Sigma has spent the last twenty years as a third tier lens manufacturer, but suddenly, the photography world is going nuts over them. But even if your interest in cameras stops at point-and-shoot digicams, Sigma’s new Zoom lens is eye-boggling: it’s larger than a human torso.
Sigma’s new zoom lens is a 200-500mm f2.8 lens monster, but if you’re unfamiliar with the technical jargon, look at the size. A photographer with the bicep of an adamantium sinewed lumberjack lifts up the Sigma zoom lens to descry some far-off sight… perhaps an attractive teenage girl taking a shower in front of an open window in China. Never the less, the lens causes his spine to insanely bend backwards, while the tendons of his forearm appear ready to pop out of his skin.
The image is utterly comical, like an absurdist’s PhotoShop but this is a real lens. It weighs nearly fifty pounds, and in addition to covering the 200 to 500mm range at f2.8, it can double the focal length to work at f5.6 Additional features include a multi-layer coating that reduces glare and ghosting, a specially designed lens hood to block out natural ambient light, .and a built-in LCD panel for live view when you just can’t quite manage to lift the camera up to check out the SLR viewfinder.
Practical uses aren’t simply limited to the perverted long-distance voyeur: this is a lens aimed at photographers with a penchant for astrophotography, sports and wildlife shots. And needless to say, this much zoom doesn’t come cheap: the cost comes in at $29,000. But what else would you expect for a zoom capable of intimately inspecting Q-ball particles?
