SIGMA 500mm F5.6 DG DN OS | SPORT Review | The Tele We've All Wanted?

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott
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This is a lens that, at least on paper, is a lens that I have seen so many people ask
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for over the last five or so years. This is a reasonably priced, about $3,000 US dollars, which is half the price of Sigma's
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previous F4 version of this lens. It's a high-performing, lightweight, 500mm F5.6 prime lens
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The Sigma 500mm F5.6 DN OS sport lens uses basically all of Sigma's latest technologies
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to produce what is a really fantastic telephoto lens. There are a few unfortunate realities that we will detail that are beyond their control
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but if you take those things out of the equation, this is a package that Sigma has really done
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a great job of executing. So is this the lens that you've been waiting for
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Well, let's find out all of my thoughts as we come back right after a word from our sponsor
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you're ready to check out. So obviously, one of the huge reasons why people are interested in a lens with a long
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focal length, 500mm, and then a slightly smaller maximum aperture of just f5.6, is that the
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size of the lens radically changes. This lens is much shorter and much, much lighter than Sigma's previous 500mm f4 lens
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And just to give you an idea of the weight, it weighs in at 1365g in Sony E-mount version
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There's also a Leica L-mount version. So that's about 48 ounces. To give you some comparisons, Sigma's own 150-600mm sport weighs 2100g, making it 53% heavier
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The Sony 200-600 is about 5g heavier than that, so roughly the same
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Sigma's own 60-600mm sport, which in my opinion is the superior lens, it weighs 2500g
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So it is nearly 60% heavier than what this lens is. So what that means is that if you're someone who's looking for a telephoto lens that you
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can take out and you can use handheld, I would say that most people are going to be capable
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of doing that with this lens. It really is quite lightweight, and it's going to basically hit you with the same kind of
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roughly weight kind of cost that a typical 70-200mm f2.8 lens will
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Which is to say, it's heavy, you'll notice it, but it's certainly manageable even for
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longer periods of time. Likewise, this lens is considerably shorter than the competing telephoto zooms
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You can see here from this shot that it is dwarfed by the Sony 200-600mm lens
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This prime lens from Sigma is 236.6mm or 9.3 inches in length, and that compares to 317mm
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or 12.5 inches for the Sony lens. It is 107.6mm or 4.2 inches in diameter, and you can see it has a fairly large front filter
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thread of 95mm. Now, you'll also note that while there is that flare-out to that large front element
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that lets lots of light in, you'll also see that the actual barrel of the lens itself
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is quite compact. Speaking of that barrel, this lens is made of a combination of different materials, including
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magnesium alloy, and then what Sigma calls TSC, or thermally stable composites, essentially
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high-end engineered plastics. Very nice build quality, and I will note that the lens hood itself is lightweight because
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they have used carbon fiber infused plastics for that. It does have that rubberized contact point at the front, which I think is really great
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for a lot of reasons. Number one, it's going to do a better job of absorbing energy if you happen to bump
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into something accidentally, but also when you have that nice rubberized stable point
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makes it very natural to be able to put the lens, you know, stand it upright like this
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without ever doing any kind of damage to anything. And so, nice execution there
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I'm not really convinced that this whole, you know, having to use a tension knob to
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attach that as opposed to bayonet style is an improvement, but that's what Sigma does
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on their large telephotos. By the way, this lens also does come with a very nice nylon padded case that has a carrying
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strap for it to help you with convenience for that. Now inside the lens, it is thoroughly weather sealed from the gasket to all the various
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rings and switches, buttons along the way. Everything is sealed. This is sports series, which gets Sigma's highest degree of build quality along with
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weather sealing designed to be used outdoors. This is also an extremely feature rich lens
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It has three different function buttons, focus hold buttons at three different positions
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So if you're holding it vertically, different positions, you have one that is, you know
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easy to get to. Also in a first for one of their telephoto lenses, we have an aperture ring here in the
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front and that aperture ring does fall in a good position where it falls easy to hand
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Sigma is really doing a great job with giving you options when it comes to controlling aperture when they're so equipped
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And so we have the option to either click or de-click the aperture here
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We have an iris lock that allow you to either lock in or out of the manual aperture ring
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If you're not a manual aperture ring at all, no problem. Put it in a mode, engage that iris lock and it will stay there
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Likewise, if you don't want to inadvertently pump into auto mode, just keep it locked into
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the manual aperture area. So that's great. The actual manual focus ring is nice and wide, has a little bit of a bevel in it
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It's like ergonomically contoured, falls easily to the hand and has a nice damping to it
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So that is great as well. We have a bank of four switches that comes next
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There's an AF-MF switch, there's a three position focus limiter, and then there that followed
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by an OS control. So you have a mode one, which is your standard mode, mode two, which is kind of panning for
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tracking action. And then below that, we also have a custom button that gives you two different custom options
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Now, here's where the path diverges for Sony and Leica users. For Sony users, there is no lens station that's available or a USB dock that's available
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And so as a byproduct, you are going to have to just stick with the functions that are already assigned to these buttons
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So what they end up being is just two additional modes for the optical stabilizer
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And so what that allows you to do is to have more of a focus on stabilizing the viewfinder
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which by the way, seems to work pretty well for video. I can get the most stable handheld results using that
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And then the C2 position is more of a dynamic to where you basically are only getting stabilization
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at the moment you pull the trigger. You hit the shutter and outside of that, it's allowing you to track maybe more erratic action
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So you have a variety of options there for optical stabilizer. Now on the Leica front, you do have access to a lens station or lens dock
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And so through that, you can assign different values to those custom buttons, a little bit
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more flexibility for Leica users on that front. Now speaking about that optical stabilizer, this is Sigma's OS2, which uses their most
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recent algorithms. It is definitely an improved stabilizer over what we saw in previous lenses
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They first debuted this with the 60-600 sport. And so what I am finding with this is while it's rated for five stops, I was able to get
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I would say, closer to six stops. And you can see in this shot that at just one eighth of a second, I was able to get
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a stable result and I was able to get that maybe about 30, 35% of the time
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And that's six stops at that point. Now again, another diversion is when it comes to the ability to use teleconverters
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L-mount shooters will be able to use the 1.4x and 2x teleconverters from Sigma
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Unfortunately on Sigma, that remains an area that is restricted by Sony
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So at this point, no teleconverter support on something like my camera that I'm using here
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And by the way, no, Sony's own teleconverters don't work. The one final thing to talk about when it comes to the build is that the tripod collar
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and foot here, when it comes to the actual tripod foot, it is ARCA compatible, which
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I love, means I can go right onto a tripod with it. You have a tension knob here that'll allow you to rotate it and you do have clicks at
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the cardinal positions. And so that is great for that. Now when it comes to the actual removability, the collar itself cannot be removed
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The foot from basically this junction on can be removed, though you will have to use the
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included Allen keys to do that. It is not a tool-less operation
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One other thing that you might note is that if you like to carry it by a tripod foot
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there's not a ton of room in between the foot and the barrel of the lens
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It's fairly close. And so that may not work for everyone. Overall, however, this is a beautifully built lens that is just as feature-rich as really
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any of the Sony G Master equivalent lenses. So high marks when it comes to that
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So let's talk autofocus. This has gotten Sigma's newest autofocus system, which they call HLA, which is High
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Response Linear Actuator. So basically a high-powered linear motor. It is very fast and very quiet
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And as you can see here, I was able to make transitions from near to far nice and snappy
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That's all great. The one area where I did notice any kind of slowdown, which is typical of any long telephoto
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like this, is that in some situations, if you're completely defocused, it takes a moment
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to actually get the lens, because you can't see anything and the point of view is, or
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the angle of view is so narrow, it can take a little bit to get kind of to a hard edge
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to where autofocus will engage. So you can mess around for a split second with that
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That's a pretty rare case study, however. For the most part, I found that autofocus was fast, snappy, and delivered very good accuracy
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Now for some reason, Sigma persist in always releasing their new telephotos right in the
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dead of winter, which is difficult for someone like myself because there's not a whole lot
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moving out there when it's extremely cold in Ontario, Canada, where I live
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And so I went out and got skumped on three or four occasions trying to find some birds
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moving around something. And unfortunately, I was unable to do that. And a lot of times I use a dog breeder nearby, and unfortunately she was sick during my review period
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So that did not work out. I did take it to the gym to try to track some pickup basketball
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Now 500 millimeters is too long for basketball court type action. You need more space in that
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It's probably better for more like stadium type sports. And so it's too tight for that
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Even when I was back up against the wall in the field house, probably 35 feet from the
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beginning of the court, and I started someone down near the end, far end of the basketball
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court, they still were just barely... I didn't have enough room to frame both their head and their feet in that shot
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It's just a very long focal length. So it wasn't great for that. And then also F5.6 and that kind of lighting is not fantastic
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Shooting it, ISO 6400 and still only getting like 1 200th of a second, which isn't really
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fast enough. So that's not a great case study for it. However, you can see here that tracking was fairly good
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I did note one dip away, where for about five shots, it..
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Out of the burst of... It was nearly 90 shots in the burst. It swung away for a moment and then came back
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And so I did fine just in shooting other shots. For the most part, my tracking was really good
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I would say that I have a lot of experience with the Sony 200 to 600 millimeter G lens
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which I own. And I would say that I don't think it's still 100% there, but it's very close
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And moving ahead, I think that it'll probably get better still when it comes to that
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The one limitation that is a Sony imposed limitation, like the limitation on teleconverters
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is that on sports cameras like the Alpha 1, which I was using for those tests, I'm limited
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to 15 frames per second, as opposed to the 30 frames per second that the camera is capable of
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And so obviously that's going to be even more dramatic on the new A9 Mark III
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And that's a limitation that Sony has imposed on, unfortunately, all third-party lenses
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Again, not Sigma's fault, but it is a reality that you have to consider
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Now there is no such limitation on Leica L-Mount, but unfortunately there's not really any amazing
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sports cameras on L-Mount. Probably the S5 Mark II at the moment is about as good as it gets
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And so no, the limitation's not there, but neither is there the cameras that can fully
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deliver everything that this lens is capable of. They don't really exist on L-Mount
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Now on the video side of things, I found that video AF was good
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You know, good focus transitions, confident. There is some noticeable focus breathing
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That's in large part due to just being such a long focal length. But again, video AF worked well
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Autofocus system is very, very good. Probably as good as what I've seen from any third-party lens
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I would still say that Sony's top telephotos are just a little bit better
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So how about image quality? I will give you a detailed image quality breakdown and some comparisons in that image
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quality breakdown that comes at the end of the video. You can jump ahead to that if you so desire
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The mark is linked in the description down below. But here's a quick breakdown and overview of that optical formula, 20 elements in 14 groups
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That's three FLD elements, two SLD elements as a part of that makeup
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I found that there was basically zero distortion, nothing that I could measure as far as distortion
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And vignette was incredibly low. It only gave me, I used a plus 25 to correct
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So not even quite, I would say, a full stop of vignette in the corners
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This is one area where it's definitely better than any of the competing zoom lenses
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Typically by 500 millimeters, the zooms have some pincushion distortion and considerably
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more vignette than what you see here. I also found that there was no either longitudinal or lateral chromatic aberrations, no fringing
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that I saw in any of my shots. Really well controlled. And even, for example, in this shot of frost crystals that are formed on something with
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bright light coming right through it, there's just no fringing there. So that is an amazing performance
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And when it comes to sharpness, even at f5.6, it is pretty close to perfect all across the frame
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And you can see the breakdown later on, but it is notably sharper than either the Sigma
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60 to 600, which I think is Sigma's best. And then it's even better than the Sony 200 to 600 millimeter, which is an impressive performance
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Comparing f5.6 to f8, I would say there is the mildest of gains at f8
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After f8, whatever gains might be there are offset by the diffraction that starts on higher
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resolution bodies. I tested for resolution on the a7R Mark V, which is 61 megapixels
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And so after that, I mean, you can go all the way down to f32, but you're going to have
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a remarkably softened image by then due to the effects of diffraction
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So I would say shoot at f8 if you can, and as a kind of a top limit, f11 being your upper
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limit if you're on a high resolution body, but you don't really need to stop down for
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more performance. Basically, almost all performance is available right at f5.6. Now minimum focus distance is not amazing here
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It's 3.2 meters. So that means that our maximum magnification, you can't get particularly close to anything
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and maximum magnification is only 0.17 times. So that is way less than the zoom in particular, Sigma's own 60 to 600 millimeter, which is
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really, really strong at 200 millimeters where you get a maximum magnification of like 0.44
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times or something very high, much higher than this. So don't buy it to be a kind of a long distance macro lens
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That's not its strength. I would say that the bokeh quality is nicer than the equivalent zooms at this focal length
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It's just a little bit smoother and creamier in my opinion, and it's certainly capable
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of producing some really beautiful looking images with very nice color, great contrast
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lots of detail. It's fantastic optically. It even has good flare resistance
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So the amount of times that you're pointing this at the sun or some kind of bright light
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are probably going to be more rare because again, angle of view is so narrow, but at
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the same time, it does really perform well. Really there's nothing to complain about
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There isn't really any flaw that I can point to. It's a very, very strong lens optically
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So in conclusion, this is a near flawless lens in its actual performance
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I would say that the Sony teles have just a little bit better of a focus advantage and
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they tend to use, you know, dual, even quad motors to get maximum performance
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So I would say there's just a little bit more there than what we've got here, but this is
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probably going to be good enough for just about anyone and just about any kind of circumstance
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Unfortunately on Sony, it is held back by those two major Sony imposed third-party limitations
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no teleconverters and a lower burst rate. You're not going to be able to get around that
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That's just the reality of the game. Now on L-mount front, it is primarily held back by the fact that this is an amazing lens
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It really doesn't have an amazing sports camera to pair it with on L-mount
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That hopefully will change in the future and that will make this lens a really compelling
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buy there. The final consideration is that this lens is fantastic in its performance and it's a
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little bit better than the best zoom lenses that cover this right now, but it also costs
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about a thousand dollars more than either the 60-600mm from Sport from Sigma or Sony's
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own 200-600mm G lens. And so you're going to have to, you know, decide whether or not that extra bit of performance
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and the more compact size and lighter weight is worth the trade-off and of an additional
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thousand dollars. But I will also say that this is a lens that definitely fills a need and a niche that have
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existed for a long time on both Sony and Leica L-mount fronts
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And this is a lens that people have been asking for. Now we'll see if they're going to go out and buy it
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I'm Dustin Abbott and you'll stay tuned. I can give you the full image quality breakdown, but if you want more information, you can
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find buying links in the description down below and also linkage to both my full text
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review and also to an image gallery if you want to see more from it
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And now without further ado, let's dive into our detailed image quality breakdown
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Okay let's start by taking a look at vignette and distortion. You'll be excused if you don't see much difference between the image on the left and the image
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on the right. You can see that there is so little distortion that I didn't see anything worth correcting
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And vignette is actually so low that I only used a plus 25 to correct for it
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And so there's very moderately less vignette that shows up there. But really there is almost nothing to correct for when it comes to vignette and distortion
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This is an area where it definitely exceeds all of the zoom lenses that cover 500 millimeters
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that I've tested. Now this image really shows how well longitudinal chromatic aberrations are controlled
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That's the fringing before and after the plane of focus. So you can see both before and after plane of focus here
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And we can see that even with these, you know, they're just frost ice crystals that have
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formed with the sun coming very directionally through them. Lots of potential for fringing here and you can just see that there is nothing to be seen
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It's really, really well controlled. Likewise in this image where we would see maybe some lateral chromatic aberrations
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you see this house down near the edge of the frame. Now you can see that there's some heat shimmer that has affected textures, but you don't
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see any fringing. If we move up here, pan through the trees and we look up here near the edges of the
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frame, there's just no lateral chromatic aberrations to be seen. Just lots of great, great detail
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So that's another impressive performance. Now using a 61 megapixel Sony A7R Mark V here looking at f5.6, this is 200% magnification
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and you can see at this very high magnification level. The detail is just incredible in the center of the frame
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Looking at the mid frame, if anything in this zone, I would say it almost looks better
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Extremely, extremely crisp and looking down here into the corner, that sharpness profile
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just carries right into the corner and it's not just that corner
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If I look up at the opposite side, you can see an identical result
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Very well centered, very, very high performing. So to put that in context, now these two comparisons were not shot at the exact same time, but
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under similar conditions. You can see compared to the, right at near 500 millimeters on the 60 to 600 millimeter
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sport, you can see here in the middle of the frame that the prime lens has a clear advantage
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over the zoom lens. You can see in all of these textures, there's just so much more contrast in detail
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Likewise if we move into this zone, that result becomes even more noticeably different
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The prime just looks fairly soft by comparison. Now I think that the prime does, or excuse me, the zoom lens does a fairly good job in
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the corner of the frame, but the prime lens clearly has more contrast in detail either way
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And if you look up here, you can see that the textures are just popping in a way that they don't with the zoom lens
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So a clear win for the 500 millimeter DN over the 60 to 600 millimeter
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Now I have consistently found Sony's own 200 to 600 millimeter to be really better than
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just about anything that I've tested for the zoom lenses. But you can see that this prime lens from Sigma has a clear advantage over it in the
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center of the frame. You'll note also to get equivalent framing, I had to zoom into 518 millimeters
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These were shot at the same time. I had to zoom into 518 millimeters to get equivalent framing
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In the mid-frame, again, a clear advantage for the zoom, or excuse me, for the prime lens
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And then here looking into the corner, you can see once again, the prime has the clear
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advantage and that's true in both corners. So an easy win there for the prime lens
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Now taking that into a real world image, we can see here as we look at the horse, that
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there is just great detail and contrast in all of the fine hairs
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And if you look along the shaggy coat here, right on out, I mean, look how incredibly
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sharp it is even right there. Just a little bit of softening here towards the very edge of the frame, but it's not far off
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That's a fantastic performance. Now if you compare F5.6 on the left to F8 on the right, you can see that truth be told
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there really isn't any kind of noticeable improvement as you stop the lens down a bit
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All things considered, things are more similar than different. So I see you're getting pretty much maximum performance wide open
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There's just not really any kind of advantage I can point to stopping down to F8
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Now from F8 to F11, you can see that diffraction is taking away just a little bit of the contrast
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already, and that's only going to increase as you continue to stop things down
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If we compare F11, which we could already see was a little bit softer than F8, and then
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a little bit softer still from F5.6, and we compare it to the minimum aperture of F32
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you can see here that we have lost a lot due to diffraction
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The lens still looks pretty fantastic at F11, which does bode well for using even a two
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times teleconverter on Leica L-mount. But you can see that if you go beyond that, diffraction on a high resolution body in particular
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is really going to soften image quality. Now as noted before, there's nothing to write home about when it comes to the amount of
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magnification that's available right under 0.17 times. You can see that up close performance is good
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There's no problem there. I have no complaints when it comes to that
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At its worst, the 60-600mm produces this amount of magnification, and at its best, it can
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give you this kind of magnification. So and again, if you go even to 60mm, it gives you this kind of magnification
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So clearly there's much more flexibility when it comes to getting up close and working with
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the 60-600mm zoom lens. This image here I think really shows off how nice the bokeh quality is
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Just really smooth and creamy out of focus background. This shot here, again, it's a little bit further away, but it shows just how nice the background is
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Likewise, in this shot, which is maybe a more typical working distance if you're shooting
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with wildlife. At this point, I was probably about 70 feet away from the horse here
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You can see that even at that distance, it's able to blur out a background really quite nicely
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And even in this shot, where there is a really complicated background that is right beyond
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the horse, you can see that there is a little bit of jitteriness there, but not bad
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And then you look beyond that, and you can see that the background looks really soft and creamy
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So, I would say bokeh quality is definitely going to trump what we're going to see from
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any of the comparative zoom lenses. One final thing we'll look at is flare resistance
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Again, you're not going to be pointing this lens at into a bright light source very often
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but what I saw was a continued holding up of contrast, and in various positions you
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can see there's no weird ghosting artifacts or just big veiling impact
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It holds up, and basically all the metrics that I can test, this lens passes all the
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tests with flying colors. And as always, thanks to those of you who have stuck around to the very end
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Thanks for watching. Have a great day. Let the light in

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SIGMA 500mm F5.6 DG DN OS | SPORT Review | The Tele We've All Wanted?

Dustin Abbott