Economics Reworked

Canon enjoyed a lot of success with their 100–400mm lens for a long period. Now Sigma has ventured into this space with their latest offering. Shridhar Kunte takes a close look.

- Shridhar Kunte

Canon introduced the first version of the 100–400mm lens in the year 1998 and tasted a huge success with it, but not without a criticism over the push-pull design, which was corrected in the newer version. More recently, Sigma introduced their first version of this popular focal range more than a year after Canon had launched their updated version. It often takes years to develop a good lens, but Sigma had the advantage of a year to bring in a lot of corrections from the lacuna in Canon’s edition, in their first version itself. And this is specifically what I would expect from the new Sigma 100–400mm.

Features

To begin with, Sigma has adopted a somewhat conservative approach, and introduced this lens in their ‘Contemporary’ lineup. This lens offers a compact size with less mass. When it comes to the optical design, it includes four SLD glass elements. This helps in controlling colour fringing and chromatic aberrations throughout the zoom range, promising reduced lens flare and ghosting, with better contrast and colour accuracy. To combat against attacks from dust, splashes and finger smudges, the front element has been treated with a water and oil-repellent coating. The optical design is based on a total of 12 elements arranged in 15 groups. You will come across 9 blades in the rounded aperture diaphragm for smoother and more pleasing bokeh and blurs.