At this point, almost every lens I own is a Sigma, the only exception being my Tamron 17-50 2.8 (which is a very, very solid lens). I've owned the Sigma 120-300 2.8 for a handful of days (the best lens I've used), and the Nikkor 70-200 2.8 VR. Both were returned due to the cost that I simply couldn't stomach at this point. I had read the professional reviews for this lens, and was worried about purchasing it because they weren't exactly glowing.
Well, I'm here to tell you that from what I've read, the professional reviews for this lens are spot on. That's good and bad, as anyone who's read them will know.
The good is that the autofocus in this lens is stellar. It's very fast, and is at least as fast as the Nikkor. The zoom ring and focusing rings are smooth, and the lens seems to be very well made, like all of my other Sigma lenses. Not only is the autofocus fast, it's quiet. It's really not that heavy, either, and I find it quite comfortable to use (compared to the 120-300, this thing is light as a feather, and it's weighted much better than the Nikkor). I also find the lens to be reasonably sharp through most of the zoom range, especially stopped down (as it is for most lenses, even Nikon). Yes, I did say through most of the zoom range.
The bad rears its ugly head at the long end of the zoom (which is really too bad, considering that's where you're likely to be keeping a lens such as this most of the time). At 200mm, this lens loses a lot of sharpness, and although stopping down does help a lot, it simply shouldn't be this bad. Are the photos unuseable? I wouldn't say that, and Photoshop can almost perform miracles in most cases. But what's worse than the sharpness (or lack thereof) is the chromatic abberation. There's a LOT. I mean, a LOT at 200mm. It's got the worst CA of any lens in my collection, hands down, and the worst of any lens I've used. Perhaps this is in part due to Sigma's valiant attempt to make a macro lens out of this one, and that's really the other fairly bad part about it--the macro isn't that great either.
It also needs to be taken into consideration that I'm using this lens on a Nikon D300s, which is a DX (small) sensor camera. So your results may differ should you use a full frame.
In the end, I'll be keeping this lens for a number of reasons. One is price. At a third of the cost of the Nikkor, this lens makes up some serious ground and can be forgiven quite a bit. The second is the autofocus. Wow it's fast. And accurate. Since I'm going to be using this mainly for sports, that's very important to me. And funny though it may be, the other reason is the macro. Yes, it's not great, but I still love having a lens with this zoom range that has macro capabilities. Apparently there have been major compromises to get it there, but it is what it is. I would have given it 4 stars, simply because of the cost, but in the end I decided on 3, because if Sigma want to play with the big boys, they really need to do a little better than this showing.
So in considering this lens, you need to ask yourself exactly what your needs are as a photographer, and will the advantages of this lens be enough to outweigh the disadvantages. For me, the answer is yes... but you have to make up your own mind.
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