Sigma 400mm f/5.6 APO Tele Macro

Review Date
October 31, 2009

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Reviewed by
Patricio Murphy , Expert

Price Paid
$450.00 at used

Photography Experience
21+ years , Outdoor

Summary
In short: amazing value. This lens delivers outstanding image quality with no objectionable aberrations, lots of detail and very good contrast and is physically light enough for handholding (and carrying).
Construction is good for the money. Actually very good for the money. It features an AF/MF ring, a focus limiter switch and a detachable tripod collar. You probably have already read all this stuff :-)
Manual focusing is a breeze, it's very comfortable, the lens shade helps keep stray light at bay and provides protection to the front element.
AF is plain bad. You don need to prefocus if you plan on shooting birds in flight, and even then it may hunt and you may lose the shot, but once it adquires focus on my D200, it works. It takes a little getting used to, but once you do, you can make it work. I get more in focus bird shots than I do with my MF Nikkor, so for me it's great. For non action subjects it's OK.
The Macro thing refers to its close focusing ability, which is great for lots of uses, including confident birds.
I sure forget something, probably someone already mentioned it!

Strengths
Outstanding image quality, specially if you consider its price.
Good tripod collar.
Close focusing.
Good MF grip.
Focus limiter.
Despite other opinions, for a 400, it's light. It weights the same as my 80-200 f/2.8

Weaknesses
Slow AF

Similar Products Used
My other long tele, an AI Nikkor 400 mm f/3.5 ED-IF (amazing quality if you can live with MF)
Played with these lenses from friends:
Sigma 170-500 f/5.6-6.3
Canon 100-400 L
Canon 500mm f/4.5 L (just amazing)
Canon 400mm f/5.6

Customer Service
Can't comment on this.

Review Date
April 5, 2007

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Reviewed by
Dirk , Intermediate

Price Paid
$300.00 at eBay

Photography Experience
11-20 years , Outdoor

Summary
Works very well on my Nikon D80, aperture controlled, and also works good with a Kenko 1,4 teleconverter. No CA, no periscopic view, really good quality pictures. Only wish it was a little bit faster (5.6). At F8 absolutely 100% quality !!

Strengths
Price, built, quality of the pictures, less distortions as new zooms.

Weaknesses
Weight, not fast

Similar Products Used
non

Customer Service
no

Review Date
February 27, 2006

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Reviewed by
Maxim Novikov , Intermediate

Price Paid
$0.00 at e-bay

Photography Experience
21+ years , Outdoor

Summary
The lens is very sharp, well balanced, easy and convenient to use, mechanics works smoothly. When shhoting a 6MP camera, the limiting factor is clearly the sensor, not the lens. It handles so well, even many of hand-held shots are very sharp. Flare is seemingly well controlled - I did a couple of sunset shots and did not see any problems. For this price, there are simply no competitors on the market. Sorry, they discontinued it.

Strengths
Optical quality
Build quality.
Balance
Built-in shade
Tripod collar.

Weaknesses
rear cap (at least in the Pentax-mount model) is a bad joke, you have to replace it immediately or risk sompromizing te rear lens.

Review Date
February 27, 2006

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Reviewed by
Maxim Novikov , Intermediate

Price Paid
$0.00 at e-bay

Photography Experience
21+ years , Outdoor

Summary
The lens is very sharp, well balanced, easy and convenient to use, mechanics works smoothly. When shhoting a 6MP camera, the limiting factor is clearly the sensor, not the lens. It handles so well, even many of hand-held shots are very sharp. Flare is seemingly well controlled - I did a couple of sunset shots and did not see any problems. For this price, there are simply no competitors on the market. Sorry, they discontinued it.

Strengths
Optical quality
Build quality.
Balance
Built-in shade
Tripod collar.

Weaknesses
rear cap (at least in the Pentax-mount model) is a bad joke, you have to replace it immediately or risk sompromizing te rear lens.

Review Date
June 8, 2005

Overall Rating
 2 of 5

Value Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Visitors rate this review
2.50 of 5, 2 votes

Reviewed by
davejon , Intermediate

Price Paid
$400.00 at KEH--used

Photography Experience
6-10 years , Outdoor

Summary
I bought this lens used from KEH to use on my new Nikon D70. At first I thought my pictures were blurry because my tripod wasn't solid enough. After a lot of tests I found two problems. First, it was horrible wide open at f/5.6. It got better at f/8, but that was too slow for what I needed. Second, it had a very bad "front focus" problem. Which meant that, when the lens was set to auto focus, it would actually focus a little in front of the subject it should focus on. This caused serious blur. I spent a lot of time trying to make sure it was a problem with the lens and not the camera. I finally got my hands on another D70 and reproduced the problem with it. Manual focus worked fine. But, it still was horrible at f/5.6.

I have the 300mm f/4 Sigma APO Macro lens and it works great, even wide open.

I sent this lens back to KEH for repair (under the 60-day warranty) and was told that it is not repairable because the chip in the lens is no longer available. I'm waiting for a refund at this time.

I'm now using the Sigma 300mm APO Macro lens with a Kenko Pro 300 1.4x converter. That combination works very well and was much cheaper than having both the 300mm and 400mm.

I'm giving this lens a low rating to serve as a warning to those interested in buying one. Since there probably is no repair available make sure you get some kind of return policy in case you get a deffective one like I did.

Strengths
Probably a good lens if you get one that doesn't have a bad chip and works better wide open.

Weaknesses
Very soft/blurry wide open.
"Front focus" problem
Lens cannot be repaired if the chip goes bad.

Similar Products Used
Sigma 300mm f/4 APO Macro

Customer Service
Sigma customer service called me to tell me the lens was not repairable, even though KEH sent it to them. The Sigma rep was nice, but there was a serious language barrier. I could not get him to understand that he needs to send the lens back to KEH because they are the one's who sent it to Sigma. I called KEH to warn them that I would probably get the lens from Sigma. They told me just to send it to them if that happens and they would take care of it. KEH customer service is great.