However as we say it's horses for courses and this was my choice I think the best thing is to see if any local photographers have either of the lenses and give them a trial. I'm certain I would have been very happy with the 80-400 and can see many pros and cons for either lens. Corner shading isn't much to write home about when the lens is mounted on the sub-frame 20D - the corners are just a quarter-stop darker than the center when used wide open at ƒ/2.8. Stop the lens down even to ƒ/4, and the shading goes away. With optical stabilisation enabled, and plenty of care taken, sharp hand held shots are possible around half the time at shutter speeds as low as 1/20sec, which is roughly four stops slower than the usual rule of thumb would allow. However, this may vary wildly from person to person due to the size and weight of the lens. Press release: Sony Electronics Announces Development of New 300mm F2.8 G Master OSS Telephoto Full-Frame E-mount Lens, Targeting to Launch in Early 2024

300mm F2.8 DG OS HSM | Sports - SIGMA Corporation 120-300mm F2.8 DG OS HSM | Sports - SIGMA Corporation

Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. The new 80-400 was not available at the time and having seen the quoted price tag only a few hundred pounds cheaper than the Sigma swayed my decision. Even at f16 this lens still delivered loads and loads of gorgeous bokeh when the subject was at the the closest focusing distance of 250cm / 98.4″. f32 With 1.4x APO Tele Converter, AF can operate between infnity and 1.2mm. If the subject is closer than 1.2m, only MF is available. Detailed specifications for the lens, along with an MTF chart and other useful data can be found in our lens database. Lens HandlingUnlike Nikon and Canon Sony doesn't have previous iterations of super teles to draw on. They inherited the license to produce the A-mount 300/2.8, but they didn't design it and IIRC the A-mount 500/4 was also designed by Minolta, prior to it's dissolution.

Sigma 300mm F2.8 APO EX DG HSM: Digital Photography Review

The Sigma 120-300mm ƒ/2.8 Sports lens is very good optically, producing very sharp images on both full-frame and sub-frame cameras. The graphs at right show very slightly sharper results on the sub-frame body than the full-frame one, but the amount of difference is less than or equal to 0.2 of our arbitrary blur units, an amount that's well within the error margin of our tests, and a level that's completely indiscernible.

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With 1.4x APO Tele Converter, AF can operate between infnity and 0.52m. If the subject is closer than 0.52m, only MF is available. A deep circular hood is supplied with the lens, which does a great job of shading the lens from extraneous light that may cause loss of contrast or flare. Contrast is good, even when shooting into the light. Portraits with the Sigma 300mm 2.8EX are really interesting. First off, the lens has great compression. Shooting with this lens means you have to be a bit farther away from your subject, giving you a smaller angle of view to work with. You have to realize that you don’t have to shoot at f2.8 to get nice Bokeh. You can get really pleasing bokeh at f4 or f5.6. Your lighting has to be off camera because an on camera flash just will not reach. Simple natural light portraits come out very nice, particularly if the sun is in front of the subject. Image Quality

APO 300mm F2.8 EX DG HSM / EX DG - SIGMA Corporation

The most frustrating thing I experienced was an incredible bird in the middle of a field. Out of about 10 shots, only two maybe three had critical focus. I couldn't understand what was going on. Happened a few times; mostly with birds. Here's the best of the series:The manual focus ring is a fantastic size. I had to use it at one point when shooting handheld and in a low light situation where focusing was really tough. I wrote a few PM responses to a couple of people who asked for my thoughts about the Sigma 300mm f/2.8. Here's a re-work of them with some additions.