All,

I am in between of choosing wheter to go for Nikon 70-200 2.8 or Sigma alternative 70-200 HSM Macro. Nobody complains about Nikon's quality, but the price. Sigma seems to be sort of hit and miss. Many reviews would tell - overall it's best value for your money, but ... @200 it may be useful to set it to F/4 and still you would not get the right hand side of the photo as sharp as the middle and right sides. So, it costs half the price of a Nikon, but then it has it's downsides.

Has anyone here been trying out these lens? Any more similar suggestions what to consider? I thought of Sigma 50-500 as well - have tried it on several occasions, very good for sports and portraits, but too bulky and heavy. And I would not like to go for Tamron or Sigma 18/28-200/250 - not good enough!

Thank you all in advance,
Taavi

hy i have
-sigma bigma 50-500 [bleah...too heavy and with 6.3 without VR is diffucult to shot ]
-18/200 nikkor VR [quite good...but 5.6 is too high]
-sigma 70-300 [perfect at sea in summer]
-nikkor 50 1.8 [excellent]

but the better optic that i have buy is nikkor 70-200 f2.8 VR
is perfect at concert
sport
portrait

Well, I have shot with Sigma 50-500, but it seemed a bit bulky. On the other hand it is rather good if you like nature photography...
Still I think, I would opt for Nikon, than Sigma 70-200. The reviewers are suggesting Nikon supremacy over Sigma in this matter yet.
Thanks for the input.

Hi
What did you decide?
I just recently bought a couple of new lenses and had a similar kind of dilemma. I was using a Tamron 70-300mm and as I was tending to use it at full zoom (just cos I could!) the picture sharpness declined as I wasn't using a tripod. I've replaced it with the Nikon 55-200mm - couldn't quite afford the 70-200/300mm f2.8 - but it is light and has the VR feature.
I travel quite a bit to take photographs and my tripod is too bulky so I tried to weigh up those options when buying the lens. If you can afford the Nikon I would squeak to that.