Sigma 500mm f/4.5 EX HSM Review

I'll admit, spending twice as much as my camera for a lens was an intimidating feeling. Talk about credit card anxiety! But “big glass” doesn’t come cheaply, and I really wanted to get closer to wildlife, especially small birds. I carefully did my homework to decide on a lens that would get the job done, would be of professional caliber, and wouldn’t completely bankrupt me. When the dust settled, I got the Sigma 500mm f/4.5 EX HSM.

Why the Sigma? Well, for my needs, it seemed to fit the bill. Now that I’ve had many opportunities to put this lens to the test, I feel I can give an honest review.

THE BASICS

The Sigma 500mm prime lens is big. If you’re used to handling a 300mm f/4 or compact zoom, get ready for a shock; it will dwarf smaller film bodies or the N70. Such is the norm with big glass.

Physically, this lens measures 350mm long by 123mm wide (13.8x4.8 in), and weighs in at over three kilograms (that’s over six pounds). You won’t want to use this lens without a good support, but I’ll discuss that later. Despite the size of this lens, I can still fit it into the main compartment of my LowePro Nature Trekker AW II with a pro body attached. In general, the build quality of this lens is excellent, and the textured finish adds a professional look to the lens overall.

The lens has a three-position focus limiter switch which allows you to choose between the full range (4mm-infinity), 8m-infinity, and 4-8m. This is useful for those situations where you know your subject will be a certain distance away and you can speed up the focusing performance by limiting its range.

The manual focus ring is large and very smooth. Because this is an HSM (hypersonic motor) design lens, full-time MF override is possible without changing any settings on the body or lens. Do note that HSM lenses share the same body compatibility for AF functionality as Nikon's AF-S lenses.

The lens has a large tripod foot that has finger-grips machined into it, which makes carrying the lens a little more comfortable. The included hood has a bayonet mount with a knurled locking knob. There are no markings on the hood to help with aligning it for mounting, which can be a minor annoyance. The hood itself is quite short for a lens of this focal length. While this helps keep the packed lens compact, there may be situations where lens flare could be a problem.

SPECIFICATIONS

The Sigma 500mm f/4.5 HSM has 12 elements in 9 groups. The lens incorporates apochromatic elements and two ELD (“Extraordinary Low Dispersion”) elements to reduce chromatic aberration. The lens has a nine-bladed aperture, and a minimum focus distance of 400cm (about 13.1 feet). Sigma's 1.4x and 2x teleconverters are usable with this lens, but AF functions are disabled. I found that AF functionality was spotty with my Tamron SP 1.4x converter. However, by modifying a TC-14E (or TC14-EII) by removing the metal tab in the bayonet mount (not for the faint of heart), you can get fairly reasonable AF performance with an effective aperture of f/6.3.

I use this lens on a tripod 99% of the time. You’ll definitely want to consider one of the bigger tripods (I use a Gitzo G1325) and a pro ball head, as vibrations are magnified tremendously when using big glass. Personally, I use an Arca-Swiss type quick-release plate from Wimberley and their “Sidekick” gimbal arm mounted on a Kirk BH-1 head. When I am not with a tripod, I'm usually using this lens from a beanbag. Hand-holding is possible for very short periods, or longer if you have a hydraulic left arm.

The Sigma 500mm f/4.5 lens produces images as sharp as any I’ve seen. The images have good color and contrast. Image quality is decent wide-open, but best around f/8, as you might expect.

One thing to keep in mind is that with any new lens, there is a learning curve. The miniscule depth of field, even at small apertures means that you have a lot less margin for focus error compared to shorter lenses. You may think that the lens is not sharp at first, until you realize that you weren’t actually focused on what you thought you were! Light fall-off in the corners is minor, and virtually nonexistent on a digital body.

AF performance without a TC is good in most conditions with a CAM 1300 or CAM 2000 body. AF performance with a TC is ok when there is ample light. I often use MF override with my TC. One thing to consider is that there is no AF-lock button on the lens. That means if you have AF tied to your shutter-release button and are in AF-C mode, expect the lens to try to “fix” your adjustment.

Sigma 500mm f/4.5 EX HSM compared with the Nikkor 500mm f4D ED-IF AF-S II

The only alternative to this lens (500mm focal length) is the Nikkor 500mm f/4.0 AF-S II, or a mirror lens. Mirror lenses have inherent image qualities that many people find unpleasant, like low contrast, and are slow (f/8 or more).

The Nikkor 500mm lens is first-class; you can’t go wrong with it, in my opinion. Nevertheless, here’s my feature comparison chart that will outline some of the major differences between these two “big boys”.

The Sigma 500mm f/4.5 HSM EX lens is a nature photographer's dream. It handles well, is fairly compact for a lens of this focal length, and focuses a bit closer than it’s Nikkor counterpart.

Image quality is as good as any lens I've used, even with a teleconverter. With my D2x, I effectively have a 700mm prime, or a 1000 prime in HSC mode. Aside from being 1/3 stop slower than its Nikkor counterpart, this lens offers great performance at a price that isn't over the top. Nikonians looking to get “supersized” without taking out a second mortgage on their home should consider this lens.

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