150-500 mm Sigma

[Deepjay Sarkar]

I am planning to buy a Sigma 150-500mm lens. So before buying this I want to know about this lens..... I will be using it for bird photography.
Is it a good lens for medium range wild life photography?
1. Quality of photos with this lens?
2. Sharpness quality of this lens?
3. Auto focus quality of this lens?
4. I am using D90 body, so is it compatible with this?

[Atul Sinai]

Hey Deepjay,

Sigma 150- 500mm is slightly soft, and image quality suffers towards 500mm. I would personally not prefer to buy that lens.

If image quality is a priority then, NIKKOR 300mm f/4D IF-ED would be a good option. You may use an extender with that.

If you are looking for zoom rage than you can go for NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED.

It is always better to save a bit and spend on better glass.

[Murugan Anantharaman]

I completely agree with Atul on 2 points.

1. The 300mm F4 is a great lens and couple with a 1.4x extender will give you amazing results. I have used it extensively when in Africa and got great shots. (I use a Nikon D7000)

2. 80-400mm is a very good lens as well but its a zoom lens and though is a good lens may not give results as good as the 300mm with 1.4x combination.

Costwise the 300mm+1.4x tc comes to about 91k INR and 80-400 92k INR ( from some reliable sources in Mumbai). However if you try to use a 1.4x extender on a 80-400 it would not give very good results unless you use narrower apertures. I would definitely recommend the 300mm+1.4x tc.

The sigma 150-500 is a lens which I have used a couple of times. My cousin has a D90 with a 150-500 and from the wildlife images he has been clicking since the last 3 years, the results have been very good. However, Sigma lenses have a quality problem on repetitive use, I have heard this from experts inclusive of Sabyasachi who have extensively used Sigma and do not recommend as compared to the lenses manufactured by Nikon(in your case).