Bigmos upgrade

[Stevio125]

Hi and hello to you all,

Its my first post on this forum so go easy on me!

I currently have a sigma 150-500 and Nikon D300s, and I'm thinking of going one better on the lens front, I cant decide on what I need or want.
Dont get me wrong the Bigmos is a great lens but want something a bit sharper.
Does anyone have any experiance of the nikon 300 f4 and tele if so which tele and what are you thoughts, or any other advice without spending over £3000.
I mainly shot small birds so the 500mm is very useful to me and wouldnt like to go any shorter than 400mm.

Thanks in advance for any contributions!

[camo]

Originally Posted by Stevio125

Hi and hello to you all,

Its my first post on this forum so go easy on me!

I currently have a sigma 150-500 and Nikon D300s, and I'm thinking of going one better on the lens front, I cant decide on what I need or want.
Dont get me wrong the Bigmos is a great lens but want something a bit sharper.
Does anyone have any experiance of the nikon 300 f4 and tele if so which tele and what are you thoughts, or any other advice without spending over £3000.
I mainly shot small birds so the 500mm is very useful to me and wouldnt like to go any shorter than 400mm.

Thanks in advance for any contributions!

Hi Stevio and welcome to site.

Well as i have been reading good reviews for the sigma 150 - 500 i was considering buying it, can you definetly put its lack of sharpness down to the lens or was it just bad conditions.

Of the lenses up from the Sigma the price starts to increase in leaps to get a little better quality. Some of the big lens sellers offer the opportunity to try a lens at their shops and for a lens costing say £1500 i would have thought it is worth travelling. My general perception is that when you go say from your sigma to say a Nikon 100-400 the build quality will improve but the glass is little better. The added f stops will increase light and make some improvement but not necesarily stagger you with sharpness. you are then looking to pay several thousands to increase the sharpness. I am in the same boat as you so i will be interested in the answers, however i have a 170 -500 which is definetly inferior glass and although very light has no movement compensation.

Roy

[Ukwildlifeo]

Ive not had any problems with lack of sharpness on the 150-500mm. I tend to shoot at a minimum of f8.0 and max focal length of about 420mm for max sharpness. Thats said at 500mm Ive not really seen a noticable drop unless I crop.

[Stevio125]

I do agree that it can be sharp enough, at both f8-f9 and around the 400-450mm mark but it just isnt consistant enough, without loads of light and can stuggle a bit.

I'm currently shooting a lot of Goldcrest's and under the canopy of a yew tree in jan isnt the place to go if you want loads of light!!

A friend of mine with a 7D upgraded from a bigmos to a canon 400mm and even stacking teleconverters is getting shots with so much detail its insane!

So maybe its a bit of gear envy but I was looking around to see if there was an upgrade without breaking the bank, the nikon 200-400mm or the sigma 500m f4.5 would be the answer, if I could sell on of the kids, but the wife says thats a bad thing!

Seems nikon and or sigma are missing a 400mm f4 for around £2000

[Vectisbirder]

Originally Posted by Stevio125

Seems nikon and or sigma are missing a 400mm f4 for around £2000

That's why I switched from Nikon to Canon in 2008. I had the Sigma 170-500mm lens but I wanted something better and I couldn't afford the Nikon 200-400. I saw that people were getting superb shots with the relatively inexpensive Canon 400mm f5.6 (ok, not f4) and Nikon and Sigma didn't have anything in that range so, as I didn't have much invested in cameras or lenses (I had the D80 plus a couple of Sigma zooms), I changed to Canon.

The Canon 400mm f5.6 blew the 170-500mm out of the water in image quality.

However, in reply to the OP, I have heard good things about the Nikon 300mm f4 (I could have gone that route but wanted a 400mm). I don't think you can go far wrong there, although you may want a bit more reach. It would be an improvement over the Sigma zoom.

[Stevio125]

Thanks Vectisbirder, The switch to canon had crossed my mind unfortunatly about 2 months to late I've only just upgraded my body to a D300s!
I think I'll have to start lobbying sigma and nikon about the 400mm f4 or just win the lottery and go for the Sigma 800mm and be done with it all!!!!!