One of the many benefits of having Johnathan living with me is that I have a photo assistant hanging around the house that is more useful than Naima.
So thanks to him for helping out by taking a couple of these pictures and posing for the other two.
I’m actually writing this blog to talk about a new toy I recently picked up. I bought a Sigma 120-400mm lens.
I’m pretty pleased with this purchase so far. Hopefully she will earn her keep.
Truth is that this lens wasn’t much “longer” than my current “longest” lens, but it is buy far the highest quality telephoto I’ve ever owned. At least if weight is sign of quality, it is the best.
To show its reach I’m going to show you two pictures that will actually exaggerate its length.
For the purposes of this example, we will pretend that there isn’t a magnification factor on lens created by cameras with APS-C sensors. In that honor, a true example of showing the “length” of this lens would be to compare it to a 50mm lens. A 50mm lens has the same “length” as the human eye.
Instead, I’m going to show a comparison with one of (but not THE) widest (shortest) lenses I own. A Sigma 10-20mm lens set at 10mm.
Johnathan at 10mm
Johnathan at 400mm
I guess I should point out I technically have a “longer” lens than this, but it is a mirror 500mm lens. It really is nothing to write home about.
I’ll finally add that I should wish my sister Teresa a “happy birthday”, but then I’d have to wish all my subscribers a “happy birthday” and that just isn’t going to happen.
Wow, what’s the low end of the f-stop on that new lens? That’s incredibly clear and has an awesome bokeh at 400 mm. No graininess!
If you actually look at it larger, there is a ton of digital noise. This is shot at ISO 3200. Exposure Compensation is jacked fairly high. This was taken far from the best lighting situation for that lens.
Its largest aperture is 4.0-5.6.
But it is a pretty good lens. To get an aperture lower than that, you get in to the thousands of dollars. I don’t need that. Yet.
I could only blow it up so big within my browser, but I didn’t notice the noise at its current size! It looks really good for being at such a long distance and low ISO. I’d be curious what this lens would do at night.