Sigma AF APO Tele Macro 400mm F/5.6 Vintage Lens Review

Routinely available telephoto lenses, be they zooms or prime optics, seem to plateau out at 300mm. Beyond this the price and the weight escalate, so the search is always on for something to extend that range, particularly for wildlife and sports photography, that is more accessible. Here we have a virtually new example of the Sigma AF 400mm f/5.6 lens, originally released in 1995 and in this incarnation with a Minolta (now Sony) A mount. For the purposes of this review, it was decided to keep the advantage of AF, so it needed a Sony DSLR, an AF adapter at this stage not being available. The Sony A350 is a 14.2MP DSLR, not the highest resolution, but certainly capable of very good quality for web and for prints up to perhaps A3. Tickets were booked for the South Lakes Safari Zoo and we headed North on a very warm and sunny Sunday to put the lens, and camera, through their paces. Let's see how we got on.

Sigma AF APO Tele Macro 400mm f/5.6 Handling and Features

The lens was available, in this version, in Nikon, Minolta and Pentax AF fittings, which in itself shows how times have changed. This lens is a Minolta AF fit, which of course is carried forwards by Sony and is the same as their A fit DSLR range. Nikon and Pentax DSLRs are still available to accept their versions of the lens. The alternative choice is the adapter to enable the Minolta/Sony fit lens to be used on Sony E mount mirrorless bodies. As the lens would be used for wildlife, it was decided to use a Sony A350 DSLR, admittedly just 14.2MP but still capable of making good images.

There is a built-in pullout lens hood, which is a bit reluctant to pull out initially, probably not having moved since 1995. However, this does ease up a bit, still somewhat juddery in action but at least not loose. There is a standard 77mm filter thread. The lens overall is well finished, reasonably compact for a 400mm lens and weighs in at a tolerable 1435g (measured) without caps but including the tripod collar.

As we continue our tour of the lens, next up is the distance scale, clearly visible in both feet and metres through a generously sized plastic window. Just next to the scale is the focus limiter switch, offering a choice of full range or 1.6-3m or 3.5m-infinity. There is no depth of field scale. Focusing is down to 1.6m, giving a maximum magnification of 1:3. This is closer than most zoom lenses, and very much closer than most 400mm lenses. Although not actually “macro” in the same way as a macro lens is expected to be (1:1) nonetheless it is very much closer than average focusing.

The rubberised manual focus ring is enormous, behind which is the AF/MF collar. More than just a switch for this lens, an entire, substantial collar. Behind this collar is the removable tripod mount, most useful for changing between landscape and portrait orientations.

Optical construction is 10 elements in 7 groups, including 2 SLD (Super Low Dispersion). The lens is described as APO (Apochromatic), meaning that it is corrected fully for focusing of all three colours of light – red, green and blue. This does indeed seem to be borne out by the CA performance and the lack of colour fringing in the images. This also means that focusing IR light may not need any focus point correction, providing the IR wavelength does not stray too far beyond 770nm. The diaphragm comprises 9 blades, to assist with producing smooth bokeh.

Handling a 400mm lens, especially with a crop factor that means we may be trying to view an image with a “35mm-format equivalent” field of view of 600mm, is much more demanding than handling a 300mm. Perhaps this is why so many lens ranges stop at 300mm. However, the need is there for affordable longer lenses as with wildlife and some sports it is sometimes impossible to have any lens that is long enough.

The best result is obtained by using a tripod, but image stabilisation systems make hand holding a viable alternative most of the time. This lens is very usable and with its close focusing ability also very versatile. There are also plenty of mount options, although not all for this particular version. For this version, the three AF mount options are, as already mentioned, Nikon, Minolta (now Sony A mount) and Pentax. The MF mount options are Nikon, Minolta, Contax, Olympus. There is also an HSM version of the lens, with AF mounts for Sigma SA and Canon.

Let's see now how the performance stacks up.