Sigma 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 OS Sport: Final Verdict | 4K

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you my final verdict, final review on the new Sigma
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60 to 600 millimeter. This is an F 4.5 to 6.3 DG, which means it's designed for full frame
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It has their OS or optical stabilizer, and then it has an HSM or hypersonic motor focus system in it
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Now, this is also from their Sportline, and so Sportline lenses are designed with a higher grade of weather sealing and kind of robustness of build
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with the recognition that they're going to be used in sometimes maybe more hostile type environments, more weather conditions
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you know, the things that come along with a lot of outdoor type events or wildlife shooting, that type of thing
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And also, of course, Sigma has worked to make sure that the focus systems in these sport lenses are capable of keeping up with action to some degree
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I'm here to test all of those claims here today and give you my final verdict on what my testing over the last several weeks has revealed
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And so if you missed my very first look episode, I took a look at the build and the design, kind of the handling and features of this lens
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And so if you want more detailed information and a closer look at it, I would recommend that you take a look at that episode
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I initially kind of viewed this, and I framed it in that first video, as being kind of an extension of the very popular 150 to 600 millimeter focal range
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But due to some feedback from you and further research of my own, I've come to conclude that
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this is less a, you know, kind of an addition to those or an option to those and more a kind of
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replacement for the now discontinued in everything save Sigma mount, the 50 to 500 millimeter lens
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that was often referred to as the Bigma. It too shared a 10 times zoom range. Of course, in this
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case. They've tweaked that optical formula just a little bit to where that zoom range goes now from
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60 millimeters to 600 millimeters. And I think that most people would agree that extra 100
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millimeters on the long end is worth the slight reduction of 10 millimeters on the wide end
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So certainly this lens is a pretty huge step up from that lens on a lot of different levels. And
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we'll break down some of those here today. A few things to highlight before I jump into the more
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details is that this lens is compatible with a lot of Sigma's, you know, kind of recent technological
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advances. And so that includes compatibility with the MC11 mount converter and so that you can use
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it on Sony bodies. And I'll detail a little bit about that performance a little later on in the
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review. It's also compatible with their USB dock. And so you can make, you know, different tweaks
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in terms of the autofocus performance. You can also tweak things like, you know, behavior of the
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optical stabilizer and, you know, there's some custom mode switches. And so you can help to
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program functionality into those, you know, however you would like to do that. And so certainly some
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positives when it comes to all of that. Now, I noted when I did the 150 to 600 millimeter sport
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review that I found that lens a bit of a challenge to balance. And the reason for that was, is that
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It's a heavy lens, heavier yet than this lens. So it's over six pounds for the 150-600 Sport
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This is a little under six pounds. But the biggest thing that I found
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not that that weight is necessarily killer, is that I found that because of the nature
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a lot of times you're supporting a fair ways out from the body. And the 150-600 Sport is longer still than this lens
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And so if you're supporting a ways away from your body, I found that there was quite a lot of weight
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towards the front of the lens that made it over long periods
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it would get fatiguing to try to balance that. This lens has a little bit better balance. And
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while it's not a whole lot lighter in an absolute sense, it is somewhat lighter, but not in a
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critical way. But what I have found is a little easier to balance. And I think that's because of
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the approach that Sigma took here. And so they actually have a blend of three different materials
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that are a part of the design, starting with the lens hood itself is actually a carbon fiber
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embedded plastic. And so, you know, obviously carbon fiber is incredibly tough and durable
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but it's also incredibly light. And so this lens hood, even though it's substantial
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it is really, really light. And I noted before it has a rubberized ring at the front that makes it a
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good natural place to absorb some bumps. Or even if you, you know, store the lens with it sitting
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down like this, it protects both the lens itself and then also whatever surface you set this beast
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on. So that helps somewhat there. The other thing that helps is that while the main core of this
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portion of the lens is made out of a magnesium alloy, so a metal, same kind of metal that's used
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in camera bodies, it then blends into a portion of the barrel moving out here that is actually
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made of what they call a thermally dynamic composite. That's Sigma speak for their engineered
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plastics. So byproduct of that is that they have, as you look at that, they have gone from
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you know the heaviest materials to the lightest materials in a progressive sense And I think that that was some smart engineering because I think that that has helped the balance issue that you know there yeah there still a lot of bulk away from your body but they designed it and so the materials out there are helping the balance point of the lens to where
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it's a little easier to hand hold now you will want to um there is a zoom lock here you will
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want to utilize that because as you can see zoom creep definitely happens um and it happens you
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fairly quickly and so utilizing that zoom lock if you're carrying this lens you know in a strap or
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a harness where it's pointed down you're going to want to engage that now one thing that i did
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discover as a part of my review is that i i kind of did a double take when i was doing my first look
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episode because i was looking at the specs and noting the minimum focus distance which in this
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case is right under two feet which is really really you know tiny and it wasn't reconciling
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with what i had seen in the field at that point and so i was i was just kind of curious as to
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what that was and so i mean 0.6 meters 60 centimeters is a really close minimum focus
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distance and so i i noted that when i was out in the field and of course you know typically that
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minimum focus distance is applying to you know your longest zoom position that's where you get
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your maximum magnification and i was finding that i just i was not able to focus down that closely
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after some further research you know when i started to test things on my own and then i
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started to research a little deeper into the the release materials on this i discovered that
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actually at 600 millimeters the minimum focus distance is identical to the the 150 to 600
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sport for example and so it's only 8.5 feet or two meters and so it's really not all that close at all
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that minimum focus distance is actually at the 200 millimeter position and that's where you get
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your maximum magnification figure of 0.30 times which is extremely useful but it's useful for that
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but just note that in the field you're not actually going to be able to focus down more closely on a
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subject if you're out at the longer telephoto portions and so it's maybe a little bit less
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useful than what i might like because in reality at the longer focal distances here you really
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haven't shaved anything off the minimum focus distance. So just kind of note that may not be a
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big deal for you, but I did want to clarify that. And at least for me, it helped to explain the
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difference between specs and reality is what I was seeing. And in fact, if you look closely at
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the gauge here, it actually says two to 8.5 feet, which reflects those two differences or 0.6 meters
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to 2.6 meters, also reflecting the varying minimum focus distances that are inherent to the lens
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design. Now, I also took a detailed look at the autofocus ability of this. I found that the speed
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the behavior of the focus motor is quite good. I have no complaints about Sigma's HSM motors
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They're quiet, focus speed is fairly fast. And I found in some situations, for example
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I shot a high school basketball game. Now in that kind of setting, obviously a variable aperture
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zoom lens like this, that's not particularly fast. And by the way, you do get to slower aperture
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values fairly quick. I'll throw a chart up here right now so that you can see. This has been an
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area where Sigma has kind of fallen behind both Tamron as another third party competitor
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but you know particularly first parties like Canon and Nikon you definitely hold aperture
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values longer and for whatever reason that's not been a strength of these Sigma super telephoto
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lenses and so I mean it's not a huge difference you know truth be told but it is a minor difference
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but my point is is that this lens does need a lot of light and so when I was shooting in an
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indoor gym kind of situation. I found that to get to stop action, I wanted a 1 500th shutter speed
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make sure that I was able to just stop action. I had to shoot on my 5D Mark IV at ISO 12,800
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Not necessarily a huge deal for that kind of application, and so it worked, but I wouldn't
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consider this to be the prime best lens for that kind of situation because of that smaller
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maximum aperture. Now, when I did kind of burst what I call the torture test, you know, I like to
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go out with, you know, with a dog. For example, in this case, it wasn't my dog, a dog of a friend
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a Burmese mountain dog pup. That's already a pretty big animal, but I was tracking him
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And I, what I found is that the, the burst speed tracking was okay, pretty good, not exceptional
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Now, part of what I should highlight is that you have options
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For example, in my 5D Mark IV, there's an option of you're kind of choosing what focus points you want to be active with any kind of particular lens
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And so in this case, it's under the selectable AF point. And so you can have all points active, but knowing that some of those points are going to give you less accurate results
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I typically employ the only cross type AF points setting because I know that those are the points
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that are going to give me the greatest accuracy. And so I'd rather compose using those points
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In this case I think there 65 total AF points on the 5D Mark IV or something like that It drops down to I think it 21 points that make up just the large center group And so there actually nothing out on the sides
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that show up with that setting. And so that's probably due to the maximum aperture here
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But it is a little bit limiting when it comes to tracking because if you want maximum efficiency
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with a body like this, it means you're basically needing to keep your subject centered in the frame
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which with fast moving action is a little bit more of a challenge. And so I did find in this though, there was some random misses as you'll see just all of a sudden
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in between frames, one goes out of focus and then it will come back to focus. I also found a number
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of shots where the autofocus was lagging just a little bit, you know, so for example, with the dog
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rather than the focus being on the face, it was about center of body, you know, and so
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in high speed, it was lagging just a little bit. And so I would say that, you know, this lens is not
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top tier. I think it will work pretty well for most action that isn't super, super demanding
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but I don't think that it's top tier either. And I think you are going to find some periodic
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glitches. Now, firmware in the future may help to further tweak that. And Sigma has demonstrated
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that they are capable of unlocking improved autofocus in some cases with firmware updates
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That certainly was the case with the 150 to 600 contemporary lens. And so, you know, a kind of a
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mixed bag. Pretty good for the most part, and I wouldn't certainly say don't buy it because of
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that because I think it is capable, but it's not the most capable lens that I've used in that kind
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of scenario. The other thing I want to highlight is that it did work quite well with the Sigma MC11
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on a Sony a7R Mark III, and I didn't know the big difference between my performance on my 5D Mark IV
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and my performance on the a7R III. You know, with the combination with the MC11 shooting that
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action, I did test it in that scenario. I think I got a few less keepers, you know, and I don't
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know that the processor in the MC11 is capable of keeping up with the higher burst rates on some of
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the Sony cameras, you know, having to do all of those, you know, algorithms that it's having to
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calculate to convert, you know, one focus system to another. But, you know, fairly well. And in
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terms of regular focus, you know, not high speed action, I mean, no problem. Autofocus was quick
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and fairly confident. So I have no big reservations when it comes to that front
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IAF works fine. No issues there. And it also worked fairly well using the Canon adapter on
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the new Canon EOS R. And I found maybe there that if I was doing a major focus shift, that focus
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speed might be a little bit slower than what I would see on the 5D Mark IV, like not quite as
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much voltage maybe running through it. But for the most part, it was fine. No issues there
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Now, in a secondary episode, we looked at the image quality. And so I'd recommend that you take
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a look at that episode if you want a really detailed breakdown of how this lens performs
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across the focal range. Because here I'm just going to give some general observations when it
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comes to that. I found that at 60 millimeters, the widest end of the focal range, center sharpness
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was good. Edge performance lagged a little bit. As you begin to narrow down the angle of view
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I found, you know, say starting at around 100 millimeters, image quality got really, really good
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and there is a you know there's a sweet spot there in the center of the focal range where I think that
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the lens is quite strong and I've got some really really detailed you can see a few shots here
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where I'm really impressed with the amount of detail that the lens is rendering. As we move
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towards the long telephoto end of the the zoom range I found that image quality did drop a little
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bit in my estimation and I just didn't find that textures in real world shots were as crisp and
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detailed is what I would like. I think that one thing that has happened, of course, over this
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review period is that we have gotten a little bit spoiled. And I say that by, you know, there's been
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some relatively affordable, these 150 to 600 millimeter lenses, you know, say Sigma's own
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contemporary, it can often be had for a thousand dollars or less. And yet it can produce some
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remarkably sharp images. And so when those lenses were released, we were all wowed at what they were
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capable of doing at 600 millimeters or 500 millimeters compared to what previous lenses had
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And so I think all of our expectations have climbed a little bit. This lens is fighting
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the challenge of having to cover a 10 times zoom ratio compared to a four times zoom ratio for the
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150 to 600 millimeter lenses. I say that to say expecting as good image quality out of a 10 times
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zoom ratio compared to a four times zoom ratio is frankly unrealistic. And I think Sigma has done a
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good job here, but it, I don't believe is as good at the telephoto end as what some of those other
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options are. And good color rendition, however, here, you know, bokeh quality is pretty good. I
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mean, I found it in some situations a little busier than what I like, but of course, with a
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long focal length like this, in a lot of situations, you have the ability to really compress a
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background and blow it right out. And so, you know, it's, you can achieve some pretty cool
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looking images with this. I also found that the lens did have some lateral chromatic aberration
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on the wide end at 60 millimeters. There's definitely some notable lateral CA. There's
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also some noticeable barrel distortion As you begin to zoom in however that barrel distortion quickly dissolves and there no real issue with distortion from there on out Neither is any real issue with
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chromatic aberration. They're actually quite well controlled. I also, although I don't have a Sigma
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1.4 times TC, I did throw on my Canon version 3 teleconverter or extender as Canon calls them 1.4
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times. And so with that combination, you get a 84 to 840 millimeter focal range on a Canon body
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And so you can see that kind of zoom range here. And I actually found that image quality held up
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fairly well with that combination. And surprisingly, everything registered correctly. Part of that is because this lens, which is a great trend for Sigma, like other recent Sigma
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releases, it actually is properly registered by the camera body. And it is compatible, at least
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with Canon lenses, with Canon's lens aberration correction, which means that JPEGs receive all the
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various corrections, you know, distortion, vignette, chromatic aberration, and diffraction, I think
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are the four different things that are dealt with. You know, and that your mileage may vary depending on your camera body. But, you know, in my case with the 5D Mark IV, all of those things
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are properly correct for. And the byproduct of that is that unlike the Tamron lenses, like the
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G2 lenses, which I've tested with that same Canon extender, they don't register right maximum
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aperture or doesn't register right. They don't work quite as well. The Sigma does register properly
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And I think it's because the Canon recognizes the lens properly. And in many ways it behaves
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similarly to a native Canon lens. And so that worked, you know, fairly well, I found auto folks
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work quite well. You know, you're going to take a little bit of a hit. I felt like there was less
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contrast with the 1.4 TC attached, particularly at the long end. I will note at this time of year
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it is hard to shoot distant subject. You can see it's winter here. One thing that happens in winter
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is that if you're shooting long distances and not just in winter, by the way, it happens in summer
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too. But if you are shooting over any kind of varying surface where there are thermal pockets
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where there are variations in temperature, that really, really distorts image quality
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It's almost like shooting through distorted glass a little bit. And so it can be a little bit harder to test
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shooting a distant subject like infinity. That's just a reality of shooting a long focal length
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in the real world like this. So just note that that's a part of having to review a lens like this
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at a time like this. In conclusion, I think that for those of you that view this
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in the context of being a very able replacement, a nice upgrade from the 500 to 500 millimeter
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Bigma lens, I think that you're going to be very happy with this. It's not cheap. It comes in at
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around 2000 bucks, makes it very expensive for a lot of shooters. I recognize that. It also
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of course, is offering up a pretty killer focal range that will allow you to shoot most subjects
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with that one lens if you're out with it. And so that's certainly handy because I've been out with
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150 to 600 millimeter before and found a lot of circumstances where I felt cramped by the 150
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millimeter limitation on the wide end. And so you may find that, you know, that little bit of optical
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trade-off is well worth it to you for the, you know, enhanced versatility of the focal range
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If you're viewing this in the context though, as wanting to primarily shoot telephoto, you mostly
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want to shoot at four, five, 600 millimeters, if that's really your priority, then you are much
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better served in buying one of the 150 to 600 millimeter variants. And you've got, you know
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both of the Sigma options are very good options and you can kind of break those down depending
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on your priority. If you want the higher grade build and the best autofocus and image quality
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go for the sport version. If you mostly want just good optical performance and you're less concerned
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about a high-grade build, you want a lighter, cheaper lens, then go for the contemporary version
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Tamron's G2 lens is also a good alternative at the 150-600 focal length. All of those are good
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alternatives. I don't think that this lens is a direct replacement for those. And if you're
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looking for maximum image quality and a budget super telephoto, go for one of the 150-600
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If you're looking for versatility, though, you want to go out with this one lens and maybe shoot
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both some landscape scenes, but also shoot birds, for example, or wildlife. This is really a
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compelling alternative because it gives you good image quality, good autofocus performance, not
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top of the heap in either of those metrics, but it gives you good along with an incredible amount
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of versatility. I'm Dustin Abbott. If you'll look in the description down below, you can find
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a linkage to a couple of things. I've got a full text review on my website. If you like to
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look through things and look for more information, more nuggets that I might share there, you can do that. There's also a linkage to an image gallery if you want to go
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look at more photos from this particular lens. Beyond that, there's also buying links. If you'd
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like to purchase one for yourself, you can follow me on social media, become a patron, become a
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subscriber to my newsletter. And of course, if you haven't already, click that subscribe button
22:08
right here on YouTube, please do so. Thanks for watching. Have a great day

Sigma 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 OS Sport: Final Verdict | 4K

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Sigma 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 OS Sport: Final Verdict | 4K

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