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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you my quick review of the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3
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So it is variable aperture, although just a tiny bit of variation
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One third stop from F5.6 to F6.3. And if you're wondering where it switches, it's right around 300mm where it switches to a maximum aperture of F6.3
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This is a G lens and it has their OSS optical steady shot image stabilization system built into it
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And so this is a lens that has been an important one, one that a lot of us have been excited about
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for the simple reason that prior to this lens there were very few native ways to get a lot of reach on the Sony FE system
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And so we've had some fantastically focusing camera bodies like the Sony A9 series and to a lesser extent the A7 III or the A7R Mark IV
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But they, you know, previously there hadn't been a lot of great glass to get great reach with them
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And of course this lens allows you to go way past the, you know, 400 millimeter limit before to 600 millimeters and at a reasonably affordable price
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It comes in at around $2,000, right under $2,000 US dollars. And while that is definitely on the higher end of the range of the, you know, kind of 150 to 600 millimeter variants
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priced similarly to, say, the Sigma 60 to 600 millimeter sport lenses
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those lenses are, of course, made for other camera systems. And in many ways, this lens exceeds them in some areas, despite having a more limited focal range
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certainly when it comes to the combination of the autofocus performance and a body like the sony a9
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let's just put it this way i've never had an experience with any of those lenses
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like i had when putting it on an a9 and shooting away and so if you want more of the nitty-gritty
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the details i recommend that you look at the thorough review and it takes a little bit longer
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but i explore everything in a little bit more detail today i'm going to hit the highlights
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and give you the quick review as a part of that. First of all, we'll take a look at the overall build and design
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So as you can see, this is a physically large lens. It is 318 millimeters in length and weighs in at about 2,115 grams
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And so it is a little bit longer than what the 150 to 600 millimeter variants are
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The weight is almost identical to the Tamron 150 to 600 millimeter G2 lens but it is considerably less heavy than the sport versions of the Sigma lenses The biggest reason why it is physically longer however is actually an intrinsic advantage
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and that is that this is an internally zooming lens, which means that no matter what focal length
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you're shooting at, the overall length of the lens remains the same. I find that as a result
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it is the easiest of any of these lenses to balance when shooting at a longer distance
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for the simple reason that even if you're out at 600 millimeters, the length is still the same
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The 150 to 600 millimeter Sport is kind of the worst for that because as when you're zoomed out
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and it has a very, very large 105 millimeter front element, there's a lot of weight out there kind
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of away from your body. I find this lens to be a relatively easy one to support and to shoot with
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handheld, though of course your mileage may vary depending upon, you know, how physically comfortable
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you are with larger lenses like this. The other nice thing, however, is that I found that even
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when tracking action, the fact that I can easily zoom with just a thumb and a finger here makes it
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an easy lens for me to quickly change the focal length on a fly in a way that I wasn't able to do
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with those other lenses. And so I'm really impressed with that. We have a beautifully built, largely
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metal body here with a flooring coating on the front, gasket at the back, and about 15 different
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seal points inside the lens. So thoroughly weather sealed. It has the focus hold button
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It has got a rotatable tripod collar. The tripod foot can be removed. My only critique here is that
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the tripod foot itself is not ARCA compatible. So you're either going to have to replace it with an
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ARCA Swiss foot, or you're going to have to put a quick release plate on there so you can go right
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on to a tripod. I don't understand why they wouldn't make that ARCA Swiss compatible
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Anyway, there are also four switches here, two related to the actual autofocus AF-MF
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There is a three-position focus limiter there, very nice to have. And then there are a couple of switches related to the optical stabilizer, including an on-off
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and then three different modes that you can access. A standard mode, a panning-oriented one, and then the third mode is kind of the dynamic one
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if you're tracking erratic action. and it works at stabilizing the viewfinder image a little bit less and focuses more on stabilizing
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the actual image at capture. And so handy to have those options there as well. Now this lens
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utilizes a direct drive supersonic wave focus motor, AF motor, and it is extremely quiet and
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extremely fast I found that autofocus performance was fantastic The only limiting principle there is kind of a logical one and that is that this is a lens that doesn have a large maximum aperture
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and so if you're shooting in poor lighting conditions, remember that any autofocus system, even an excellent one like on the A9 or the A9 II
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relies on light coming through the lens and hitting the sensor to allow for autofocus
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So it stands to reason that the less light that reaches the sensor, the less that the focus system has to work with
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And so in very poor lighting conditions, expect autofocus to slow down
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But in most typical conditions that I shot in, autofocus was fantastically and consistently sharp
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As you can see from these sequences, if you attach it to a body like the A9
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the autofocus is so good it feels almost like cheating. I was able to track action effortlessly
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using things like PET, IAF, and I got incredibly accurate results out of hundreds of shots
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Almost all of them were perfectly focused. And that is a really unique in my experience
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Now, I did find when I attached it to my a7R Mark III that while focus consistently considered to continue to be good
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I just found that the lens wasn't quite as masterful in that condition
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It was maybe a little bit more likely to hunt in challenging lighting conditions
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And it just felt like there was maybe less torque driving autofocus
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And so I definitely preferred it on the A9, though in a pinch, something like the A7R III, it still works quite well there
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It's just if you've experienced the other, you'll know the difference. Beyond that, it does have outstanding actual image quality
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Now, they designated this a G rather than a G Master lens, but it exhibits a lot of the characteristics that I associate with a G Master lens
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It is very sharp throughout the focal range, not just in the center of the frame, but also in the periphery of the frame
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Very consistently sharp. There is fairly low distortion across the range. Chromatic aberrations are well controlled
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It has very good contrast. The only thing that I noted when stopping the lens down was that if you stopped down to f8, it did get a little bit more contrast
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Beyond that, however, image quality was great. The bokeh quality was good, though not that kind of magical isolation that you'll sometimes get with the high-end super telephoto primes
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It's not that special. It doesn't have that large of a maximum aperture, but it is very, very good, and it produces beautiful shots
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It is compatible with autofocus with both Sony's 1.4x and 2x extenders
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With the 1 extender you can get a maximum of 840mm of reach at a maximum aperture of f9 You put the 2x extender on there and you have a maximum reach of a whopping 1200 millimeters though the limiting principle there is maximum
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aperture is f13. My experience is, is that on a lens like this, I prefer to go no further than the
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1.4 times. And I feel like you get the least amount of compromise there and kind of maximize
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your benefit to liability ratio with that. You, of course, also can shoot in either APS-C mode or
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on an APS-C camera, and there the focal range equivalent is 300 to 900 millimeters, which of
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course is extremely, extremely useful. Put simply, there's a lot of ways to get some really incredible
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reach out of this lens. So in conclusion, the only kind of factor that I would strongly consider
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as to whether or not you should purchase this lens is, do you need 600 millimeters? Simple
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reason that I ask that is that if you only occasionally go that far and the 100 to 400
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millimeter lens would meet your, you know, your needs, it is a much smaller package and could be
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much more convenient for transporting. It's considerably lighter under 1400 grams. And
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and so, you know, there are factors there that, you know, definitely make a difference. And if you
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only need to reach a little bit further on occasion. You can buy the 1.4 times extender and
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you know, extend your reach out to 560 millimeters with that combination. However, if you regularly
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shoot a focal length like this, this lens really in many ways is a no-brainer. It is not cheap
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but it is based, you know, compared to the performance you get out of it, both from build
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to autofocus to the optical performance, I think that it is a very fairly priced lens and one that
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will produce a lot of images that you will be delighted with. And if you've got a good focusing
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Sony camera body, you can really get some amazing tracking results. Now, if you would like more
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information about some of the details and the conclusions that I arrived at, I recommend that
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you look either at the thorough review or if you look in the description down below, I've got
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linkage to my full text review. And so you could check out that. There's also linkage there to an
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image gallery. I'm limited by time and space of how many photos I can include here, but you'll be
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able to see a lot more photos there. There's also buying links in the description if you'd like to
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purchase one for yourself. There's also linkage there to follow me on social media, to become a
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patron or subscribe for my newsletter. And of course, if you haven't already, please click that
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subscribe button right here on YouTube. Thanks for watching. Have a great day
