Advantages: Larege aperture, high quality glass, cheaper than Canon.
Disadvantages: It's still a big, pricey lens.

...Big f2.8 aperture lets in more light, allowing the use of faster shutter speeds to freeze movement, especially useful in action sports. Of course the best lens for me to have bought for my Canon system at the time would have been the Canon L series 70-200mm f2.8, but these lovely lenses are just too expensive for many amateurs (who have to pay for their own equipment, like me). The Sigma offering compares very favourably in reviews in the camera press. Optically, it is not too far behind the Canon lens, and price wise, I would say 2/3 of the price of the Canon lens, although Canon have recently introduced a version of the 70-200mm f2.8L with Image Stabilisation, and that is a very nice lens indeed ! I bought my Sigma through ebay, and paid £450 for a mint example, with the box, case, instructions etc. I had decided that I wanted... Read review

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Advantages: Good lens for the money
Disadvantages: Doesn't have Nikon stamped on it

...I certainly picked a hard review to beat for my first opinion, Nige has covered all the good points, but if I'm not mistaken, it was a Canon mount version he reviewed? I have been using Nikon for a few years, and one of the good points about the system is the continued lens interchangeability from the early days, through the classic models (FM, FE F3 etc), right to the present day, and hopefully into the future. The tec specs you can get from the other opinion, so I'll just give you my user perspective on how the lens performs. For starters, although it's an autofocus lens, I use it on my Nikon FE2 body (manual focus, for those who don't know the Nikon system). The lens is a good performer on a manual focus camera, as the focus ring is wide, and smooth in operation, like the zoom ring to the rear of the lens. The large f2... Read review

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Advantages: Excellent over all range
Disadvantages: Weight and possibly cost

...The Sigma 50-500mm F4-6.3 APO AF/HSM zoom lens is a medium sized, medium weight and rather expensive lens. It is not a lens for anybody. But if your interest is in wildlife photography or sports photography then this is the lens for you. First the Technical aspects. High Performance Will fit Sigma, Mintola, Nikon, Pentax, and Canon Group/elements 16/20 Angle of view (degrees) 46.8 - 5 No of blades in diaphragm 9 Minimum focus 100-300/39.4 - 18.1 Magnification 1:5.2 Filter 86mm Dimension diameter x length (mm/in) 95x216/3.7x8.5 weight (g/oz)1859/65.2 It can be mounted on a wide variety of cameras. Best to make sure that Sigma makes the lens for your type of camera. I understand that it takes a different chip for each camera. A very useful feature is a Zoom lock. This revents zoom creep when the position... Read review

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Advantages: Good for shooting in low light, compact, discreet, low weight
Disadvantages: None really

...This lens is an ideal "normal" lens for a digital SLR camera. It gives a similar field of view to using a standard 50mm lens with a film SLR camera. The reason for this is that most DSLR cameras have a sensor that is smaller than the standard 24x36mm area on each exposure in a roll of film. (24x36mm is often referred to as "full-frame") All Nikon DSLRs (apart from the new D3) use 16x24mm sensors known as "DX" size. These dimensions are 1/1.5 the size of full-frame, so the term "1.5X Crop Factor" is often used. If you take this 35mm lens and multiply by the 1.5X crop factor then it gives 52.5mm, which is the equivalent field of view this lens gives compared with using film. DSLRs are often sold with a basic "kit lens", for example an 18-55mm zoom lens. While being able to zoom is often useful, the downside... Read review

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Advantages: compact; lightweight; sharp
Disadvantages: small zoom range; designed for 35mm film; no image stabilisation

...This lens is widely available from many sources, both new and secondhand. It is compact and light in weight and offers a significantly wider zoom range than the 28-55mm lens supplied as 'standard' on many Canon digital SLR cameras. Used on most Canon digital cameras, the effective focal lengths become 1.6x bigger (as the sensor is APS- sized, not 35mm sized), making it a 45 - 170mm zoom. Hardly wide-angle, but, at the lower end, it is roughly the same as the 50mm lens that all 35mm cameras used to be fitted with as standard. With digital cameras, the argument goes, you can 'stitch' several shots together to create a panorama and so overcome the lack of a wider angle lens. That's only true to a limited extent - but TRUE wide-angle lenses need a second mortgage at present! With focal lengths between 80 to 120mm being regarded... Read review

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Advantages: Fast Focus, well built, reliable excellent performance all round
Disadvantages: Heavy, you will need a tripod

...As you may be gathering, I have been investing in camera stuff recently... This is the 2nd lens I bought for my camera which is excellent. It takes very good and sharp pictures all the way through and is not prone to glare, possibly due to the very large hood it comes with! The operation of the lens is very simple and fits on both the Sony a-mount as well as the Konica Minolta mount. Zooming is done through a large in the middle and if you are focusing manually it is through a front ring. Again there is no distance indicator for the focus ring but that is only useful for nerds as you will not be able to focus and measure distance at the same time unless you want to get a tape out to check! The longest zoom is at 300mm. Now bear in mind that digital SLR cameras have a "crop" factor in the majority of cases and the Sony a-100 has... Read review

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Advantages: standard zoom kit lens, KM compatible
Disadvantages: some darkening at widest angle

...This is the standard lens that comes with the new Sony Alpha 100 digital SLR camera (dSLR). It fits on to a the Sony a-mount or for those who have one of the old Konica Minolta Dynax camera, it will fit in the KM-mount. However it is a digital only lens so film purists will not be served well by it. Taking photos with this lens using the Sony c