Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 OS Sport: First Look | 4K

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you a first look at a lens I know a lot of you
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have been really excited about and excited to hear more about and that is Sigma's new 70-200mm f2.8
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and this is in their Sport Series. And so one thing to note about Sport Series lenses is that
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they do have a higher build grade, higher build of weather resistance, and they also typically
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employ some of Sigma's better focus, which of course is incredibly important in a lens like
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a 70-200mm f2.8. Now, I would say outside of a 24-70mm f2.8, the 70-200mm represents one of the
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most important lenses that any manufacturer makes and that is for the simple reason that I think that
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in some ways to me a 70 to 200 as a zoom is even more important than a 24 to 70 for the simple
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reason that while I don't mind replacing a 24 to 70 millimeter with a prime lens often a 35
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millimeter really kind of covers a lot of the same things for me and gives me a little more
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flexibility with maximum aperture and so that's the way that I personally tend to go. However
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a 70 to 200 millimeter stabilized, you know, with OS optical stabilization is a really
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really hard lens to replace with a prime. Mostly because when you get to telephoto focal lengths
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the not having the flexibility of a zoom can be really, really restrictive. And so you end up
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getting a framing that just doesn't quite work. I shot, I remember shooting an early wedding with
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135 millimeter f2 prime the canon 135 f2l and just there being moments in that wedding where
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I just I couldn't get the framing that I wanted you know just the reality of being stuck with that
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one focal length and it was the last wedding that I shot with a prime telephoto lens and I
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you know began shooting with the 70 to 200 so I say that to say I think this is an incredibly
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important lens for Sigma and and in some ways surprisingly it's not got as much hype as what
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I might have expected. But today we're going to dive in. We're going to take a closer look at
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where this lens fits in the lineup. Take a look at the build, the handling. I'm going to give you a
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look at, you know, the fact that it does work with the MC11. Take a look at how it works even with a
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Canon extender and talk about the tripod collar. And of course, its top competitor really, which
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is the Tamron 70 to 200 millimeter F2.8 G2 lens, a lens that has been really, really well received
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does have a few flaws and we'll see how the Sigma compares with that. But also as I move ahead with
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the review series, I will be referencing this lens in particular because when it comes to price
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this is the closest competing lens. Now, the Tamron does have a price advantage. It's priced at $1,299
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in the US market right now. That's a really, really competitive price for such a capable lens. And so
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you know, they do beat Sigma on that front. However, the Sigma is coming to market with an
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MSRP in the US of $1,499, which of course really places it competitively compared to both Canon
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Canon's F2.8 L Mark III runs you about $2,100. And then of course, if you're looking at the
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really comparative Nikon lens, the Nikkor 7200 F2.8 E lens, VR lens runs you almost $2,800
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$100 and so we're talking about a near 50% Price reduction go into the Sigma lens and so of course that I think for Nikon shooters is going to make them even more
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Interested in this lens perhaps even in Canon shooters. So let's dive in and let's take a hands-on look at the lens itself
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Let's start up front actually today and we'll take a look at this lens hood here. So lens hood is
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is made of higher grade plastics. I don't know if they did their carbon fiber reinforced
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plastic, but it does kind of feel like the lens that I recently saw from the 60 to 600 millimeter
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sport lens. They do have this nice rubberized transition area and also a nice grippy place to remove the hood
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And so it's a nicely made hood with one new feature that you can see here, and that is that they have added
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a lock. And so if you're carrying this in a harness or something and you've had issues with lens hoods moving around
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it now has a nice lock that actually is quite a bit nicer than what like Canon's locks are in that kind of position
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So I would say some pluses when it comes to that. Now looking up front, we're gonna see here
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that there is a deviation from the norm. Every 70 to 200 millimeter lens
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that I've previously used, seven or eight of them, have all had a 77 millimeter front filter thread
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So Sigma has bumped things up a little bit bigger here They gone to an 82 millimeter front filter thread i interesting interested in seeing if that pays off in some reduced vignette particularly at 200 millimeters the tamron 70 to 200 millimeter f2 g2 certainly suffers from some vignette at 200
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millimeters so i'm interested in seeing if that's an area of improvement with the sigma
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Now, the actual zoom ring here is furthest away from the actual, you know, the camera itself
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So just so you know that position, this zooms here in the Canon direction as opposed to the Tamron, which zooms in the Nikon direction
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The internal zoom action, of course, is an internally zooming lens. It is nice and smooth, no issues there
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And I do like when they add this kind of bevel here. It helps you to be able to, in a tactile sense, definitely confirm that you've got the right ring, even if you're not looking at it
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And so PLUS is there, nice and wide, good-feeling materials that are used on that
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And compared to the Tamron, the feel is, I would say, a little better damped
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it just the tamron has a little bit of a an inconsistency to the damping where the sigma
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feels higher grade there and so a plus there they've also added a custom function button
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there's actually in three different positions here on the lens barrel and so of course that
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will be dependent on what shooting position you're in but you can actually program that function
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in the case of a case of a canon body you actually program that through the the camera body here and
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and you have different options as to what you can assign to it now i've currently programmed
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to be able to switch between one shot and servo af that to me is a valuable thing for particularly
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if i'm shooting in a like a wedding or event type setting where i don't always want af you know
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servo because you know maybe that I want to actually lock focus on something and then you
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know refocus or recompose I should say but if I'm you know if it's shooting action I want servo so
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being able to quickly switch on the fly between that is a plus and so anyway useful there we have
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a manual focus ring the next thing in line and and so you can see that the manual focus ring it
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moves nicely the the feel of the ring itself is very quality so a plus when it comes to that
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Looking at the side of the lens here, we'll note a couple of things
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First of all, we have got four different switches here. So switches include your autofocus settings
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So you have manual focus, you have a manual override setting to where you can use manual override if you want
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or just an AF setting. And where AF setting is, is that means that there won't be any interference if you inadvertently bump the manual focus ring
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And so it gives you three options there. There's also a focus limiter, and a focus limiter helps to eliminate the close focus positions primarily here
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and so you have an option of full, or you have a three meters to infinity position
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if you're only shooting more distant things and you want to make sure to not do any, you know
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mis-focus in a focus rack coming to close focus. You have a couple of options for your optical stabilizer, and so you have a mode one, general purpose
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You have a two, which is a, you know, panning type mode. And then you also have the option, however, by using the Sigma USB dock and Sigma Optimization Pro, you have an option to program in even a third option, which actually right now on the C2 position, I've programmed the third OS option to come in there
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with the other custom function you can put different things with the c1 button what i've
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done actually is i have programmed to c1 the option of switching between the normal autofocus speed
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and then the accelerated autofocus speed where it prioritizes a quick focus lock you know at the
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sacrifice maybe of some accuracy in some settings i and others have noted that there really isn't a
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whole lot of difference in autofocus accuracy so i kind of feel you might as well go with it because
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you do get a little bit of extra focus speed. It's not massive in either metric
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It isn't massively faster, and it's not considerably less accurate. So I think it's worth the trade-off
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Now, when it comes to the actual tripod collar, some good and bad to report here
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Obviously, you've got a nice robust section. You've got the detents at the 90-degree positions of the compass
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And so that's nice, although you can lock it in, obviously, at any point. But what you don't have is the ability
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to remove the tripod collar. And so you're gonna be carrying that additional weight
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Now, I mean, if you were so inclined, you could remove the actual tripod foot
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I don't know necessarily why you would do that unless it was just in your way all the time Now the tripod foot itself as you can see it nice and robust I like that And it also ARCA Swiss compatible I really like that And so you can go right onto a tripod and lock it down
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I do consider this a liability considering this lens is already larger and heavier than competing lenses
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And so, you know, to be able to remove the tripod collar could help if you don't actually need it
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And so anyway, that's a liability there. Now, if you look at the rear of the lens
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a couple of things I want to point out here. Number one, you can see a nice thick gasket here
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for the dust and moisture resistance. Sigma does have coatings on front and the rear
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to repel both moisture and oils from fingerprints. And so that is a nice thing
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The lens does have a sport line level of sealing and so seals at a number of different points
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as you can see from this diagram, and so a plus when it comes to that
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Now the actual barrel of the lens itself is made of magnesium alloy
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so it's a very tough, very durable material. That's the same material that's in most camera bodies
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and so it's a very strong, very durable material. A bit of a more of a matte type finish on here
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and so I suspect that it will resist fingerprints really well, and it's also a finish
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that will probably wear very well. And so obviously I can't predict the future
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but I would just say looking at it that it's going to hold up well. And so good things when it comes to that
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Now this lens has the ability to focus down to 3.94 feet or 1.2 meters
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which is fairly similar to competing lenses from either Canon or Nikon
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The Tamron can focus a little bit closer, but the Tamron is also guilty of focus breathing
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And so the Sigma actually produces a much better reproduction ratio of one to 4.8
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and or a 0.21 times magnification, which puts it in line with Canon
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the newest Canon and Nikon lenses and is much better than Tamron that has a 0.163
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due to that focus breathing, which even though it can focus down more closely
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And so, definitely a plus there for those of you that are really put off by focus breathing
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The Sigma is going to spare you from that. A few other things here that are unique
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This is the most optically complex of the four lenses that I've been referencing
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It's 24 elements and 22 groups. Unlike the others that tend to have nine rounded aperture blades
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this actually has 11 rounded aperture blades. And so the hope is there, of course, that it will help to produce even smoother
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bokeh with the lens stopped down a little bit. Early signs I've seen have been pretty promising
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about the bokeh quality from the lens, so I'm looking forward to that. It is compatible with
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all of Sigma's new functionalities. Compatible for the lens exchange. It is compatible with
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Sigma's new 1.4x and 2x teleconverters. There's room for that back in there, and they fit fine
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it's also also works actually quite well with the Sigma MC 11 this Canon EF version mounted
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on to a Sony a7r mark 3 and that of course is a big plus for those of you like myself that shoot
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dual systems neither the Tamron nor the Canon play particularly well with Sony not up to scratch
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the Sigma seems to function a lot better because they've got this you know dedicated proprietary
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thing. And so that is a plus there. The other thing I noted is that as continues the trend with
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recent Sigma cameras is that it is, lenses I should say, it is fully compatible with Canon's
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lens aberration correction. And so, you know, JPEGs will receive all of these corrections. The lens
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registers properly in the camera, all of that stuff, which is a huge, huge benefit. And it helps
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to level the playing field for the Sigma versus the Canon lenses
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On top of that, however, unlike Tamron, it also plays well with Canon's own teleconverter
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So maybe you don't own a Sigma and you're wondering if you can use your Canon teleconverters
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You can, and it works really, really well. It registers properly, shows the right aperture
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Autofocus seems to work really well. And so that's definitely not the case with the Tamron
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So, you know, another bit of a Sigma advantage there when it comes to that
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Now, a disadvantage, of course, as noted, is the overall weight here
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And so, you know, unfortunately, because Sigma does not allow you to remove that tripod collar
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it means that no matter how you slice it, you weigh it, it's going to include that
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And so if I put it here on the scale, we can see bare lens, no caps
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it comes out at 1,812 grams or 1.8 essentially kilograms. And so you know that not light And you know by comparison the Tamron G2 which also has a very nice build grade but because you can remove that tripod collar you can see that the weight is significantly different
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It comes out at 1,387 grams. And so that is, of course, a pretty huge advantage if you're just carrying the bare lens
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And so it's basically half a kilo lighter, 500 grams lighter. And so to use the actual specs from the manufacturers on this lens, and so in the case of the Tamron, that would be going back to including the actual tripod collar
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The Tamron is 1.5 kilograms compared to the 1.8 kilograms of the Sigma
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So that's 3.31 pounds for the Tamron or right under four pounds for the Sigma
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Of course, if you remove the tripod collar from the equation, that drops you to around three pounds for the Sigma
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So you're talking really, or excuse me, for the Tamron, which is basically a full pound difference
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The Canon lens is 1,480 grams. And so that means that the Sigma is coming in at about 320 grams heavier
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And then the Nikon is 1,430 grams. And so Sigma is coming in at about 400 grams heavier
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And so we're talking about definitely a considerably heavier lens than all the competition
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Beyond that, it is a little wider around in terms of the barrel dimensions
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which is reflected in that larger filter size. So you've got 300, or excuse me, 3.71 inches versus basically 3.5 inches for the other lenses
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That's 94.2 millimeters versus in the range of 88 millimeters for the others
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and in terms of the overall length, it's also longer. It's basically right at eight inches long
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compared to about 7.6 to 7.8 inches for some of the others
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Actually, the Nikon is pretty close to being the same total length as this
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and so that's the one exception there. That's about 202, it's 202.9 millimeters
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for the Sigma here. And so we've got a physically large lens for sure
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And so just some of the basic build and features of this new Sigma lens
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So as you can see, there are a few liabilities here. It is larger and heavier than competing lenses
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Tripod collar, unlike Tamron's, is not removable. And so that means that if you're, for example, shooting a wedding
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you're going to be shooting handheld all day, you can't get rid of that tripod collar
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which I think that's a misstep on Sigma's part. And I say that as someone who does shoot events and weddings fairly frequently
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And as you'll see, the tripod collar for my Tamron basically only comes out when I do formal tests
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I mostly shoot the lens handheld. And so as a result, I get rid of the tripod collar and so that I, you know, I have some weight savings
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And also because it's not in the way. And so I think that Sigma maybe had a misstep when it comes to that
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At the same time, we also see that in terms of functionality, this lens has a very, very robust build
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everything works beautifully the way that it should it does feel um you know the tamron feels
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a little bit more sleek in hand the sigma has more of a matte type finish but it feels a little bit
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more military grade too and so um build quality feels really really high on the lens feature set
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is good you know it does add the you know custom function button to the uh the lens barrel and so
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you have some options when you're shooting um with that and so i mean that's certainly a welcome thing
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a lot of positive things when it comes to the build. And of course, stay tuned and we will be
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breaking down in a future episode. We'll be looking at the image quality and particularly
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how these compare. While you're waiting for that image quality episode to come, I would recommend
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looking in the description down below. And there is a link there to my image gallery. And you can
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see the photos that I'm taking as I continue on throughout the review process and see the different
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kind of shots that are there and, you know, start to form maybe some of your own conclusions based
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on what you see. There's also buying links in the description if you'd like to go ahead and order
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one for yourself. And of course, it's a very fair value for this lens. And as we're going to see
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its optical performance is pretty awesome. So we'll take a closer look at that. But you can
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go ahead and buy links there. You can also follow me on social media, including now on Instagram
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And there are links to that down below. Sign up for my newsletter, become a patron. And now as a
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patron. You get a sneak preview of an upcoming episode from the next week, a week before the
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public gets to look at it. That way you get to interact with me. You get to ask questions
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see the content, whatever. And so I'd encourage you to become a patron. And of course, you haven't
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already, please click that subscribe button right here on YouTube. Thanks for watching. Have a great day
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Thank you

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Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 OS Sport: First Look | 4K

Dustin Abbott