I've found an incredible bargain but as with all things which seem to good to be true I wonder if there is a catch.
A small independent camera shop near me has a 2nd hand sigma 500mm f4.5 lens for £129.99. It comes with a 12 month guarantee and I have had a look at it and can find no faults/scratches.
The reason I'm suspicious is I've seen they sell new for over £3000. Now I know that a second hand lens will be cheaper, but THIS much cheaper?
Should I tell the children they're getting no Christmas presents this year ans snap it up or should I avoid like the plague?
Does anyone here have this lens? What are your opinions of it?
could it possibly be that Sigma has a newer generation of this lens now? i haven't used the prime, only the 50-500mm which is a beast of a lens. I've read that the 500mm prime is massive and a good buy for the money. If I were you, I'd shell out the cash now! If there's something wrong with it, you have the guarantee. I wouldn't pass that up!!
I have a Sigma 50-500mm lens for my Nikon. As @sdpace says, it is a beast but takes some awesome shots with some TLC. Ask if you can check out the 500mm prime first. Take your camera to the small shop and tell them you want to take a couple of pictures just to check everything out. Take a tripod and step outside and see how it performs. If possible shoot some blue sky with some clouds and look at the quality of the shot to see if you can detect any lens faults or anything else wrong. A reputable shop shouldn't have a problem with you sampling a couple of shots. Having the warranty should also help.
Buy it or give me direction to the shop.
If you test it and it works, what might be the issue? It might have lens fungus, here is how to check, but at that price, I would buy it and use it till it was no good.
@emmar84 Oh no no no no no. Run for the hills. This is a $6,000 (£3,800) lens brand new! There is absolutely no way whatsoever they would EVER sell this lens for £139 if something wasn't seriously wrong.
I know this may look like a great deal, but rental houses try to make good money on selling old equipment to pay off the cost of the new equipment. This is not looking good.
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If you test it and it works, what might be the issue? It might have lens fungus, here is how to check, but at that price, I would buy it and use it till it was no good.
I know this may look like a great deal, but rental houses try to make good money on selling old equipment to pay off the cost of the new equipment. This is not looking good.