Sigma 50-500mm f/4-6.3 EX HSM

The “Bigma” is probably the widest range telephoto zoom available in a high quality lens. A favorite among nature shooters and “everything” shooters for its great range and good image quality. Nothing else does quite what this lens does. NOTE: This lens is not compatible with Canon teleconverters, it requires Sigma or Tamron converters.

There are trade-offs, of course. This is a large lens that for most photographers needs a tripod for really sharp images unless the light is excellent. For those who want to shoot hand-held, the Canon 100-400 may be a better choice.

For Sale: We have one copy of the Sigma 50-500 lens rotating out of stock and its a good opportunity. It has perfect glass and mechanicals, almost no internal dust (which is rather rare for this lens), with hood, tripod ring, and in original Sigma soft zipper case. That’s the working parts. On the outside it looks like its had a hard life: there are several areas where the paint has peeled, exposing the metal of the barel and a couple of 1 inch scratches on the barrel. So for those of you who are worried about what the picture looks like rather than what the lens looks like, here’s a great deal at $769 with 3 day inspection period during which it may be returned for refund of purchase price and 90 day warranty against failure during normal use.

Roger’s take: To paraphrase James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been the Bigma. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. Sigma has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But the Bigma has marked the time. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will use it, Ray. People will most definitely use it.”

There’s a couple of reasons we don’t stock the ‘newer’ Sigma telephoto zooms that have Vibration reduction: quality control isn’t good, they’re even heavier than the Bigma, and they aren’t EX lenses, meaning they just aren’t quite as sharp as the Bigma is. Other lenses have come and gone, but the Bigma has been a consistently popular lens for a very long time. There’s no other lens that does what it does.

The Bigma gives a range not matched by ANY other telephoto zoom, its reasonably sharp throughout its range, has a very reasonable price. And its been around for years so the quality control seems superior to the other Sigma telephoto zooms. Yes, I wish it had IS (but not if that means a $500 higher price and increased failure rate), and I wish it weighed a bit less (but not if that meant giving up some of the range). At the end of the day, it just does the job you want it to do. And it has some very nice touches: the ‘handle tripod mount’ is something I wish other manufacturers would copy.

High Risk Lens: The Sigma 50-500 lens has a higher failure rate than most lenses in our lineup.

• How high? The 50-500 has a problem rate of 1% of rentals, despite being checked out thoroughly before it leaves us.
• Why? We can’t be sure. Sigma lenses, as a rule, have more problems than other brands. The larger Sigma zooms seem to have more issues than other Sigma lenses, possibly because of the weight of the glass elements and shock damage in shipping.
• What’s the point? We’re letting you know on the front end make sure you order this lens in time to check it out before you leave for vacation or schedule your big shoot. We can send a replacement if it has a problem, but we can’t send a replacement Friday night to get to you you Saturday morning.
• Type of problem: Front and backfocus, loss of calibration, zoom lockup.
  Note: The Sigma 50-500 is a sharp lens. Almost every complaint of ‘soft copy’ we hear are actually from people trying to shoot this very heavy, very long lens in poor light handheld. Unless you’re really strong and skilled, you’re going to get motion blur handholding this lens at 500mm in anything other than bright sunlight.