Sigma 400mm f5.6 - vintage lens review

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The lens is made out of metal, it weights 750g, it is 20,3cm long and it has an external diameter of 82mm, with a 72mm front thread.

It has a built in sunhood lined with opaque material and when extended it brings the total length to 25,5cm

The iris had 6 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f5.6 to f32 with half steps.

The focusing ring is rubberized, it turns 130 degrees and minimum focusing distance is 4 meters.

My copy comes on a Pentax K mount with a flange distance of 45,46mm.

At this point I would usually mention how the lens balances on the camera, but in this case it is the camera that balances on the lens. Thankfully it has a tripod mount on the collar, which also allows the lens to spin, so you can change the orientation of the camera while on sticks.

The focusing ring is jut in the right position to use it even when hand holding the system.

Wide open images are pretty soft all over the frame and you have to stop it down to f11 to get good sharpness.

Chromatic aberration is present at all apertures, but it gets less noticeable from f11.

Colors are fairly neutral, with good contrast but not too saturated.

Specular highlights have chromatic aberration but can also get big and soft and backgrounds can be easily annihilated.

It’s hard to do my usual flaring test with such a long lens, but I didn’t have any real issues while using it, just some limited ghosting, but the lens hood does its job.

Using this lens was a bit of an odd experience. On one hand it is easy to use and carry around and I was even able to shoot hand held and still get sharp results first try.

But, on the other hand, I had to shoot at f11 to get sharp images and still there was visible chromatic aberration.

If only this lens was sharper wide open and had less CA it would be a monster, but given that I’m not really satisfied with it, I will stick to my canon FD 300mm.



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