Daily Archives: Tuesday, 13th March 2007
Sigma AF 70-300mm f4-5.6 DG APO Macro Lens
Now I’ve started playing with my telephoto lens, I thought it might be time to talk about it. The name is a bit of a mouthful, and it’s quite big, especially when it extends to its maximum 300mm zoom, but it’s a rather nice lens for the price. Quite apart from being as long a zoom as I’d want to use without a tripod, it also works as a moderately good macro lens for really close work – and I’ll be putting some examples of that on show soon. Its autofocus is quick enough, though compared with my Canon 17-85mm main lens, it’s quite loud.
Build quality is somewhere between the lovely engineering of the 17-85mm and the very plastic 50mm f/1.8. The mount is metal, which is always a Good Thing. The focus mode switch works well enough, but the macro mode one can be a bit fiddly – for a moment today it seemed determined to stay in Macro mode which would have been a little inconvenient, but it settled down shortly afterwards. The zoom ring works smoothly. The manual focus works quite well too, but I haven’t really needed to use it much, as autofocus works just fine on the 30D.
With a maximum aperture of f/4 at the short end and f/5.6 at the long end, quite short exposures are possible in good light, which is just as well, as camera shake would definitely be a problem with this lens, especially at the long end.
And this being a Sigma lens rather than a Canon original, you get a lens hood and a padded case included in the price[1], which makes it even better value.
Nice kit – not as seriously nice or as versatile as my main “walk around” lens, and perhaps not as interesting as that nice wide aperture 50mm lens, but a very useful part of my kit. If you’ve got a Canon DSLR and you’re looking for something to complement the lens you got with it, then this is certainly worth considering. Zoom zoom!
[1] Well, that was the case when I bought it last July, and I’m assuming that’s still the case.
Related posts
Enjoying the view?
Yes, I know I haven’t sorted out the pictures from last weeks walk, but the mood took me today, so I had another lunchtime stroll with the camera. For some reason or other, I’ve hardly used my Sigma 70-300mm telephoto lens, and today I decided to give it a proper test. And some of the results are quite pleasing.
Grey’s Monument is of course, a prominent landmark in the centre of Newcastle, and like most people who wave cameras around in the area, I’ve taken a few pictures of it before, but never one like this. This was taken at the fully extended 300mm end of the lens, and shows quite a lot of detail of Earl Grey’s statue, which stands over 130 feet above street level.
I’ve got some more pictures to come, featuring some nifty architectural details, some interesting reflections, and maybe even some flowers.
Related posts
Check your wallets!
BBC NEWS | Business | New Adam Smith £20 note launched
Oooh! A new £20 design has just been launched, complete with even more security features to attempt to foil forgers, which will work for a while. I read somewhere that the £20 note is now the most widely used one, and consequently the most widely forged, so a new version was required. The old notes will be phased out gradually in the usual way before being officially withdrawn.
Can’t say I’m all that inspired by the choice of design, though. In place of composer Edward Elgar, composer of the Enigma Variations and the Pomp and Circumstance marches, we get the economist Adam Smith.
Still, at least the design’s pretty 
I’m surprised they make any money at all
BBC NEWS | Business | HMV seeks to revitalise business
HMV has been a presence on Britain’s High Streets for many years. Quite possibly the first name that comes to mind for many people when asked for a “record shop”, which is itself an old-fashioned name. And it seems that they’re having trouble making money in their often quite large shops. Now one problem will be the same one faced by many retailers: that internet thingy. Lots of people prefer to download music, lots of people buy their CDs, DVDs and games online rather than wandering into a shop. All of which is a bit of a problem if you’re trying to sell those items in shops that cost a lot of money to operate, and HMV are suffering along with everyone else on that.
But HMV have a different problem. In many towns they’ll be in the same vicinity as other shops selling the same range of goods – typically Virgin. Now a company with even the smallest hint of a clue might check prices in rival retailers and make sure that they were at least matching them, and beating them wherever possible. HMV, it seems, think differently. They appear to have a policy of charging more than their rivals wherever possible, presumably in the hope that people won’t notice.
Take newly released CDs, for instance. Without really trying, you should be able to get most new CDs online for a whisker under £9. Shops like Virgin will sell most of them for around £10, sometimes less. Now £10 is what I think of as a psychological barrier thingy. Something that’s “under a tenner” is more likely to be bought on impulse than something over £10. Or if it’s only £1 above internet prices, you might well decide to buy it there and then rather than wait for delivery.
New releases in the Newcastle branch of HMV are often seen at around £12. The new Arcade Fire album was £9.99 in Virgin and £12.99 a short distance along Northumberland Street in HMV. Could that be why they’re not doing so well?
Apparently they’re planning a radical review of the business. As radical as not charging 30% more than their rivals for the same item? We shall see…
Mornings will never be the same again
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Jupitus leaves 6 Music early show
Bother. I’ve been a regular listener to Phill Jupitus’s breakfast show for years. It was the reason I bought a digital clock radio some years back. Phill manages to make me laugh in the mornings, he plays a nicely eclectic mix of music, and he’s singularly lacking in the hyperactive inanity that typifies the breakfast show DJ on most radio stations. I could hardly believe my ears this morning when I head him talking about “the last couple of weeks of the show”, but it seems my ears were not deceiving me. 6Music is being rearranged. Again. I coped with the removal of the Sunday morning repeat of the 6Music Chart Show[1]. I coped with Tom Robinson being cut from four evenings to two. But taking away my breakfast show?!? The fiends!!!!
I haven’t heard his replacement so far, so I’ll keep an open mind, but he’ll have to be really good to make up for Phill’s departure.
I just hope Phill keeps doing Never Mind the Buzzcocks…
[1] A thing of great beauty: it featured albums that had not yet reached the official album chart, and led me to a number of discoveries.
