Fedex was running late on their delivery time and I was sitting home on a very nice sunny afternoon waiting for the package to arrive. When it did I immediately took it inside and opened the box in anticipation of what was inside. Pushing the box lid flaps back out of the way reveled a very nice twenty five inch long silver trunk case with EX Sigma on the front between the locking latches. Upon opening the case my first impression was of the finish. The finish is a very nice and durable. It reminds me of a black siltstone. Lifting the lens from the case all I could think of were two things Wow, Big, and built like a tank. The first thing on the to do list was bolt a Wimberly P-50 plate to the lens foot and then mount the lens on a tripod and ball head. Next was to mount a D1X onto the lens and then give the whole thing a good going over out on the back deck.

The lens is 23 inches long without the hood. The hood is one of well made alloy and a deep 7 inches long. The hood has a leather boot for the lens cap that is secured on with Velcro. When reversing the hood the length of the lens with hood is a monster 26 inches long and weighs about 10.5 pounds. The lens has a 46mm filter holder that is rotatable for use with a polarizer. The lens comes with a standard filter which should be in place at all times when not using the polarizer as Sigma claims that a filter in the holder is part of the optical formula. The damped focusing ring is a joy to turn and is smooth as silk.

Turning on the D1X, placing the middle sensor on a tree limb about 40 feet away, and activating autofocus the image jumped into focus with much speed and authority. The view finder was bright, contrasty and sharp. With the new HSM focusing motors in Sigma lenses, you would not even know the lens was focusing it is so quiet without looking through the viewfinder. Focus tracking was a joy to use as I locked on to a squirrel that was scampering all about the yard under the pecan trees. Focus locked onto the squirrel and stayed locked as the squirrel moved about under the pecan trees at a high rate of speed while flicking its tail. Focusing with this lens is not a problem.

The build quality of this lens is excellent and should last a lifetime. Sigma really has done well in this area with the EX lenses and nobody should be disappointed. The real question now is what about the images mad with this lens? How do they compare to OEM lenses? I took a Nikon 600mm and the Sigma 800mm and tested them side by side. I focused the Nikon on a framed filled cactus and made an image. I then next frame filled the same cactus on the Sigma and made the image. Both images were made with aperture set to f5.6 and the shutter speed at 1/125. Both images were then resized to 500 pixels on the vertical and the same sharpening values applied. Can you tell which is which? The answer is at the end of the article. The images were created by focusing on the white label attached to the pot. A cropped version of the lable is also included for comparison purposes. The test is far from perfect and the conditions could be more controled. However, I think it gets the point across that there is not a nickles worth of difference between the two lenses. It also make be believe that photographers should not shun the new Sigma long lenses just because the are not made by Nikon.

I really wanted to test out the lens as I would normally use it. However, for the next couple of days I had to photograph some African Servals for a genetics book. I really did not need the 800mm for this assignment as there was not really enough room in the area where I was working. However, I could not resist using it for a couple of photos. Say hello to Harley, an adult male Serval who can jump 8 foot fences in a single bound.

I really wanted to test the lens with birds and the next day I ended up at Hornsby Bend where Eric Isley was a great host and showed me around the place. After the sun got up we first tried to get some images of Lincoln Sparrows. For about an hour we worked our way around the brush looking for a decent image of this secretive bird. We saw many as they flittered in and out of the brush but never got a chance to get a clean image. Next we moved down closer to the river and spotted a number of Harris Sparrows, Cardinals, and Wrens. Personally I did not have any images of Harris Sparrows so I decided to work on getting images of them. Eric and myself eased down to where a great number of them where, set up the tripods, and then Eric started playing a tape of a Screech Owl. This seemed to work very well and the birds started their mobbing behavior. I ended up making several good images of Harris Sparrows. They ended up being a fair distance away and this gave me a chance to try out Sigma's 1.4x teleconverter which made the birds a nice size in the frame without having to crop. The Sigma 800mm lens with the 1.4x teleconverter yields a very long 1120mm lens. I was concerned about the sharpness using a converter and my mind is now at ease after viewing the images produced by this combination.

Being the day before Christmas, neither Eric nor myself had much time to spend in the field as we both had to get back to our loved ones for the holiday and I had a four hour drive ahead of me. However, Eric said he knew where some Eared Grebes were and we should be able to get some good images of them with decent lighting. We walked back to our vehicles and drove around to one of the ponds where Eric knew the Grebes like to hang out. It turned out to be around an inlet pipe that drained water from one pond to another. Sure enough, just as Eric had promised, there were four lovely Eared Grebes just beyond the inlet pipe. When we first showed up they swam a good distance away. We got in position and waited about ten minutes and they all returned and we both took our time firing off some nice images of these lovely little birds. Although I have many large frame filling images of the Eared Grebe from they day I chose to display the one on the right as it shows the birds lobed foot.

Eric then led me down a trail toward the river and we came upon a butterfly. I had no idea what type of butterfly it was but Eric knew right a way and quickly identified it as a Red Admiral. He started making images of it immediately and said I should do the same. This indeed would let me test out the macro capabilities of the Sigma 800mm. The Sigma 800mm has a minimum focus distance (MFD) of 23 feet so I need to get a bit closer and decided to add some extension to the lens. I chose a Kenko 36mm extension tube and also added a Sigma 2x teleconverter to the combination so that I might get some really nice full frame images of the beautiful creature. The extension got the MFD down to about 18 feet and with this combination I made a few images of the butterfly and have place one of the images here on the left.

It was getting on time to go and Eric decided to try a fence line for images of one of the many Sanannah Sparrows that are in the area. We drove along a fence line and the birds would flush up onto a fence post or the barbed wire between the post. We had driven about 150 yards when I found the first Sparrow sitting in nice light on top of a fence post. After we finished the short drive down the little country road, Eric and I had to bid each other a fair well and be own to our friends and relatives for Christmas.

Now on to the lens specifications which I have only mentioned a bit in passing. From the many language instruction pamplet that comes with the lens the specifications are

• Lens Construction 10-13
• Angle of View 3.1 degrees
• Minimum Aperture 32
• Minimum Focusing Distance 7meters (23 ft)
• Magnification 1:8.8
• Filter Size 46mm
• Dimensions Dia. x Length 156.5 x 520mm (6.2 x 20.5 in)
• Weight 4740g (167.2 oz)

The lens comes with a truck case with key, carrying strap for the case and the lens, a normal filter, and a polarizing filter. The filter holder can be rotated for the accommodation of the polarizing filter. The lens hood is a bayonet type which can be detached and reversed. Indeed to store it in the trunk case the hood must be reversed. The lens has a 3-way focus limiter switch. It can be set to Full Mode which will focus from the minimum of 23 ft out to infinity, Normal Range which focuses from 49.2 ft to infinity, and Close Range which focuses from the minimum distance to 49.2 ft.

The lens has a Hyper Sonic Motor (HSM) which provides fast, positive, and noise free focusing. When the camera is set to single servo mode "S", then full time manual focusing is available. When the shutter button is pressed half way the lens focuses, focus lock is achieved and you may turn the focus ring by hand to week the focus if needed. When focusing manually, the focus ring is smooth and damped. The tripod collar allows 360 degrees of rotation and has four indices marked on the lens barrel and collar for proper vertical and horizontal alignment. The tripod collar turns very easy with a smooth silky feel and will lock down positively when the locking knob is turned.

Using the Sigma teleconveters with the lens yields bright, sharp images that you would expect with any other OEM lens. When using the Sigma converters on the lens, autofocus is lost due to the cpu in the converters. If a Kenko pro converter is used of which I tried a 1.4x, autofocus is not lost and is a bit slower and less reliable in dim light. The Kenko auto extension tubes work very well with this lens below is a table of the new MFD achieved with the Kenko extension tubes and their combination.

Using all three tubes together becomes a little gangly and therefore I will only use them in combinations of twos. An 800mm lens with a sub 16 feet minimum focusing distance is an awesome song bird combination in my books. Around my house I never get any closer to the feeders then approximately 20 feet anyway so the 20mm tube is usually sufficient.

Is all the hype about you get what you pay for and OEM lenses are better than third party lens true? It might be for some third party lenses but not so with the new long Sigma EX series. Large lenses are big and heavy and require a sturdy tripod but if you are in the market for one, I would certainly recommend Sigma 500mm f4.5 and the 800mm f5.6 lenses. These lenses certainly deserve a spot right along side the OEM versions as they are every bit as good. The brand OEM lenses don't even have an equivalent 800mm autofocus lens. Sigma you did good!

If anyone should have any questions about this lens, just send me an email and I will do my best to answer them.

And the answer to the comparison question between the Nikon and Sigma above is ... the Sigma is on the bottom.