A DIFFERENT KIND OF SHOOTING: Sigma 70-300mm Lens Overview

What's in the box

       Here's a non-paintball entry way out of left field for you. Say you're in my boat, at least the one I was in last year anyway, and playing is not an option in spite of being present at the field all the time. Maybe you're a ref, maybe you're injured and can't run and dive about the bunkers on your field, or maybe money is an issue and you can't drop 80 on a box of balls every week. What if like so many North Americans today, you have a digital camera, perhaps of the DSLR variety and you want to take shots of your friends playing but have trouble getting super close to the action and can't drop 2000$ on a telephoto lens or don't want to take said 2000$ lens into a shooting zone? There's an option out there that can be purchases with a protective filter for less than 200$ CAD at most retailers which fits exactly that bill.

Fully set up and elongated

WarHammer 40k Figurine, only a few inches tall
that's some good macro

       If you know not a thing about cameras I may start speaking a different language right now, but for the rest of you, let me introduce you to the Sigma 70-300mm telephoto lens, one of the best-for-the-money lenses you can grab for an SLR for amateur/budget shooting. The lens is a lightweight as zoom lenses go at just half a kilogram; I have some smaller ones that are heavier and posses less zoom capabilities than this lens and it's a pretty easy one to hand hold for longer periods of time. It's also a pretty long beast and looks fairly impressive on the front of you camera, if not a little Freudian in it's design. It also includes a sun shade to keep light coming from the side from making it's way into the lens barrel and polluting the image.

       Function wise it's very versatile. In normal use it's a very handy telephoto lens but the lens has a switch that allows it to turn into a very capable macro lens between the 200-300mm zoom ranges; it's perhaps even more capable at macro than it is as a telephoto as can be scene in the Warhammer 40K figurine shot. But as good as the lens is there are a few gripes I have about it that can be easily overcome with just a little practice in manual mode.

       First up is a small one that just a little post processing in just about any photo editing program can rectify. At the extreme ends of the lenses zoom, those being 70mm and 300mm respectively, the lens has a habit of adding a little bit of haze to the image. This I've been told is a common problem with a lot of Sigma lenses, and no offense to the company, but this brand is cheaper by about 100$ on average for a reason. If you don't wish to use a photo editing program and do post processing because you think that's sacrilege like a lot of photographers do, you can overcome the haze by operating the lens within it's two extremes.

That lens and I, Freud would be proud

       Second is the reason why learning to become a little more competent in manual focus is of such value: the lens does not focus very quick. This much I don't know is a common problem of Sigma's but on this particular model it is. It will over shoot it's focus, back track, go a little bit too far, then a little too close before it finally has the subject in focus and it's not a fast process, nor a quiet one. I've used an alcohol analogy to explain it a few times: When I'm sober (I really don't drink at all to be honest) my eyes are like a good Nikon lens, but after a few drinks their focus time is more like a Sigma. You follow? If you learn to be proficient in shooting in manual focus modes you can also overcome your camera sticking it's tongue out at you and saying the subject is too dark or light and not releasing the shutter when it's told to do so.

       Only one more thing to moan about really quick: the lens does not the best max f-stop around. A really good (low number) f-stop in a telephoto lens usually translates to a whole lot more dinero though. If you decide to shoot in low light, very shady places, or even at an indoor field you may need to get creative with some manual mode features in your camera. Tweaking the ISO or active-d lighting to fill out the shadows can help and more importantly, get your shutter speed as close to at least 1/125^th of a second to keep your shots crisp and minimize the shake that hand holding a zoom lens can cause. A tripod can help but that's a heavy chunk of gear to lug about for a casual shooter to drag along. Getting closer to the action and using less zoom from the lens can improve your max aperture too and still get you nice bokeh for portrait-like combat shots. Remember though, a dark, under exposed shot can be brightened to look better than an over exposed shot that's been darkened most of the time so don't sweat a under exposure too much.

Taken with this lens, not a bad action shot

       So all in all you get a pretty good deal on this lens and a UV or A-1 filter to protect it at 200$. It takes a little bit of a creative user to get some pretty slick shots with it given it's limitations, but Sigma's delivered a pretty versatile little lens here, great macro and telephoto features at a reasonable price; it gives similar 70-300mm lenses made by Canon or Nikon a run for the money.