I have the Sigma 150-500 and I was out with it yesterday with it for some time after not unpacking it from my bag for a few months. Once again, I was underwhelmed with the lens, proving for myself yet again that its distortion even on my APS-C D7100 is most annoying and still somewhat soft around the edges. The last might well be from hand holding at 500mm and hand held it is a beast to throw around at this length.
I am thinking to rent the Nikkor 80-400 this weekend. At almost three times as much cash as the Sigma, it had better be significantly better if I do trade up. Its specifications show almost a pound lighter, at least a half stop faster throughout the range and backing off to an absurd f/32 at the other end. Anyone with any experience of these long zooms and the Nikkor in particular vis-à-vis the Sigma?
I was impressed when I tried out the newer 80-400 (the ED version) but I didn't check for distortion. Sharpness-wise it's an extremely respectable lens and beats the (admittedly rather old) Canon equivalent at the longer focal lengths. I think the only thing that surprised me was the level of CA at 400mm, given the ED designation, but it was far from awful, just a bit higher than I expected.
I suspect your D7100 will automatically fix any distortion from this lens, as it's a Nikon lens? I doubt you'll have a problem with corner sharpness at any aperture on a crop-frame camera. I was testing it on a D800 and it looked pretty great in the corners.
From the charts, it looks like it natively has about the same distortion as the Sigma at 200mm, and a tad more at 300mm and 400mm -- here's a comparison at 400mm (mouse-over to switch to the Sigma):
I had the old version of the lens. (Introduced in 1996) It was also ED, but it was not AF-S. It was a fun lens, but a little soft on the 400 side and the focusing was crazy slow. I'm sure AF-S helped the focusing speed, and I'm guessing overall image quality has improved with the new version.
I sold it because the focusing was too slow for birding, and replaced it with a Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8.
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I suspect your D7100 will automatically fix any distortion from this lens, as it's a Nikon lens? I doubt you'll have a problem with corner sharpness at any aperture on a crop-frame camera. I was testing it on a D800 and it looked pretty great in the corners.
From the charts, it looks like it natively has about the same distortion as the Sigma at 200mm, and a tad more at 300mm and 400mm -- here's a comparison at 400mm (mouse-over to switch to the Sigma):
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Lens-Distortion.aspx?Lens=625&Camera=614&FLI=5&LensComp=683&CameraComp=453&FLIComp=4
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/936121-REG/nikon_80_400mm_f_4_5_5_6g_ed_vr.html
Review: http://blog.mingthein.com/2013/05/02/lens-review-the-nikon-af-s-80-4004-5-5-6-g-ed-vr-ii-n/
I sold it because the focusing was too slow for birding, and replaced it with a Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8.