Sigma 18-300 f/3.5 – 6.3 DC Macro

For some time I have wanted an all round lens I can take when flying or when I can’t cart my gear with me. It tends to be for City breaks, but also when I’m working as it is just not possible to cart a load of gear with me. Up until now I have relied on the kit lens that came with the Sony A6000 – which is the 16-50mm E PZ 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OSS. It has always performed well, is sharp, has good colour rendition but is obviously limited in terms of focal length range.

I own a load of Canon L series lenses, which are tack sharp. It’s always been a difficult challenge to get anything that comes close in terms of quality. That changed when I purchased a Sigma Art series 35mm f/1.4 which I was well impressed with; in fact it remains one of my favourite lenses.

Cheap primes such as the Canon 50mm f/1.8 prime are cheap and are tack sharp, even although it doesn’t have a red ring around it, and are portable. Issue being put that on the only compact Canon camera I have – the R7 – it effective becomes 80mm.

When Sigma brought out this 18-300 I dismissed it immediately. I’d never been impressed with the reviews or published IQ of these sort of lenses, which are called “super zooms.” However, it was a Sigma, so good quality was a given, and the reviews were really good. So were the quality of the published images I had seen.

The next question for consideration – do I get it in Sony format to fit the A6000 which I am so found of for travel, or for the more modern R7? Having pondered that for weeks, and looked at review after review, I decided to go for it and got one with an RF mount.

My first shoot with it was last night in reasonable light, and I was not disappointed. There was a bit of spray around and I was unhappy with the images taken at the long end. However, I shot a few more this morning, and can say it performs well throughout the range. Although I put them through Lightroom to straighten etc. – it appears there are no optical corrections for this combo at the moment – so these are essentially not even optically corrected.

You can make up your own mind but I think the IQ throughout the focal length range is really good and definitely more than acceptable

The Ferry

The 300mm end.

These images were all taken at the 300 mm end to prove this end works, as the light and haze were not in my favour in the above set.

Absolutely nothing wrong with sharpness even at 300mm

The conclusion is I’m on to a winner with this lens for travel. Well done Sigma.

Video

What about video? I’m not really into taking video with cameras; however, I thought I would take a short clip and see how this lends performed hand held. I really think Sigma have come up with a winner

Macro

This lens has Macro capability at 70mm. I thought it was just too good to be true – can this lens really do everything? And be so cheap? The answer is Yes.

1/320 f/8 75mm ISO 400

Mental Health

Amateur Photographer had a focus on Photography and Mental Health last week. Mental Health is an area many can struggle with from time to time. I must agree that being out and about just with the camera where your focus is solely on what you are shooting, really does benefit me. I love it. I’ve read a few books about it including Weiser – Photography Therapy Techniques and Horrobin – Healing through Creativity. I recommend both. I also recommend getting something to focus on – such as photography or other creative hobbies – but especially getting out and about in the open air. Well done for Amateur Photographer for highlighting the mental health benefits of photography. I’m heading out to Morton Lochs……

camera cameras photography