Looking ahead for a new challenge

[Donald Mackie]

I’m not entirely sure when I made my migration from Cannon to my Sony A7iii. Over a year now but I don’t actually recall. That said I concentrated at first and purchase wise  (lens) on an everyday, all purpose lens. I settled on the 24-105. Impossible for me to be more pleased with that lens. Impossible.Then on to my wide and ultra wide’s as that’s still where I enjoy being most often particularly when I have the time and patience to do things slowly and with calculations. I have three. A Laowa 15, a Sigma Art 20, and a Sigma Art 35.

That said a left over lens from my Cannon day’s was a Sigma 18-300mm 3.5/6.3. I’ve been using it with an mc-11 adaptor on the A7iii lately mainly for taking pictures of crowds (people/street) here in L.A. I like the reach as I’m still totally not good with intrusive “camera in their face” techniques. Besides that could get you killed here and in a hurry. The Sigma does wonderful for that great reach but merely an “ok” job with IQ. It’s certainly not sharp on any level and it’s inevitably noisy. It looks poor compared to the rest of my kit. I managed some really good “content” but when I compare IQ to my other lens’s it kinda makes me uncomfortable with the results. I’m starting a push for a new Sony lens that’s similar (I don’t need a reach of 300, I don’t think) but it must have a decent reach to keep me unobtrusive and the IQ must be substantial better than my good ole Sigma.

I don’t see myself ever doing dedicated and intense wildlife photography. So far it’s just not my thing. I do however hike the Los Angeles Canyons a lot but not purposely to seek wildlife. If it comes cool, if not cool. So in short it’d be more for inconspicuous street photos of which we have a universe of possibilities here and occasional hikes through the beautiful canyons and oceans here in SoCal.

All thoughts and suggestions welcome

[Pieter]

Your Sigma 18-300 is an APS-C lens so you'd be using it in crop mode on the A7iii, giving it a 450 mm equivalent field of view at high IQ cost.

Sounds like the Sony 70-300 might be interesting to you. Effectively slightly less reach than your Sigma but much better IQ. The 70-200 f/4 might also be interesting (marginally better IQ than the 70-300) but it's white so a lot less inconspicuous than the black 70-300. Both are designed for a fullframe image circle.

The Sony 100-400 will probably be out of your budget and it's substantially bigger than the other two.

[Donald Mackie]

9 hours ago, Pieter said:

Your Sigma 18-300 is an APS-C lens so you'd be using it in crop mode on the A7iii, giving it a 450 mm equivalent field of view at high IQ cost.

Sounds like the Sony 70-300 might be interesting to you. Effectively slightly less reach than your Sigma but much better IQ. The 70-200 f/4 might also be interesting (marginally better IQ than the 70-300) but it's white so a lot less inconspicuous than the black 70-300. Both are designed for a fullframe image circle.

The Sony 100-400 will probably be out of your budget and it's substantially bigger than the other two.

Yes the 18-300 was really a “left-over” from my Cannon APS-C days and I didn’t really intent to use for anything much with the A7iii. I’ll always note in Lightroom what the equivalent mm would be if the Sigma wasn’t forcing APS-C mode. That so I can get a feel for just how much reach I really need in the full frame world.

A couple of day shoots in some really crowded, active areas of L.A. yielded some pretty great compositional photos and maybe started a flame for another direction for me, therefore the new search. In the end sharpness, or even critical sharpness is really important to me. The Sony 70-200 f4 has always been on my radar but I wasn’t aware of the 70-300. Good call. The 70-300 as you mentioned would certainly be less conspicuous than the 70-200 as well as providing more reach. As much as I loath renting for trial purposes this scenario may come down to just that.

 

 

[Donald Mackie]

So for those that may be interested in this kinda thing and specific to my original post. I rented the Sony 70-300 4.5 this week. I also borrowed a Sigma 100-400 from a friend yesterday morning.  I’m coming from the perspective of either lens would be used in virtually good/great light. I don’t need these things for low light tasks. Also for the record I already own an MC-11 adaptor with the latest firmware updates.

 

The Sony is relatively light and not much bigger than the 24-105. It focuses lightning fast. It’s color profile (Lightroom Adobe Profile) reminds me very much of the 24-105, which is really pleasing. The zoom ring and the manual focus ring was noticeably sticky. Understanding this was a rental which showed obvious signs of use (maybe even mis-use) my biggest concern past that was it’s focus ability past 200mm. It very well could have been me but not much was sharp above 200. Perhaps to some extent “acceptably” sharp up to 250mm but disappointing at 300mm. Again for reference it was a well used lens and the conditions being what they were it may well have been bad decisions on my part.

The Sigma 100-400 is on the big side. Manageable but much bigger (and I’d assume heavier) than the Sony. The new MC-11 firmware puts focus attributes on par with the 70-300. Maybe better?! From there the Sigma leaves the Sony pretty far behind in almost every category. It’s sharp almost all the way through. I’ve had limited time with this lens but it appears to be tack sharp all the way out. The color is a bit more neutral to the Sony but I shoot Raw and honestly that neutral may well be more advantageous. 

In the end and for what I’d use it for the Sigma is a bit of a no-brainer. I checked on pricing and right now there’s a $200.00 instant rebate on the lens. I’ll sleep on it tonight but $600 for this lens? That’s gonna be tough to beat!

 

Edited August 18, 2019 by Donald Mackie

[Pieter]

Thanks for the recap. I'm on the fence between these two options as well but I'm not in a hurry so I guess I'll wait for Sigma or Tamron to come with a native 100-400. The Sony 100-400 is out of my price range, me being mostly a family/landscape photographer who only does the occasional wildlife shot when the opportunity presents itself. That's my main concern: since I only use such a lens on occasion, the bigger it is, the smaller the chance I bring it.

[Lescatalpas]

I own the 70-300 and am quite pleased with it because it is not just a long zoom lens. I use it a lot as a macro lens ( or close up lens) since it can focus from less than a meter. It is sharp enough for me, but best at f/8, so you need plenty of light. For working from a hide-out it is good enough, if the weather is fine. Another negative point is it has no tripod connection or collar. There are Chinese solution for that though, but not ideal. On the positive side, it is well built and it is affordable. Just a random example: (this is a crop of about 3000x3000pixels) reduced to 724kb.  300mm f/8  1/100sec

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Edited August 19, 2019 by Lescatalpas

[Lescatalpas]

May I add that I have done away with adapted lenses. It is always a compromise or has some limitations. Native lenses perform better mainly in terms of focus speed and use of all the focus points. The adapters may have improved though, we are a few years further down the line. But most of the time you get what you pay for.  (pay peanuts, you get monkeys). 

[Donald Mackie]

11 hours ago, Lescatalpas said:

May I add that I have done away with adapted lenses. It is always a compromise or has some limitations. Native lenses perform better mainly in terms of focus speed and use of all the focus points. The adapters may have improved though, we are a few years further down the line. But most of the time you get what you pay for.  (pay peanuts, you get monkeys). 

Yea, I’m pretty darn critical when it comes to focus performance. When I say “pretty darn” I mean as picky as one could possibly get :). Sigma has had some significant updates for the MC-11 and I can say with full confidence the Sigma 100-400 performs every bit as well as the native Sony 70-300 when it come to focus abilities at least in good light scenarios. As I mentioned earlier maybe even better. I have the Sigma 20mm and 35mm Art series for Sony (native mount without the MC-11) and I can tell you the 3 lenses are almost identical in reaction/focus times.

As far as the 70-300 I really wanted that lens to win the weekend shootout. After all one of my absolute very favorite lenses I own is the Sony 24-105 G series. It’s (70-100) also a substantially lighter and smaller lens. Both big considerations for me. I did love mostly how it performed (again a big variable might have been it’s used status) but after reviewing all of the weekend shots there was little doubt the Sigma was consistently sharper and almost across the board. 

As far as peanuts for monkeys I can tell you, within reason, this decision was not about purchasing a cheap alternative. I’d never in a million years put myself through the misery and second guessing game of spending less and later wishing I’d spent more. I spent the weekend critically comparing the two and there was zero doubt which was better (at least for me). I would have gladly paid for either which of the two performed better. I wasn’t looking for a bargain.  I think the Sigma entered the market at the $900.00 point. With the rebate from Sigma and Samy’s my out the door price was $608.00. It really did make the decision one of the easiest in recent years but even still I would have gone for the Sony had I thought it was better. In this case it wasn't.

Horses for courses I suppose but I look at this lens performance as anything but peanuts

Edited August 20, 2019 by Donald Mackie

[Lescatalpas]

Maybe your rental 70-300 was not up to speed?  If I were you I'd try another one. You wrote that you thought your rental was perhaps a bit mis-used. My copy is certainly sharp over the whole range. I am surprised you state that past 200mm you see the performance go down. I don't experience that at all, and I use the lens mainly at 300mm. (if sony had a 300mm f/4 I would switch to that, but alas they don't.) 

Here another example of a 300mm shot:  (this time you hopefully see it full size, not reduced to fit this forum) please click the picture to go to my flickr page

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Edited August 20, 2019 by Lescatalpas

[Donald Mackie]

5 hours ago, Lescatalpas said:

Maybe your rental 70-300 was not up to speed?  If I were you I'd try another one. You wrote that you thought your rental was perhaps a bit mis-used. My copy is certainly sharp over the whole range. I am surprised you state that past 200mm you see the performance go down. I don't experience that at all, and I use the lens mainly at 300mm. (if sony had a 300mm f/4 I would switch to that, but alas they don't.) 

Here another example of a 300mm shot:  (this time you hopefully see it full size, not reduced to fit this forum) please click the picture to go to my flickr page

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

Great shot  

Yes the lens probably should not have been released by the rental company. It was so beat up that upon opening the box I took detailed photos and sent them off immediately to the rental agency just to protect myself. I’d guess that was at least in part some of the problem. By and large I have complete confidence in Sony native stuff with the possible exception of the almost unusable 50 prime. Still my Sigma Art 20mm and 35mm are the sharpest lenses I own and I’m a pretty big fan of what Sigma’s been doing these days so it’s not a particularly big stretch for me to go that way.