Sigma 150-500 or Tamron 200-500mm for Nikon D80?

Oh Crystal, Absolutely!!! I thought it WAS me. I tried everything I could think of to get those photos to be sharp like my 70-300's... I had great doubt about my abilities at that point, and it really caused me some undue depression and stress, as I was working on a museum showing and NEEDED those photos to be not just good but GREAT!!!... Until I let my friend who has been a pro photographer for over 20 years, and is also a teacher, use two of them... and he had the very same result on my Canon 7d... AND on his canon 5d Mark III....I called Canon, thinking there must be SOMETHING I was doing wrong, even sent the CAMERA(brand new) back to be "recalibrated"... but when it came back? Still same issue... :shrug: And also, as I said, I was shooting the eagle photos I posted, on a tripod (because it is just too heavy for me) with the sigma and they came out totally soft at 100% magnification, which I cannot afford... However, my aquaintence, who was shooting with the same lens but if I remember correctly, she had a nikon - we used all the same settings, I remember specifically asking her if I could mimick everything she did... and hers came out great - mine? not so, as you can see in my portfolio... :shrug: However the ones I shot with the canon 70-300mm came out just fine... and they were handheld... (They made the grade and made the show, thank GOD!!!!) I'm not putting the lens nor sigma down, at all...As I said, Sigma was more than willing to work with me on it and try to calibrate the lens, until they heard it was brand new, and then they told me I needed to return it... which was only fair, they were right... I just think for my camera, it does not work... and I can't afford that. I've heard from a few 7D owners that that particular lens does NOT work well with the camera at the higher magnifications... and believe me, I wish it did,. as I had to spend an additional $500.00 to get the 400mm... (Wish I could've afforded even longer, but its not in the cards at the moment!) From what I've heard, I think it works just fine with Nikons cameras, Canon is just flukey...

Hamtastic wrote:

cwightmanphotos wrote: This was shot with my Nikon D80 using the 50-500mm at 500mm hand held.

Nice shoot, what did you have your ISO set at?

Thank you. ISO- 400

dragonflies8888 wrote: Oh Crystal, Absolutely!!! I thought it WAS me. I tried everything I could think of to get those photos to be sharp like my 70-300's... I had great doubt about my abilities at that point, and it really caused me some undue depression and stress, as I was working on a museum showing and NEEDED those photos to be not just good but GREAT!!!... Until I let my friend who has been a pro photographer for over 20 years, and is also a teacher, use two of them... and he had the very same result on my Canon 7d... AND on his canon 5d Mark III....I called Canon, thinking there must be SOMETHING I was doing wrong, even sent the CAMERA(brand new) back to be "recalibrated"... but when it came back? Still same issue... :shrug: And also, as I said, I was shooting the eagle photos I posted, on a tripod (because it is just too heavy for me) with the sigma and they came out totally soft at 100% magnification, which I cannot afford... However, my aquaintence, who was shooting with the same lens but if I remember correctly, she had a nikon - we used all the same settings, I remember specifically asking her if I could mimick everything she did... and hers came out great - mine? not so, as you can see in my portfolio... :shrug: However the ones I shot with the canon 70-300mm came out just fine... and they were handheld... (They made the grade and made the show, thank GOD!!!!) I'm not putting the lens nor sigma down, at all...As I said, Sigma was more than willing to work with me on it and try to calibrate the lens, until they heard it was brand new, and then they told me I needed to return it... which was only fair, they were right... I just think for my camera, it does not work... and I can't afford that. I've heard from a few 7D owners that that particular lens does NOT work well with the camera at the higher magnifications... and believe me, I wish it did,. as I had to spend an additional $500.00 to get the 400mm... (Wish I could've afforded even longer, but its not in the cards at the moment!) From what I've heard, I think it works just fine with Nikons cameras, Canon is just flukey...

Damn, maybe Sigma doesn't like Canon and only like to work with Nikon. God only knows with these companies and photography. lol

cwightmanphotos wrote: Damn, maybe Sigma doesn't like Canon and only like to work with Nikon. God only knows with these companies and photography. lol

It does seem that Sigma works better on Nikon from scattered online opinions.