A whinge and a warning

[eccles]

Last year I bought a second hand Sigma 400mm F5.6 Telemacro for my Sony DSLR. It has been a superb lens for birding, and also not bad for butterflies, giving good well framed pictures of the larger butterflies from five feet away. Three or four days ago the autofocus gave up the ghost. My Sigma 105 EX Macro had stripped its AF ring gear in the spring of this year (spares for that were available and I fitted a new one myself), so I suspected the same had happened here, and gave Sigma UK a call. They informed me that there were no general spares kept for this lens although they might have a spare ring gear around. I was to call back the following day to find out.

In the meantime I heard something rattling around inside the lens and partially dismantled it to remove whatever it was. It turned out to be a support pin for a small pinion. The pinion and a spring were still attached and I could see a point in the base plate where it had snapped off. There is a collar around the lens that can be turned to switch from manual to autofocus, and this moves a small lever mechanism, lifting the pinion up the support pin to engage AF. When autofocussing, the lens sometimes cycles through the focussing range, particularly in poor light as it hunts for focus. If it hits the end stop there is a certain amount of torque on the gears putting bending stress on the pin. Looking at the snapped end it is obvious from the clean break that the pin is hardened steel, good for tensile strength but poor for bending and even worse for fatigue. This is basically crass design to have bending stress on a brittle steel component, and then compound it by having the gear engaged at the wrong, unsupported, end of the pin when under load.

Oh, and having called back, they didn't have the replacement part, but they did offer me a part exchange 100-300 F4 for about £450. Very generous but I don't want one, and after two Sigmas failing on me in one year, albeit second user ones, I was not exactly enthusiastic about having a third.

I know many UKB members have Sigma macro lenses, and they are optically very good. Buying new will probably be alright as you'll have around seven years of spares availability should your lens go wrong, but I would warn people to think very carefully about buying older second hand Sigmas where spares might be a problem.

Will I ever buy a Sigma lens again? Probably not, new or otherwise. Good luck with yours if you have one.

[Pete Eeles]

Thanks for sharing, Mike - even though your lessons have been learned the hard way.

As a Sigma lens user, I certainly appreciate your comments. My 105mm macro seems to get crankier every day - and makes strange noises at times, especially when auto-focusing. But I've had it for 5 years so I guess it's had its day.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Gruditch]

Hard luck Eccles, buying second hand is always a lottery I suppose.

Lisa is still waiting for Sigma to return her 150 Macro, may get it back in time for the start of the next season.

On the positive side Eccles, if your not going to use Sigma again, it means you can have a good log look at the longer Sony lenses, both of them

Gruditch

[eccles]

Yes, I admit that Sony could do a lot better with its long lens line-up, but at least there are decent gimmick-free cameras to hang them onto . I am considering getting the new 70-400mm 'G' when it comes out next month. If it's as good as the 70-300mm it'll be a cracking bit of glass, but at around a grand it ain't gonna be cheap.

[Markulous]

I had the gearing stripped off my Sigma 55-200mm kit lens (was the exposure ring, so stuck on min exposure) which I'd had from new but although I saw the gear ring on eBay, I decided against repairing and got the 70-300mm (a much better lens which has been great). No probs with either macro (105 and 150mm) but I don't use AF, nor on 10-20mm (which I tend to AF). But then my Canon 300mm f/4 IS clanks like a tank, so I guess that's probably on it's way! And the shutter release on the 350D 'freezes up' on occasions

[eccles]

Possibly a mistake, but I have decided to accept Sigma's offer of a part exchange 100-300 F4 EX lens. Reviews on the Dyxum A mount website plus the ones here http://www.photozone.de/ tested on Canon and Nikon mounts have convinced me that it should be ok. I got fed up waiting for the 80-400 Sony, and as the UK pound exchange rate has been going down the pan it's not going to be cheap.
The part exchange deal puts a value on the returned lens at about £200. I have a Kenko Pro300 1.4x teleconverter which will give me 140-420mm F5.6 and Sigma will give a three year warranty on the lens. The old lens is on its way to Sigma today. Fingers crossed.

[eccles]

I've had a cold all week so only got out with the new Sigma 100-300mm once. First impresssions are that it's a nice birding lens. I've also done some test shots with and without my Kenko Pro300 1.4x teleconverter which turns it into a 140-420mm F5.6. It is sharp at all focal lengths up to 300mm even wide open. There's a small amount of red green CA at the edges at 300mm which is easily tuned out with ACR. Having tweaked the image thus, it's very close to that of a prime. Perhaps a Sony 'G' lens (or Canon 'L' etc.) wouldn't have the small amount of CA that this lens demonstrates, but that apart, I think it's probably just about as good. I just have to hope that it's as reliable as the OEM product. Adding the Kenko TC softens it a little at 300mm but centre sharpness is still very good, even wide open. The TC adds a little blue/yellow CA which again can be tuned out with ACR.

[Rogerdodge]

I would like to give a bit of credit to Sigma.
I have owned (and abused) a Sigma 180mm Macro for about 7 years now. It has never let me down, and is undoubtedly my most used lens.
This year it developed a looseness between the front and rear halves of the lens barrel. Nothing dreadful, and certainly having no impact on my pictures.
Anyway, with the season over, I decided to send it back to Sigam UK for a service.
For the princely sum of £33 (including p&p back to me) they have tightened up the barrel join, cleaned the inside elements (an old speck of dust has gone) and even cleaned off some tern sh*t from the focussing ring rubber that was a reminder of a fantastic day on the Farne Islands.
I had it back in 3 weeks, quieter, quicker, more solid and cleaner than before.
Great service.
Roger

[eccles]

Thanks for that, Roger. I paid more for this lens than the rest of my glass put together so a good outcome like that is very encouraging!
I have rethought my whole outlook on buying second hand lenses though. If a third party lens is no longer produced then it may well be false economy to buy one. This could also be the case with some high end Minolta glass that currently fetches very high prices. Independent lens repairers are disappearing rapidly. My favourite lens is a 70-210 F4 'beercan' that is no longer produced. It is a bit battered but still makes great pictures. I think I ought to buy a spare....

[Roger Gibbons]

I have had the same experience with Sigma as Rogerdodge. I had a 105mm macro that needed to be reprogrammed when I got a Canon 20D and they did it for £5 even though I didn’t have the purchase receipt (when it should have been £30). In August my Sigma 150mm macro locked up when I was back in the UK and I took it round to Sigma in Welwyn Garden City (it helps that I live in the same town) and they did it in a couple of days, fixing the problem and giving it a complete service, replacing worn parts, for the same fixed price of £33. I thought they were exceptionally helpful and thorough.

[Markulous]

Another comment for how good Sigma are: I've a Sigma SD10 on which I managed to jam the shutter release - was on the beach and managed to get some sand into the release. Whilst it was still under warranty, I admitted to how I'd managed to damage it - they replaced the whole mechanism and had it back to me within 10 days and at absolutely no charge. Still using it and I'm over 60,000 shots and still going strong (use it mainly for IR shots now as removing the dustscreen makes it IR sensitive)

[eccles]

Hmm, IR shots on the beach?
I've been giving the 100-300 a decent workout this week. Optically it is very sharp wide open and tack sharp one stop down throughout the zoom range. With a Kenko Pro300 1.4x converter attached it gives 140-420 F5.6 where it's still very useable wide open but better stopped down one stop.

[eccles]

This little egret was taken with the 100-300 with 1.4x Kenko Pro300 TC attached. I used a monopod for support. It'll do.
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