blurry sigma 70-300mm 1.4-5.6

[Photoninja]

I wonder if anyone can help me.

I'm still very much a beginner and I have a Canon 450D DSLR and the Canon kit lens (18-55).

I bought a Sigma 70-300mm a while ago to take photos of wild life and as it had a macro setting on it the occassion object (flowers etc) 2-3m away.

The problem is pretty much all my photos with this lens are blurry. I can take a pictures with my kit lens using the same or similar settings and same position- same distances- and they are really crisp and pop. I'm really confused.

At first I thought it was several things causing it - due my my inexperience - sometimes I was not using a tripod, birds would have this habit of moving before I was quick enough to focus, adjust my settings etc...

Then I started to experiment at home with objects that didn't move, with a tripod, and a remote control. I have tried taking pictures from massively different distances.Using both the sigma and my kit lens. 90% of the time the kit lens is in focus and even when it's at it's limitation I can enlarge the area and it produces a better focused pictur ethan the sigma.

In the view finder with both AF and manual the objects look focused (they popped) and yet when I enlarge the picture afterwards the details are blurry.

It's really annoying. I think I've taken a great shot and get it home and as soon as it hits the PC I can see most pics are blurry.

What am I doing wrong? I wondered if I have to adjust a settling on my camera to assist the Sigma lens?

I read on the internet other people have problems like it's mechanism is noisy, error messages appear and/or the contacts need to be cleaned or break.
Mine seems fine.

HELP! I'm going nuts.

Emma xx

[Photoninja]

ps i mean 'setting' not 'settling'!

[cosmicma]

i'm not sure which sigma 70 - 300mm you have but i suspect it's the f4 - 5.6 APO DG Macro
i have one of that type and what i found with it is at 70mm it was pin sharp and quite sharp upto 200mm but after that it began to soften off quite noticeably
at 300mm i would say it was too noticeable to be usefull

if yours is soft all through it's range i would say it has a fault and would consider sending it back

[chris-p]

Can you post a coupld of examples? It's possible you've got a faulty lens but it's really impossible to say without seeing a comparison of your kit lens with the Sigma.