Home Forums Gear Photography Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 Sport Review

Some time ago there was some discussion about this lens and I thought since I've had mine for a little more than 6 weeks I'd offer some comments;

1) It is a heavy SOB -- with the tripod mount it's 9+ pounds.

2) The finish is super and appears to be very durable.

3) The lens hood is big, sturdy (heavy) and mates up with the body easily.

4) I shoot a Nikon D3s and after shooting 3 or 4 soccer games I wasn't really happy - the size and weight of the lens thru off my timing and I was missing shots -- and shooting wide-open at f2.8 -- resulted in a lot of out-of-focus shots.

I'm not a rocket scientist but after thinking about it for awhile I got out the directions on the SB Port that allows you to adjust how the lens goes about focusing and that helped solve the problem, As shipped, the lens was set for the lowest speed of focusing - in my defense I thought they would ship a lens designed for sports at the fastest focusing speed possible but I should have checked.

This helped quite a bit but still more out-of-focus shots that I like - so I bit the bullet and changed to using a single-point for focusing and I dropped the frame-rate down to 7 frames-per-second - and I'm back in the saddle again, It's still a heavy SOB.

Almost forgot! The depth-of-field at f2,8 is so shallow if I had 3 girls in a shot there was a good chance, no matter how close they stood the one in the middle would be in focus and the one's in front and behind would be slightly out of focus do I now shoot a f4 and I'm happy.

5) Image Quality - Couldn't be happier! My medium lens is a Nikon 70-200 f2.8 VR II and the new Sigma is a worthy companion in my camera bag --- if the Nikon has an unworldly IQ, the Sigma, while not quite there, is really -- yes, really much closer than I expected. If the Nikon scores a 100 -- the Sigma is in the very high 90's.

6) I also bought the Sigma 1.4 TC (mounted it onto the lens and used the SB Port to adjust it) and went shooting -- the only thing I think I've noticed - need more experience to be sure - the only real difference I see is the initial focus appears to be a little slower than without the TC -- but I want more time with it.

This isn't a lens you're going to want to carry around and try to hand-hold - a good monopod is almost essential.

I don't have any problem strongly recommending it to anyone who can afford to spend more than $3500 (the lens, plus the USB modifier and a 1.4 TC).

The images are just super.

Thanks for your follow up. I haven't been on here much recently with all the work/family activities going on, but I'm glad I got on today (actually it was pouring at my son's soccer game and I elected not to shoot any, thus no PP and a bit of free time.)

Since that discussion on low light sports shooting, I've had a few experiences that have humbled me on how hard it is. I shot a soccer game at dusk on an unlighted field. Maxed out the ISO, shot at f2.8 and got a much higher percentage of OOF shots (auto focus was having trouble locking on). PP'd the crap out of the sharper ones, and they still looked like crap.

I'm clueless on gym shooting, but I was asked by a friend to shoot his girls varsity team. Went to a couple of practices to sort things out first. How do folk get the color right? Custom white balance, played with the color temp, PP's and still crap.


I'm rethinking getting that 120-300mm and might just stick to outdoors shooting in good light. No Friday Night Lights for me!

High school gyms, especially the older ones, are terrible and that goes for many football fields too. The local soccer games here in California tend to start between 3 and 3:30PM (we're still playing high school soccer with about 2 weeks left in the regular season) so the lighting typically starts out great and gradually get's worse with the light's coming on after half-time - unless it's cloudy. I usually just go with auto WB and Aperture Priority and bump the ISO as needed to maintain, depending on the speed of the game, at no less than 1/1000 but much prefer 1/1600.

I can shoot soccer under the lights at ISO 12,500 using my Nikon D3s and get different colors for 3 or 4 shots in a row - the cycle-rate of the lighting pretty much is out of your control unless you can get permission to shoot flash -- usually not a problem for football but no luck with soccer and volley ball.

Send me your e-mail in a PM and I'll send you some photos.

Sounds like a good one..nice shots

I would recommend trying to set your exposure on something other than the whole scene or white or dark jerseys/uniforms. Manual mode is great for this. If you prefer to shoot in TV or AV, you can still set your exposure on something else and then hit AE lock. Be aware of the fact that the AE lock usually lasts for a specific period of time (my EOS 60D I think is 6 seconds). In manual, it will stay as you've set it (basically,unless you change one of the values for ap/ss/iso). Expose off of a grey card if you have one. It is recommended that one can use the palm of one's hand. A more neutral color than the dark uniforms or white uniforms is preferred. I'm not an expert, just an advanced beginner; but, if you want more on how to do this contact me via pm.

BTDT. I don't use AWB on sports (or much else for that matter). Letting the camera meter off a dark uniform then a light one makes for some pretty extreme swings in exposure and sometimes WB. I will usually shoot a custom WB with an expodisc or gray card. As a last ditch, I'll hope for something close to a true-white in the frame and let LR figure it out in post. Exposure is generally not a problem for me outdoors because I'm shooting Aperature Priority, and the camera will adjust the shutter speed. But in the gym, I went Manual (one small benefit was I didn't have to account for clouds passing over or the sun moving across the sky).
All that didn't work in the gym!
Shot one practice with the expodisc custom white balance. Tried a gray card. Resorted to setting the temp manually. As you can see from the above images, still not quite right.

I can see using AE Lock if I can find a combo that works, then just replicating that manually.

...almost forgot...DB Bill, I'd love to see some of your images off the 120-300mm...

I was at the local Nikon shop and was talking to a guy about this lens. (well he was talking at me ) he broke out this lens and the 1.4 and 2.0 TC's he started shooting away with his D3x.. then he showed me the results...
I was amazed.. they were about as sharp and crisp as if I was using my 500mm prime lens.

I'm so impressed I am seriously considering selling the 500mm and geting this lens and the 2 TC's

I just got to play with this lens for a day. Like DB BILL says, it's a beast. Shot a late afternoon soccer game. Basically the same game and conditions that drove me crazy last year. I was able to keep my ISO down, and my shutter up with the 2.8 aperture, but the auto focus wasn't locking on well. I needed a week to profile this lens to my body. Did a quickie with the USB dock, but apparently didn't get it right.

I understand the new Nikon 750 body has some way to deal with the flickering lights in gyms and most high school stadiums.

I haven't been able to find anything to read about it but I suspect it has to do with shooting multiple photos.

I've never shot much indoor sport's but I found that using manual shooting running dog's improves on a lot of the photo's I used to get using A. What I do is go out and shoot several photo's in the area I'll be in and check them for exposure on the back of the camera. Once I get what I like, I simply leave it there and shoot.

Apparently the 7DII does this as well. If the reviewers are right, it achieves this by slightly delaying the shutter release until the light cycles to it's brightest level.

I'll be playing with the the 7DII over the next week including shooting a game that's scheduled to finish at dusk. We'll see how Dual Digic 6's do with high ISO!