would be users of the older version, but in the case of users of bodies with built-in stabilization, the most important comparison would have been image quality.
Real life testing would also have been very interesting
Come on... the reason it's better not to have equipment that tests out to extreme focal lengths is that the IQ seems ever reliably to nosedive towards them, and it would get embarassing. I mean, look at this progression here - exc, vg, good... it would have been very mediocre at 500mm, seemingly.
I think PP have actually strongly hinted at as much and not misled us, even while avoiding to embarass Sigma, who after all is a good and innovative mfrer and from whom we'd have expected more here. I think the old 50-500 was actually rather good (and the older 170-500 all right - even if it too did not fit the test equipment 10+ years ago), and maybe here we just have a bad sample.
On the subject of which, PP would do us all a great service to launch a deep critical probe into why manufacturing tolerances and QC at even the best non-German firms in the world have become so poor - just read the Fredmiranda and photographyreview comments on so many Canon L, pro Nikkor, and serious Sigma lenses, to name a few. And see how many 17-35/2.8s the Norwegian Bjorn Roslett (naturfotograf.com) had to try to get a really excellent Nikkor. And how often photozone.de has to get a second lens for testing, out of disbelief that the original's flaws were typical, or to try again without decentering or other manufacturing defects.
Which is the real pity and the real cover-up in the last 10-15 years of lens manufacturing and reporting.
On the whole I'm more suspicious of reviews which show a perfect performance from a lens - see the Sigma 15-30 on PP quite a few years ago now (... WOW!) - as one sometimes later has to conclude that they must have been conducted on copies selected by the supplying mfrer, and so are not representative.
PP should probably adopt a policy of testing at least three samples of any lens, obtained privately, and not only report on the IQ but on the spread of performance, awarding a large proportion of the points for designs which - whether through QC or tight tolerances - leave the factories at a uniform standard. It's really what used to happen across the board up till the 1980s, and still does in certain German firms.
The job of a review is to provide an honest, objective opinion of a product using thorough and reliable testing methods, not to refrain from embarrassing a manufacturer. I don’t believe anyone here suggested that popphoto mislead anyone - they simply failed to do a thorough review. Their technical testing of the lens is incomplete at best, and their real world testing is non-existent. Of course we can assume, based on the few test numbers that popphoto has provided, that the performance at 500mm will be quite poor. However, I for one don’t want to have to assume anything, when contemplating a purchase of $1500 or more. I want facts. Compare popphoto’s lens tests with those done by dpreview, or even photozone, and popphoto comes off looking like a bunch of rank amateurs. What would they do with a lens such as the f/4G ED VR AF-S Nikkor, since they have no ability to test beyond 300mm, and apparently no desire to walk outside the front door and snap some photos? Comment on what a nice case it comes with? Do testing right, or don’t do it at all.
I agree that someone needs to investigate quality control issues of the major manufacturers. Judging by my own experience, and the complaints of others, Sigma has a significant quality control problem. It would be interesting to see how all the manufacturers stack up in this regard. Nonetheless, even if the relatively poor showing of this lens is due to a quality control issue, an objective reviewer has no obligation to cover for the manufacturer. If the manufacturer can’t provide a properly functioning copy of their product to a reviewer, that’s their problem. The one bit of information that I can glean from this review is that this is a fairly mediocre lens in terms of image quality - no surprise, given the huge zoom range and relatively low price. Whether that mediocre performance is the result of a poor or over-ambitious design, or poor quality control is essentially irrelevant to me, at least with regards to this lens. Either Sigma has created a substandard product, or they’ve created a good product that they can’t manufacture with any consistency. Either way, the test results I’ve seen here and other places would prevent me from considering this particular Sigma lens. While testing multiple copies of a lens is a good idea, consumers shouldn’t have to purchase multiple copies of a lens, hoping to find one that performs up to spec.
The overall point I was making is that this review fits a recent pattern for popphoto. From lightweight technical articles to rights-grabbing photo contests(see Bob Krist’s blog for an interesting take on popphoto’s Travelographer of the Year contest, and their magazine in general), the magazine has been steadily sliding downhill. Knowing what it once was, having been a long-time subscriber at one point, this saddens me. I’m sorry to say that I no longer feel that popphoto serves the interests of the photo enthusiast.
I was being facetious as regards my opening comments... hence the "Come on (guys)..." It's always been a fine line for mags dependant on advertising revenue, between steadfast reporting and staying in business. It's all good when they really have found great glass to fawn to us over, but a real pickle when they have committed themselves to a review of an item that is disappointing. To be fair, the magazines' solution used to be to not test at all anything that they were not going to find good or better - an even more useless state of affairs. Remember the old Modern Photography (whose tests, when they chose to do them, were very good)?
I agree completely it does not matter how a lens turns out to be unsatisfactory in one's hands - we need a serious investigation of what has happened at Canon, Nikon, Sigma and others in the last 15 years (and why probably not at others, like Olympus, Cosina/Voigtlander/Zeiss, etc) in terms of the output quality, and if we continue to read tests at all we need a testing system that incorporates performance-spread into the reports. It's the only hope we have of ending this lottery system in which the odds of getting what one has paid for, even in prestige products from the best Japanese manufacturers, are not particularly high.
My apologies for misinterpreting your tone in the original comment.
I think you make excellent points with regards to more stringent testing. There simply aren't enough good resources available for photographers to gather information and make informed decisions. Someone needs to hold the feet of these manufacturers to the fire. As a Nikon shooter, I have concerns not only with quality control, but also with continuous product shortages and virtually non-existent customer service. Yet almost no one has been willing to take them to task for their shortcomings. Here's hoping someone takes your advice.
very nice review
Really?, not a single photo at 500mm. Really? I expect more.
I was looking for a long lens and wanted to decide between this and the earlier version on the basis of quality and cost and I requested popphoto for a comparison. I was very disappointed when I saw this review. Also, like others in here, I have to admit that there is a decline in the quality of this magazine over the last few months! We all (I guess so) like to see pictures taken at all focal lengths of these lenses when reviewed. we want review of lenses with photos taken with them rather than giving just the charts.we want this magazine to be more informative than being a marketting tool! we loved this magazine over years. New cameras, lens and new technologies coming out very often these days than ever before. So you got a lot to bring out to the readers.
I'm not saying that the magazine sinks as a whole. I admire the articles with tips, tricks all those kind of informations about taking better pictures and post touching techniques using editing softwares. That way popphoto still rocks. But we need more! more than what you do now. like in the god old days.
What a waste of our time. How does this review help me or anyone else decide which lens to purchase? Everyone has mentioned the incomplete results (not testing beyond 300mm) which by itself does your readers a disservice, but I would also point out that if the purpose of a review is to help the reader make an informed buying decision, you really dropped the ball by not comparing the image quality of this lens with that of the older version as well as Sigma's 150-500 (which, as I recall, you published an equally sloppy review of a few months ago).
i really don't care much about everyones view of the magazine. does anyone have anything to say about the lense? i really don't want a purchase that large blind!
I don't think the lens you reviewed is lighter than its predecessor. Sigma's own website lists the weight of the old 50-500 as 58.2 oz., compared with 69.5 for the new one. It's be nice if you could add OS and make it lighter, but it's hard to imagine how they could have done so.