nikon 80-440mm VR vs sigma 150-500mm

[OZAmateur]

i've done a fair bit of hunting around and have decided that both lens are great for their price. both have an equal amount of pro's and con's.
my question is...would you choose the 80-400 over the 150-500 for the same price.
for second hand lens they come in at about the same price, and i simply cant decide if i want to go with the nikon lens or the sigma.
the type of shooting they would be used for is nature, aircraft or the like.

ideally i would like to hear from someone who has had both, or someone who has used a lens that stops at 400 and then also used or owned a lens that stops at 500, and can tell me how much you notice or look for that extra 100mm.

the lens will be used on a d90.

[rellik666]

I would say the Sigma, the 80-400 sounds like it is slow to focus and that would be bad for nature/aircraft.

There are lots of people on here with the Bigma and love it.....

Roo

[RRRoger]

I had a Canon version and it worked really well on my 5D2.
However, I just sent back a new Nikon version Sigma 150-500.
It did not perform nearly as well as my 80-400 on my D3 or D7000.
It is also bigger and heavier.

[peterb666]

I have the Sigma 150-500 and while I haven't used it for aircrarft (other than those that fly into frame when photographing something else), I can recommend the lens. It is excellent value for money. I use mine mainly for surfing shots, boats on the water and lunar stuff.

[robcran]

I have the Sigma 150-500. There is really not a lot of visible difference between the 400 and 500 mm settings that a small amount of cropping won't fix (assuming you have a sharp image to start with).

[OZAmateur]

lol i knew that i would get post back primarily fro bigma owners. they do really see to be the affordable big zoom lens.
sigma's are plagued a bit with quality control issues and getting your hands on a good one is a fair argument for steering clear of second hand sales and gray market buys....the nikon is slow and dearer....so if i could get a nikon 80-400 for the 800 ish mark would you buy that over the bigma???

[peterb666]

I know several people with Sigma 120-400 and 150-500 zooms and have not encountered this "quality control issue" that non-owners seem to have.

Edit: BTW, a new lens comes with 12 months warranty and the second-hand one does not.