williejoha

Both pictures are out of focus. You failed to mention what body your glass is mounted on.
You mentioned that the lens has no tripod mount and therefore you had to mount the camera to the tripod ( good way to get camera shake ). Having shot BIF with a Canon 100-400 II mounted on 7DII all I can say, you better have a heavy duty tripod, a lens with a mounting bracket and a darn good gimble mount to get sharp pictures. I suspect your problem is operator error rather then hardware. The shutter speed I use most offen is 1600 - 2000th and all in manual mode.
Waiting to see what conclusion you have come to.
Keep the finger on the trigger.
WJH

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Sigma Sport 150-600 does, as does the Tamron G2. At least that's what my friend who shoots with a 100-400 II says when she uses my Sigma Sport.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

I suggest you just quit shooting birds and stay with the lunches.
Sounds like your way better at lunch anyway!!!
SS

rmorrison1116 Loc: Near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

Yes, they do, and for the most part those lenses have red bands painted on them. When Pentax makes a 35mm body as good as my 5DSR and 5DIV that takes those Canon lenses with the red band, I will buy one.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

The original poster mentions clearly that he bought the Sigma lens to replace a Canon 75-300. I assume he means the "III" that's Canon's cheapest tele-zoom, lacks IS, has noisy & slow micro motor focus drive, and leaves a lot to be desired optically.

The first shot IS in focus.... dead on. It's just a backlit subject against a bright sky.

The second shot is OOF.

Since one shot is in focus and the other is not, I suspect it's technique at fault... not any problem with the lens. EDIT: Looked again at the second image and it appears soft overall... I suspect camera shake, too... as well as missed focus (more on the feeder than on the bird).

Further, I see from the EXIF that you're using the lens on a 7D... after using a pair of those for five years and upwards of a quarter million shots... I know the AF system of the camera is very fast and capable. And, it has Micro Focus Adjustment, if needed. But I believe the Sigma lens can be fine tuned for focus accuracy and other functions, too. It requires some sort of "pod" to be able to hook the lens up to a computer.

The Sigma 100-400mm has HSM and OS... which are similar to Canon's fastest and most accurate USM focus drive and their very helpful Image Stabilization. I can't tell from the EXIF if you had the OS enabled for these shots, but I suspect you did because there's no sign of camera shake and I see that both the shots were done at 1/200 shutter speed, f/8 and ISO 400, with a focal length of 330mm (full frame equiv. 528mm). A middle aperture should be good. A faster shutter speed would be better... so long as you don't need to push ISO too high. ISO 400 that you used actually is not very high on a 7D. In fact, ISO 400 was about the lowest I ever used with mine (shooting sports) and I used my 7Ds up to about ISO 1600 without too much concern, and sometimes even higher with extra noise reduction in post-processing.

Yes, the Canon 100-400mm II might be a wee bit sharper (after all, it has fluorite, which the Sigma doesn't).... But it's also larger, about a 1/2 lb. heavier and costs more than twice as much. And, it takes some practice to learn to get the best out of it, too. All long telephotos take some effort so I'd recommend working with the Sigma for a while, to see if you can learn to use it well. It's obviously designed to be a hand held lens, since it lacks a tripod mounting ring and would be very unbalanced on a tripod (especially a cheap, lightweight, wobbly one).

For the shots you gave as examples, I'd have set my 7D up with Single Point and selected the center point. I'd also normally use AI Servo focus mode and back button focus. But both of these shots also could have been done with One Shot focus mode, since the subjects were stationary... at least for a few moments. Besides subject movement, another reason to use AI Servo mode is if the lens is a varifocal zoom. Those don't maintain focus when zoomed. AI Servo mode will immediately and automatically correct focus. One Shot won't unless you consciously fully release the button and reapply pressure to cause a varifocal zoom to refocus.

Chefneil

Indeed the Canon is the lens for me, it is faster and has general better IQ all around, but that price tag...

Chefneil

Chefneil

Indeed you are correct about the Shutter speed being too slow, I see this now. However, the OS (image stabilization) is supposed to work up to 3 stops. Well maybe we found out that Sigma was a little optimistic in their description.

Chefneil

Indeed, technique may be part of the problem here.

Chefneil

Gene51, thanks for your suggestions. But the truth is, those two images were shot hand held. I think maybe a higher ISO and faster shuuter speed would have helped.

Chefneil

I have been using back button focus. I think that the main issue was too slow a shutter speed and improper focusing.

Chefneil

I got a little technical and took some shots in my basement to see what could happen if I removed all variables. I'll post the results later on today.

olc

BTW thanks all, for constructive comments. And I sure did enjoy the Greek food. Lanb shanks...yummy! No ouzo on the day though!

Chefneil

Like most new, expensive toys, this one needed for me to learn a little more than I knew before. I did some shots in the basement "Studio" with a focus sheet and even a fuzzy llama, on a steady tripod. I used my heavier one to get rid of as much lens shake as I could. But I did not jack up the ISO. Most of the time, when I am down there, I shoot at 100 ISO.

And I was not so happy with the results. So, then I reread the replies you guys sent and one important thing kept coming up: I was shooting at too low a shutter speed. But I was in the "studio" with my good tripod, surley that would reduce shutter shake! Not so much. Although the llama is OK, I still did not think I was getting the best out of the lens.

Finally a light bulb went off. Use higher ISO! Yeah, I know that is just plain obvious to get faster shutter actuations.

So, here are some images which I took the other day, and today, at 1600 ISO. They are much better. Now, all I need to do is learn how to find birds which are interesting enough to use this lens with---oh and how to compose a pleasing memory!

Like I said in the OP, you can kibitz on the composition. But what I want to have is honest opinions of IQ and so forth.

Thanks again! olc

The "Studio"

(Download)

The Llama, still a little soft

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Great Blue Heron greatly underexposed, but the fore and back-grounds are nice.

(Download)

Same Bird, but edited and cropped a little.

(Download)

A woodpecker, all I did here was develop the RAW image

(Download)

I pulled some color in the RAW image and used Dfine noise reduction.

(Download)

I shot this one because I wanted to see how the texture of the bark would hold out.

(Download)

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Chefneil - in the face of vicious feedback, I'm impressed by your continued efforts ...

But seriously, you must be wondering if something is wrong? Did you do a relative comparison with your results with the images posted to the B&H reviews from other owners? You're clearly not getting as good. Is it you or this copy of the lens?

Chefneil

[quote=Chefneil]I have been doing a little bird photog lately. The Audubon Society has a chapter in my area and they go for some walks on the weekends. So I have been joining them, see my posts on my blog https://thewonderinglenzofolc.blogspot.com.

Thanks CHG_CANON for that link. I took a couple more pictures with that lens and am posting one of the downloads from B&H. Now we can see what the differnce is. As always let me know what you think about the IQ and so forth...

This is a sample for B&Hphoto.com

(Download)

A feather floating in the water

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The money shot

(Download)