Sigma 300 f 4 Af Apo Macro

I love taking macro with long lenses because the background fades out completely isolating the main subject. The nikkor 300 f4 AFS ED is wonderful, but also the Sigma 300 f 4 Af Apo Macro works. The Sigma is a nice lens  wich has a very useful minimum focusing distance (1.2 m) where it reaches a 1:3 magnification on 35mm format. This performance is close to that of the AFS Nikkor . Obviously there are differences between the two: images from the Sigma  are a bit softer, show slightly less contrast and perhaps warmer colours  with respect to those from the Nikkor. The price, however, renders it a bargain: I paid an used one less than half the price of an equally used 300 Nikkor f4 AFS ED . Also, in the digital era, some of the previous isssues can be addressed and good quality picture can be obtained with a little tweaking.

Here are some samples:

 sunset light

Above: untouched, below: with USM (treshold 0, radius 2,4 and amount 81) the fossil shell on foreground has a maximum diameter of 4cm

other (unprocessed straight out of the camera) test shots  at 1.5-2m focusing distance:

This little statue  is 10 cm high as is the framed area of the yellow book below

Here is the 100% crop:

Do you want another one?

And the 100% crop third column, near the top:

Taking into account that, on a D70, you have a 450mm equivalent reaching 1:2 RR at 1,2 m It's not that bad.

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/ripolini/300.htm

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