Did You Read That Review ? (54 page)

By
Brett Turley “brett_turley”
, April 12, 2011

Well, I finally decided to spring for the Sigma 200–500 f/2.8. For under $30,000, I couldn’t pass up the deal. I know, carrying a 37-lb. lens around may seem like a chore, but the savings in gas to drive to photo shoots more than compensates for it. I actually do most of my Florida and Georgia area outdoor wedding and landscape shoots from my rooftop now. The IQ is tack-sharp, even wide open, at 1000 mm (w/2x converter, obviously). The issue I had was when the FBI and Homeland Security showed up at my house. I was shooting a wedding in downtown Orlando, which is only about 30 miles away, from my roof. The house was surrounded and guns drawn on me. You see, I live near enough to a major airport that the neighbors mistook its green color and imposing size as some sort of ground-to-air missile launcher. I would strongly consider coloring it a light color to minimize thermal expansion during the day, and marking the side with “Not a Stinger Missile.” Also, it is a nice walk-around lens for family trips to the zoo. Low-light performance is superb. Most photos can be taken without flash, on a moonless night, following a massive power outage, by simply lighting a fart during the exposure. Experiment with differing brands of beans, as it affects the color temperature of the raw shot.

71 of 99 people found the following review helpful

Cornered the market!

By
J. Ryan
, January 19, 2011

It’s easy to see the logic Sigma followed to adeptly and ingeniously corner this market (estimated number of prospective customers in parentheses): The item is designed to appeal to photographers (1.5 billion), who are professionals (500,000), photographing wildlife or pimples on athletes’ faces (2,000), who can justify a $29,000 expense (100), who don’t mind handling 37 pounds (15), and whose professionalism isn’t threatened by it being bright green (1). Unfortunately, that guy was eaten trying to get a close-up of a lion before this thing was designed. Who knew such a ridiculously large lens could be so good for “panning”?

73 of 105 people found the following review helpful

The “Big Bang” Looks Beautiful From Here

By
online shopper
, November 24, 2010

I purchased this lens with the intent to look back in space-time and see the Big Bang unfold firsthand. I must say it was a little difficult to find the correct line of visibility within the Hubble Deep Field, but after a few precision adjustments, I was finally looking at the origins of our universe. Seriously Awesome!

I don’t want to spoil it for you, but you CAN make out God quite nicely while he’s assembling the fundamental forces of physics. Teaser: He’s NOT a white dude with a beard!

25 of 36 people found the following review helpful

Totally worth it

By
Paul Asher “paul”
, September 23, 2011

First, let me say that I am not a photographer. Just an eccentric who likes to impress his friends with cool technology. And boy, were Ryan and Betsy impressed. Right after reading this review, they texted me and put on Facebook how cool I am for owning this lens. So now that you own a primo lens like this one, what do you do with it? I tried to build an attachment for my Blackberry 9700 cuz it takes decent pix, but I always thought the distance zoom was lacking…didn’t fit…tech support said something about a metric lens and a standard Blackberry. *shrug* After a few more similar incidents and calls with tech support I was almost ready to give up (although I did have a good call with Apple where they said that they thought that there might be an app and a 3rd party attachment for the iPhone 5)…until I hit upon the solution. I could turn it around and use it for an off-label purpose. It’s so cool. I live in South Florida and am able to burn ants in Belize. Boy are the locals surprised when they see fire ants actually catch on fire. Totally a find. 5 Stars.

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful

A bit small

By
ReedLight
, July 10, 2013

Sigma almost had it perfect; I’d say if they had it about a foot wider, and a couple feet longer, this would be a useable UTP Lens. Also, don’t shine a flashlight through it. I didn’t do it, I swear, but I think the moon is on fire. Someone should do something about that. Once again, it wasn’t because I pointed this lens at the moon and shined a flashlight through it and unwittingly created a homemade star-destroyer death ray…I. did. not. do. that.

12 of 24 people found the following review helpful

Superb, amazing lens

By
Gunasekhar Tirupati “Gunasekhar” (Bangalore)
, July 6, 2012

One night when I was sleeping in my farmhouse in South India, an UFO appeared over my fields, fried the paddy and disappeared. When I went to see that location around 12:30 AM I found this olive greeny thing along with a note saying that I should find the highest peak possible and do photoshoots from there. I rented an Army war plane, went to the Everest in Himalayas, occupied a cave and mounted this on a tripod made of rare earth metals. The aliens gave me my first wedding shoot happening in Kerala and while I was tracking a young kid playing with a ball, he threw it up, I followed it, and suddenly a satellite came in view. The lens focused on it and it was burnt!

In the night times I used to search for the bigfoot in the Himalayas and I found his fallen tooth 10 miles beneath the ice. I even thought of using it to find the Higgs Boson, but the CERN found it few days back (had to check if they purchased this lens). I am also using this to fry the animals to eat and melt the ice caps as there are less rains this season.

All in all this lens is a great piece of alien technology. Just buy one…!!!

Customer Questions & Answers

FOR REAL? Has anybody actually purchased this lens? How could you possibly handle this thing?

Ancient aliens gave this lens to the Egyptians to help them build the pyramids
…

D. L. Suttle
answered on January 21, 2012

I can’t afford it, so I guess I’ll need to sneak up on them birds. I guess this would be a heavy monster, so carrying it? No, thanks. My only worry would be if I dropped and it broke
…
Ouch for the wallet.

Kenneth A. Drake
answered on December 2, 2012