I have owned (and loved) the Sony FE 200-600mm F5-6.3 G OSS since reviewing it back in 2020. Sony took a different tack than most competing telephoto zooms by opting for an internally zooming lens, and, while that meant that the lens was larger than lenses like the Tamron 150-500mm or the Sigma 150-600mm, it also made for a lens that handled better in the field, allowing for near instant zooms, more consistent balance, and more consistency in handling. When your eye is in the viewfinder, it’s great to have everything stay in the same place for muscle memory. What’s more, that lens had great autofocus, great image quality, and was generally a lot of fun to use. Sony has now expanded on that formula with their newest lens – the Sony FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS – by shifting the zoom range 200mm further, and, in the process, creating a whole new class of lens. 600mm has been the previous limit for a lens like this, so getting up to 800mm opens up all kinds of new horizons…and the fact that it can be used with teleconverters allows for some pretty wild amounts of reach. Does the 400-800G limit up to the standard set by the 200-600G? We’ll explore that in both the video review and text reviews, or just enjoy the photos in the galleries below.
Thanks to Sony USA for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses. You can visit the product page for the 400-800G here.
While lenses like this are not for everyone, those who are always looking for a little more reach are going to be delighted with the 400-800mm G.
The 200-600G could reach up to 840mm if you used a 1.4x teleconverter, but your maximum aperture would be F9, so the 400-800G is actually the brighter option for shooting in and around 800mm. The 400-800’s range can be stretched out to 1120mm with a 1.4x, with a maximum aperture of F11. You can reach up to an unbelievable 1600mm with a 2x teleconverter, though I didn’t have one on hand to test with (I’m typically not a big fan of 2x teleconverters). Maximum aperture will be a rather dim F16, so you’ll need lots of light (and probably a slower moving subject) to make that work.
But we’ve never seen a zoom lens that reaches 800mm quite like this, and certainly not one that is quasi-affordable at roughly $2900 USD ($4100 CDN). Does that make this droolworthy lens worth pursuing? Take a look at the photos and see.
Keywords: Sony 400-800mm, Sony 400-800 G, 400-800, Sony FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS, 400-800mm, G, OSS, Sony 400-800 Review, Sony 400-800mm Review, 200-600, Sony FE 200-600, 200-600, 200-600mm, Sony FE 200-600G, 200-600G Review, Full Frame, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I have owned (and loved) the Sony FE 200-600mm F5-6.3 G OSS since reviewing it back in 2020. Sony took a different tack than most competing telephoto zooms by opting for an internally zooming lens, and, while that meant that the lens was larger than lenses like the Tamron 150-500mm or the Sigma 150-600mm, it also made for a lens that handled better in the field, allowing for near instant zooms, more consistent balance, and more consistency in handling. When your eye is in the viewfinder, it’s great to have everything stay in the same place for muscle memory. What’s more, that lens had great autofocus, great image quality, and was generally a lot of fun to use. Sony has now expanded on that formula with their newest lens – the Sony FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS – by shifting the zoom range 200mm further, and, in the process, creating a whole new class of lens. 600mm has been the previous limit for a lens like this, so getting up to 800mm opens up all kinds of new horizons…and the fact that it can be used with teleconverters allows for some pretty wild amounts of reach. Does the 400-800G limit up to the standard set by the 200-600G? We’ll explore that in both the video review and text review here.
Thanks to Sony USA for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses. You can visit the product page for the 400-800G here.
It’s a curious quirk of mathematics, but while both the 200-600G and 400-800G cover an identical number of potential focal lengths, the former is a 3x zoom ratio and the latter just a 2x zoom ratio. Moving deeper into telephoto territory also dictacted a shift in maximum aperture (otherwise the lens would have been prohibitively large and expensive). Whereas the maximum aperture of the 200-600G varied between F5 and F6.3, the new 400-800G shifts to F6.3 on the wide end as the maximum aperture and F8 on the telephoto end. More specifically:
400-482mm = F6.3
483-594mm = F7.1
595-800mm = F8
Because Sony only shows one-third stop aperture changes, there are only 3 different maximum apertures in the zoom range. So yes, the new lens is less bright at 483-600mm than the 200-600G (F6.3), but only by one third stop. That being said, the maximum aperture for more than 50% of the zoom range is F8, which isn’t particularly bright. This will be a lens best used in good lighting conditions, which means either outdoors or under very good stadium lights.
The 200-600G could reach up to 840mm if you used a 1.4x teleconverter, but your maximum aperture would be F9, so the 400-800G is actually the brighter option for shooting in and around 800mm. The 400-800’s range can be stretched out to 1120mm with a 1.4x, with a maximum aperture of F11. Here’s a shot with that combo.
That gives you can idea of just how far away these geese were!
You can reach up to an unbelievable 1600mm with a 2x teleconverter, though I didn’t have one on hand to test with (I’m typically not a big fan of 2x teleconverters). Maximum aperture will be a rather dim F16, so you’ll need lots of light (and probably a slower moving subject) to make that work.
But we’ve never seen a zoom lens that reaches 800mm quite like this, and certainly not one that is quasi-affordable at roughly $2900 USD ($4100 CDN). Does that make this droolworthy lens worth pursuing? Let’s take a closer look…
Build and Handling
It’s moments like these when I’m not quite sure where the line between Gold (G) and Gold Master (GM) lies. This looks and feels like a premium product, with a high grade of build quality, a deep suite of features, and thorough weather sealing. I’ve been impressed by just how GM these two G telephotos lenses look and feel.
As you can see, the two lenses have a very similar design, though the 400-800G just scales everything up. The size difference isn’t even as significant as this photo suggests, as the hood is actually the thing that has grown the most. If I remove the hood, you can see that the 400-800G is about an inch longer than the 200-600G.
To be more precision, the dimensions are 11.98 (D) x 34.6 cm (L), or 4.72″ in diameter and 13.6″ in length for the new lens, while the older 200-600G measures 11.15 x 31.8 cm or 4.39 x 12.52″. That’s nearly 17% bigger in overall volume, which is not too bad for a lens that reaches all the way to 800mm. The weight is 2.47kg, or 5.45lb, which is hefty but not outside the realm of being handholdable. The 200-600G weighs in at 2.11kg and the Sigma 150-600mm Sport weighs 2.1kg. Probably only the dedicated are up for using any of these lenses handheld for any length of time, though that’s almost exclusively the way that I used the lens.
On a practical note, I did find the balance point when on a tripod to be better with the 200-600G vs the 400-800G. It took more work when trying to align my test chart with the 400-800G as it was more likely to drop forward after framing.
The front filter size has increased from 95mm to 105mm, so if you’ve invested in 95mm filters on the 200-600G or a similar lens, you may need to rebuy.
The lens hood is deeper, so Sony has added a door to the hood to allow for easier rotation on a filter like a circular polarizer.
The lens hood is large, but also fairly lightweight. It has both a locking button (large and nicely executed) along with a rubberized front surface that makes for a logical place to place the lens or lens/camera combination…as in the first photo in this section.
There is a section before the tripod collar that has a bank (two banks?) of switches. They occupy the same plane but there is a line of division between them. The top section contains the AF | MF selector, a switch allowing for full time DMF (manual override regardless of what focus mode you’re in), and a three position focus limiter that allows for the full range of focus, from minimum focus to 10 meters, and then from 8 meters to infinity.
On the note of minimum focus, the lens can focus as closely as 1.7 meters (5.6 feet) at 400mm and then only as close as 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) at 800mm. Maximum magnification is 0.23x and is gotten on the 400mm end of the zoom range.
The second bank of switches is dedicated to the OSS, or Optical Steady Shot. The first switch is a simple ON | OFF, and this will override any camera setting for in camera stabilization if so equipped. The systems will work somewhat in harmony, but it is either both or neither. The truth of the matter is that in camera stabilization is rarely very effective at long focal lengths like this, however.
The second switch here is for three different modes for the OSS. The first is the standard mode, while mode 2 is for panning, and mode 3 emphasizes viewfinder stabilization to help with framing.
You can see a radical difference in trying to handhold the shot at these kinds of focal lengths when the stabilization is turned off. I could not find a rating for the stabilization in terms of stops, but the stabilization seems reasonably effective.
I tried a battery of handholding at 800mm, first at 1/8th second (ISO 800), then at 1/30th second (ISO 1600), and finally at 1/60th second (ISO 3200). I didn’t have any success in getting stable results until 1/60th second. That’s about 4 stops of assistance (see the final shot for a nice stable result).
The tripod collar/foot section comes next, and it follows the same formula as the one found on the 200-600G. The foot itself is removable, but the collar is fixed. You can rotate it by releasing the tension via a knob found on that section. The foot itself is has a standard 1/4″ and 3/8th” holes for attaching quick release style plates, but the foot is not natively Arca-compatible.
I never quite understand the lack of Arca grooves, as both Sigma and Tamron seem perfectly capable of making Arca-compatible tripod feet.
There are attachment points on either side of the tripod collar for attaching a carrying strap (included). The lens also comes with a large, padded case for storage. *My loaner is from Sony, and didn’t come with retail packaging, so I can’t picture these items.
There are two rings on the lens, the first (slimmer) being the manual focus ring. This ring has a rubberized grip and moves nicely. There’s a decent amount of damping, and the ring works well either for manual focus or DMF override. The most useful application is when photographing something like birds when focus grabs a branch in the foreground instead.
In between the manual focus and zoom rings there are three function buttons. These are at 3 of the cardinal positions around the lens, with a Sony logo at the fourth position. These are redundant buttons, meaning that each one will perform the same function (which is assigned in the camera menu). They are repeated at a variety of positions to be sure that one is close to hand whether shooting in horizontal or vertical modes.
The zoom ring is the real standout. The internal zoom design means that you can near instantly swing from one end of the zoom range to the other. I love the precision, not having to worry about zoom creep, and that the balance of the lens remains the same. This is where the additional size of the lens for storage really pays off.
Up front we have a fluorine coating on the front element along with the aforementioned 105mm filter threads.
This is the final touch on the thorough weather sealing, which starts with a gasket at the lens mount and then is backed up by a number of seals throughout the lens. I count at least 21 seals in total.
This is a professional grade lens with high quality build. The body seems to be a mix of metal alloys along with some engineered plastics. The lens feels tough and durable, and I can attest that my own copy of the 200-600G (now five years old), has definitely been that.
As noted, the 400-800G is fully compatible with Sony’s 1.4x and 2.0x teleconverters. In most situations I would recommend sticking with the 1.4x and avoiding the 2.0x. There are too many compromises introduced by 2.0x teleconverters in most situations, and the challenge of focusing with F16 as a maximum aperture could prove vexing. Third party lenses on Sony are purposely excluded from teleconverter compatibility, and, while I disagree with this policy, it is this case one potential asset for this lens over another.
This is a big, heavy lens (as you probably already knew), but the tradeoff is a very well constructed lens that is actually very nice to use in the field…if you can manage the weight.
Autofocus for Stills
*Before entering the formal test sections for autofocus and optics, I do want to add a general caveat that the extreme nature of a lens like this means that all of my typical test processes go out the window. I don’t have enough room indoors to perform them, so everything has to get reinvented outside…where I have less control over certain variables.
Pairing a Sony telephoto lens with a Sony sports camera is generally a delight. Combine a lens like the 400-800G with one of the a9 or a1 bodies and it will feel like enabling a cheat code. Tracking is just so good! Sony has employed dual linear motors to drive focus here, and that helps give the lens the speed it needs. I tested focus on an Alpha 1 body, but Sony adds this for those shooting with the lower resolution but ultra fast a9III: “Tracking easily keeps up with the 120 fps maximum burst speed of the α9 III, and continues uninterrupted even while zooming so important moments are not lost.“
In my formal tests, I found that focus speed was faster at the 400mm than at the 800mm end, with the former being basically instant and the latter having just a slight pause as intertia builds.
There’s plenty of speed for tracking everything from sports to birds in flight…with one caveat we’ll soon address.
I shot a burst of 138 shots tracking a Canada Goose soaring low over an ice floe where many other geese were gathered. Despite having many subjects (and occasionally having foreground bushes partially blocking my view) tracking was csonsistently excellent, keeping the goose in perfect focus all throughout the burst.
There is a challenge, however, and that’s you are going to need good light if your subject is moving. I tested tracking of a running subject in a fairly well lit field house, and tried to bias everything as much in the lens’ favor as possible. I shot near 400mm to keep maximum aperture at the brighter F6.3, jacked the ISO up to 6400, and even so I was getting shutter speeds no faster than 1/200th of a second and sometimes slower. That just wasn’t fast enough to reliably stop the action, so while focus and tracking were good, most of the shots are impacted by some motion blur. There’s a specific point int he sequence where the runner has landed from one stride and hasn’t taken off on the next, and those tended to be the most stable shots.
This is why 500mm and 600mm F4 lenses cost so much and are so big – getting sufficient light gathering in a long telephoto is a real challenge.
Focus remained good throughout the sequence, however, moving forward in a nice linear fashion so that I continued to get accurate focus even when the runner was relatively near the camera.
I saw enough to assure me of two things: Sony really knows how to do autofocus and this is definitely an outdoor lens!
I always hate when long telephotos get released during Canadian winters (which it seems like they invariably are), as it makes find subjects extremely difficult. In this case, because the river is only open in a certain channel and there is a lot of unstable ice near the edge, I couldn’t really get close to any waterfowl subjects on this particular day. That meant a lot of 800mm shooting, and you can see that even with that extreme magnification I wasn’t all that close to my subject. Because I had only one angle, it also meant that the sun was on the wrong side of these geese, leaving the side of their heads facing me in shadow. A black eye on a black background in shadow is hardly a high contrast subject, so I was very impressed to find that eye detection worked pretty consistently, and I was able to get accurately focused results.
In better light (and at a different location where I could get closer) I had no problem getting the shutter speed I needed to perfectly stop action.
Slow subjects are no problem, obviously, and this shot of Ferrari (658mm, F8) shows perfect focus.
Bottom line is that the limiting principle won’t be autofocus…but it could possibly be the amount of available light.
Autofocus for Video
Sony has worked hard at making their lenses (and cameras) to be equally good whether doing photo or video work. I did my formal tests at the 400mm end, as the working distance at 800mm just requires far more room than I have easy access to. I found a nice level of damping, with no visible steps and smooth transitions from one subject to another.
At 400mm, focus breathing is extremely well controlled, even with Sony’s “Focus Breathing Compensation” turned off. You can see from the third stills capture below that the size of the distant subject stays mostly the same regardless of being in or out of focus.
My hand test went fine, though it was very odd to be doing it at a distance of about 40 feet rather than 6. The amount of compression at 400mm makes it feel like there is very little distance between my hand and my face, but I could see that focus was transitioning smoothly back and forth.
I tracked some turkeys walking around my backyard, and focus mostly kept steady on them as they moved in an agitated fashion (they knew I was there). There was one occasion where focus did shift to a foreground bush momentarily, but it mostly stayed where I wanted.
Overall I would say that focus works well in video as well. The extreme nature of the focal range does provide some challenges, but it isn’t because of the autofocus.
Image Quality Breakdown
As you would expect, the complexity of the optical design has grown from the 200-600G. Whereas that lens had an optical design of 24 elements in 17 groups, the the Sony FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS is one of the most complex optical designs I’ve seen, with 27 elements in 19 groups. That matches the Sigma 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 DN Sport lens, another extremely complex lens (some 50mm primes have as little as 5 or 6 elements!). The 400-800G’s optical design includes 6 ED (Extra-low dispersion) elements. The MTF chart included below gave me a little chuckle, as Sony tends to show both wide open and then F8 results. That fine for the first row, which includes first the 400mm results at F6.3 and then at F8. The bottom row, however, shows the 800mm performance, and since the maximum aperture is F8, it actually shows the same results twice.
Those results are pretty impressive, though, showing an extremely sharp center (over 90%) at 400mm and nearer to 100% at 800mm. The midframe is also impressive at both focal lengths, with some fade in the corners (arguably far less important in a lens like this). That fade is pretty consisent on both the “radial and tangential” axis at 400mm, though at 800mm the corner drop is almost entirely on the tangential plane.
The key advantage to a telephoto zoom lens is that it gives you a lot more control over framing. Often shooting with a prime lens is frustrating either because you are too close or too far. A zoom lens doesn’t solve all of those problems, but it means that you have both this extreme:
And then this extreme as framing alternatives:
800mm was too tight of framing for the shot below, so I was able to back off to 740mm to get the composition I wanted, something I wouldn’t be able to do with a prime.
A zoom lens is extremely useful, particularly if you have a fixed location to work from.
So how about the optical details?
I saw a minimal amount of longitudinal type chromatic aberrations in some real world shots, mostly showing up as some blue-green fringing in high areas of contrast, like this:
I didn’t see much of it in my shots of geese with shiny ice around them, however, leaving me to believe it won’t be any problem in real world shots.
I didn’t really see any lateral style chromatic aberrations near the edges of the frame either on my chart or in real world results.
I only set up one test chart outside (and ended up regretting that a bit, as it got a little dirty), so I’m going to pull my findings on vignette and distortion from my main chart. Here’s how far I had to be away to test 800mm:
No, I don’t have that kind of room in my basement! And yes, we still have snow (March 21st). I actually cleared some of the snow to make sure that I had enough space to test the full range of the lens.
Distortion is consistently of the pincushion variety, with some ebb and flow throughout the zoom range. Here’s a look at 400mm before and after correction.
The pincushion isn’t bad at 400mm, requiring just a -4 to correct, and you can see that it corrected in a linear fashion leaving straight lines on the frame around my chart. Vignette is also pretty minimal, with no more than a stop of peripheral shading (I used a +30 to correct).
In the middle of the range, the distortion increases a bit (-6), but the vignette remains extremely low.
At 800mm the distortion needs only a -3 to correction, and vignette remains pretty neglible. Nothing that is going to cause anyone any problems; I never saw anything more than about a stop of vignette, which frankly you just won’t notice in real world shots. This shot of a turkey was taken at 681mm, F8, and there has been no correction. Note how bright the snowy bottom corner is.
That big front element is letting in plenty of light to the corners of the image circle.
So how about sharpness and contrast? I did these tests on my Sony a7RV and its 61MP sensor. Crops are shown at roughly 200% magnification (as always) to highlight strengths and weaknesses. If you aren’t experienced with long telephoto lenses, know that sharpness results are much more dependent on environmental conditions. You are often shooting at much great distances, and there are many more variables like thermal pockets that cause heat shimmers and other optical disturbances. Shooting with long lenses requires skill and developing a sense of what works and what doesn’t…often some trial and error. I shot my test chart results multiple times to broaden the sample size for this reason. I used my most stable tripod and also moved from a 2 second timer to a 10 second timer to reduce vibrations. I’ve mixed and matched here to show the best results I found.
You’ve already seen the test chart earlier, so I’ll go right to the deep crops. This is 400mm, F6.3, with crops from the center, mid-frame, and bottom right corner.
Detail is good, though contrast isn’t exceptional. To put this in perspective, however, here’s a comparison to the 200-600G, taken within a few minutes of each other (so similar lighting conditions).
What I found is that the 400-800G was very slightly better – a tiny bit more sharpness and contrast – all across the frame. I was pleasantly surprised by that, as I’ve always considered the 200-600G to be one of the best lenses I’ve tested in this class.
The MTF suggests a mild improvement when stopped down to F8, and I’m sure that in a lab under perfectly controlled conditions that’s true, but I didn’t really see much of a difference in any of my tests. here’s a real world example and crop at 100% that shows good detail and mostly good contrast at F8.
This is a variable aperture lens, and that affects not only the maximum aperture; it also affects the minimum aperture. This varies from F36 on the wide end to F45 on the telephoto end. I would shoot through F11 and try to avoid anything smaller than that as diffraction will definitely play havoc with resolution and contrast.
At 500mm the maximum aperture is F7.1, but I do see a bump in performance…particularly in contrast relative to 400mm.
600mm felt a little softer to me than our sharpness peak at 500mm. We have reached the smallest maximum aperture of F8 by this point.
Checking back in with the 200-600G, I found that comparing across multiple samples left me feeling that while there is some give and take, contrast favors the 200-600G by a small margin.
The truth of the matter is this is probably a matter of splitting hairs, however, as unless you were looking at this ridiculous level of magnification with them side by side (as I have here), you probably wouldn’t notice the difference.
This real world shot of Ferrari shows that while contrast isn’t off the charts, there’s a nice amount of detail being resolved at 600mm.
Moving on to 800mm shows decent resolution but lower contrast wide open. What’s interesting is that even a very mild stop down to F9 (one third stop) has a pretty dramatic effect on contrast. Here’s a look at the center:
Then the corners…
In both cases you can definitely see a noticeable difference.
I decided to see if that bore out in the real world. It definitely did. I used this as my test subject (nice and flat):
In both the cropped areas below, the F9 result is noticeably more contrasty than the F8 result.
So pro tip: if you buy this lens, don’t hesitate to stop it down that one third stop. You’ll get much better results at very little light gathering penalty.
And frankly, I feel like real world results at 800mm could use that bit of a boost. Detail and contrast are good but not great at F8:
That little boost definitely gives you the advantage over using the 200-600G and the 1.4x teleconverter. That combination can get you to 840mm with a maximum aperture of F9, but as you can see, the 400-800G is noticeably better than the TC combination at F9:
My conclusion is that the resolution may not be “wow” at 800mm, but it is better than what any of these type lenses have achieved previously (by reaching there with a teleconverter). What’s more, you are avoiding the inconvenience and expense of the teleconverter. Currently the 1.4x Sony TC costs $548, and that definitely would help close the $900 gap between the 200-600G and the 400-800G.
How about the bokeh? My answer to that is, “it depends”. When you are a longer distance to your subject (and thus the background is less blurred out), I find that the background gets a bit busy, with some jitteryness in the transition zone.
Ditto with the foreground obstructions that you will often encounter when birding.
Likewise here I found this complex background to be rather unappealing.
In more favorable ratios, however, where the subject is closer and the background is further, the bokeh looks much more pleasing.
This shot is somewhere in between, with the subjects being at a medium distance, but the background is a little less complicated.
My conclusion is that like many of these type lenses, the 400-800G is more optimized to try to get as much sharpness as possible rather than delivering amazing bokeh. If you want amazing bokeh at 800mm, grab the $13,000 Sony 600mm F4 GM and use a 1.4x TC on it. There’s only so much heavy lifting that a zoom lens like this can do.
I didn’t point the 400-800G right into the sun, but I also never saw any real flare issues when panning across it while tracking. You will see some loss of contrast at certain positions with intense midday sun, but it is obviously very easy to avoid these situations with such a narrow angle of view.
This isn’t a flawless lens optically, but neither does it have any significant flaws. Any optical shortcomings I see are put into perspective when I compare it to a lens that I think to be very good and have taken some amazing photos with. It lets me know that if I had this lens in similar conditions, I could expect as good or even slightly better images. Check out the image gallery if you would like to see more images.
Conclusion
Lenses like the Sony FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS are going to be completely wasted on a large swatch of the photography world but will immediately send a certain subset to place a preorder as quickly as possible. Many will find a lens like this too big, too heavy, and too expensive, and that’s fine. And even if you aren’t one of those, I would encourage some patience should you purchase one. Lenses like this have a learning curve, and you have to learn how to use a lens like this to its strengths and start to develop a feel for what situations it will and won’t thrive in.
But while a lens like this isn’t easy to use, modern autofocus makes it infinitely easier than it would have been. To be able to get 30FPS (or even 120FPS on the a9III) while tracking across the full sensor is a pretty unbelievable experience. I used to hate reviewing lenses like this because long focal lengths made it so hard to acquire a bird in flight, for example. Focus would hunt back and forth, and even assuming you eventually acquired focus, it would rarely be with the framing you sent out to capture. But yesterday I was looking at hundreds of geese out on the ice, none of whom seemed interested in flying, until out of the corner of my eye I saw one take off. I turned and immediately was able to grab focus (at 556mm), and every frame in the 138 burst that followed was in focus…starting from this, the very first one.
That means that there will be far more situations where a photographer can get both the focus and the framing they want, and end up with more of the moments like this (770mm, F8), where it is actually a shot that I’m proud of.
This is, frankly, pretty much the ugliest time of the year where I live. So if I can shots that I like with this lens NOW, it lets me know that photographers shooting at better times of year will be able to get shots that they love. And that makes the $2900 Sony FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS not only the first Sony zoom to reach 800mm, but also makes it probably the best zoom to hit 800mm.
Pros:
The first Sony zoom to reach 800mm
Beautiful build quality including robust weather sealing
Excellent handling (internal zoom helps balance)
Good feature set allows you to stay out of the menus
Incredible autofocus performance – quiet, fast, and accurate
Pair it with a Sony sports camera and get amazing tracking
Strong, consistent optical performance across the zoom range
Low vignette
Good contrast and chromatic aberration control
Can be used with Sony’s 1.4x and 2.0x TCs
Better optically than 200-600 + 1.4x at long ranges
Cons:
Slow maximum apertures mean that you’ll need good light
Keywords: Sony 400-800mm, Sony 400-800 G, 400-800, Sony FE 400-800mm F6.3-8 G OSS, 400-800mm, G, OSS, Sony 400-800 Review, Sony 400-800mm Review, 200-600, Sony FE 200-600, 200-600, 200-600mm, Sony FE 200-600G, 200-600G Review, Full Frame, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I personally welcomed the announcement of the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens for the simple reason that it created a way to get extended reach for Sony shooters without breaking the bank. Tamron helped create a huge market for the “affordable super-telephoto” class of lenses when it released the 150-600mm F5-6.3 VC USD back at the beginning of 2014. Many amateur photographers will never be able to afford the supertelephoto prime lenses from Sony, Canon, or Nikon that often cost $8000-14,000, so to have an affordable yet competent lens with a lot of reach is a huge deal. This Sony option has a slightly more restricted focal range (starting at 200mm rather than 150mm), and a slightly smaller maximum aperture (starting at F5.6 rather than F5), but it is a more competent lens than any of the other similar lenses I have used. It really sings on my Sony a9 body, and I’ve had more fun using it than any of the similar lenses before because the autofocus combination feels almost like cheating…in the best sort of way! The FE 200-600G (as we’ll call it for brevity) will satisfy the “good enough” threshold for a lot of people for whom a lens like the Sony 400mm F2.8 GM lens is completely out of reach (it costs six times as much). It’s easy to be satisfied with “less” when you can get photos like this:
It has taken Sony a while to start to develop their catalog of telephoto lenses, but thus far their lenses have proven quite good. Bodies like the a9/a9II, a7III, or a7RIV have been crying out for exceptional lenses to take advantage of their powerful focus systems, and the 200-600G is probably the most likely candidate for many photographers to fill that niche. The FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS has been the most likely candidate to fill that role until now, and, while there are still some advantages to a lens like this (form factor, size, and weight), it requires the use of teleconverters to achieve serious reach. Using teleconverters can be limiting, as they reduce the available maximum aperture to F8 (1.4x) or F11 (2.0x). That requires a lot of light, so a lens that can reach 600mm at F6.3 (only 1/3rd stop smaller than F5.6) is very useful for having more flexibility in the kinds of lighting you can achieve action-stopping shutter speeds at.
The 200-600G isn’t a perfect lens, but it is a very good one. It’s good enough that I have been debating purchasing one ever since using it even though I know that I rarely use lenses like this. But having it as an option for when I do is a compelling thought…and we’ll explore why in this review.
Prefer to watch your reviews? I have either a quick take video review or a more thorough one available:
I’ll be reviewing the FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 on my Sony a7RIII and Sony a9 bodies, and you can see photos from both cameras below. Stay tuned for my ongoing coverage.
If you aren’t familiar with this kind of lens, your first impression is going to be that this is a BIG lens. There are many larger lenses than this, of course, but the size of this category of lens makes most non-telephoto lenses look small by comparison. I’ve had the opportunity to review a number of lenses in this kind of category, from the Contemporary and Sport versions of Sigma 150-600mm, the 60-600mm Sport from Sigma, and the Tamron 150-600mm “G1” and G2 lenses. I’ve also reviewed large telephoto primes. I’m happy to report that the build, handling, and feature set of the 200-600G is definitely on the higher end of the scale in this group.
First of all, however, here’s a chart that will provide some perspective on the size of the lens:
You’ll note that the 200-600G is easily the longest lens of the four lenses being compared here, topping the Sony 100-400GM by 113mm and the Tamron G2 by nearly 60mm. The Sigma Sport is the closest in length, but the Sony is still some 28mm longer. All is not lost here, however, as of the four the 200-600G is the only internally zooming lens, meaning that it’s length does not change during zooming, whereas the other three lenses will get considerably longer when zoomed to their maximum focal lengths. There is both a positive and a negative way to view this. The negative is that the 200-600G will unquestionably take the most room for storage. I took it out on a hike yesterday and in my Peak Design Everyday 20L backpack it barely fit top down with the hood in place. The 100-400GM is the easy winner if portability is your priority, though even with a 1.4x extender it won’t quite get to 600mm.
The positive way to look at this is that I vastly prefer using this lens in the field over the 150-600mm variants due to the fact that the balance stays the same no matter what focal length you are at. I find it the best of the long lenses I’ve used to support as the fixed nature of the length allows the balance point to work best. The Sigma Sport is the worst for this, as a lot of the weight is located farther out from your body where it is the most difficult to support it. Another benefit to this design is that the zoom action is easily the smoothest of the group. You can zoom the lens with a finger without disrupting your tracking.
One final area of benefit from an internally zooming and focusing design is that there is much less chance of introducing dust into the lens because there is no “pumping” action. The 200-600G sports a thorough weather sealing, from a fluorine coating on the front element, gasket at the lens mount, and (according to this diagram from Sony), a grand total of 15 seal points throughout the lens. The rings, switches, and transition points in the lens are all well-sealed, which is very reassuring.
While the Sony 200-600G is longer than competitors, it isn’t necessarily heavier. It is significantly heavier than the 100-400GM, obviously, though that is a much smaller lens. The 200-600G weighs in at 2115g (4.65lb) compared to the 1395g (3.075lb) pf the 100-400GM. Compared to the lenses more similar in size, however, the Sony takes the middle ground. It is ever-so-slightly heavier than the Tamron (2010g, though that 5 grams would be undetectable), and is significantly lighter than the Sigma Sport (2860g).
The design of the tripod collar/foot is interesting. The foot itself is easily removable in what is the best such design I’ve seen thus far. It is similar to the Canon 100-400L II in that the foot is removable but the collar is not. The point where the foot can be mounted is easily rotated out of the way if you want to use the lens handheld, though I personally find the foot a good way to support the lens in the field.
Where I ding the tripod foot itself is that it isn’t Arca-compatible, meaning that you cannot directly mount it on a tripod without a quick release plate. I don’t understand this at all. It seems like such a small thing to design for and makes a big difference. The collar itself can be easily released via the locking knob so that you can rotate it to your preferred position. There are dots that mark the four cardinal positions, but no detents there, so you will have to visually align them.
The 200-600G includes Sony’s Focus Hold button, though in this case they have included it in three locations so that when the lens is rotated on the collar you will still have easy access to one of them. The Focus Hold button can be programmed to a variety of functions in the camera body.
Both the zoom and manual focus rings are wide, ribbed, and rubberized. As noted previously, the zoom ring is top notch. It moves very smoothly with the perfect amount of damping. The focus ring also has a nice feel and I couldn’t detect any lag in the “focus-by-wire” arrangement. In a nice touch, it is a linear ring, which means that a focus point will be consistent whether you are focusing quickly or slowly. This arrangement allows for more repeatability.
As per usual, the active focus area will be magnified when input is detected on the focus ring and an on-screen distance scale will appear. Everything works about as well as you could wish for here.
Closest to the lens’ mount is a bank of switches. There is an AF/MF switch accompanied by a focus limiter with three positions (Full, 2.4-10m, and 10m to infinity). Using the focus limiter effectively will help in certain situations, though thankfully autofocus is extremely fast in all situations. The second bank of switches is an On/Off for the OSS (Optical Steady Shot) and a secondary switch where one can choose which mode to the use the OSS in. Mode 1 is standard, Mode 2 is panning, and Mode 3 is for following erratic action (BIF) where stabilization in the viewfinder is minimized and stabilizing the image at capture is prioritized.
The OSS works seamlessly with the In Body Image Stabilization (IBIS) on my test cameras, and is effective in both the viewfinder and at capture. I was able to get fairly repeatable results at 1/20th second at 600mm, though frankly this is a fairly useless metric. If you are going to be capturing moving subjects (sports or wildlife) with this lens (it’s main purpose), you need to keep the shutter speeds up to freeze the action. The OSS seems to do a good job when using it in a normal way, which is what matters most to me. Here’s a 600mm shot at 1/13th second:
The 200-600G has a higher aperture blade count (11) than usual, which gives it the advantage of maintaining a more circular aperture when stopped down.
The 200-600G is a variable-aperture zoom, starting at F5.6 and ending at F6.3. This is a very minor aperture brightness change – one third stop – which is the smallest amount of “variable-aperture” possible. The lens holds F5.6 as a maximum aperture from 200-300mm and then is at F6.3 from 300mm on. This gives it a slight disadvantage compared to some other lenses that hang onto a wider maximum aperture a little longer. The Tamron 150-600mm G2, for example, doesn’t hit F6.3 until 428mm, for example.
The 200-600g is compatible with both Sony’s 1.4x teleconverter and 2.0x teleconverter. Using the 1.4x TC will give you a maximum reach of 840mm (with a maximum aperture of F9) and the 2.0x will give you a maximum reach of 1200mm (with a maximum aperture of F13). While the latter combination will autofocus on several Sony cameras, I’m not a huge fan of 2.0x TCs in many instances as the compromises to autofocus and image quality outweigh the potential advantages of additional reach, though your mileage may vary.
Sony has included their Nano AR coatings on elements to help eliminate flare and ghosting. I did see a bit of flare when panning across the sun, but the narrow angle of view on a lens like this means that flare is rarely an issue.
The minimum focus distance of the 200-600G is 2.4m (7.87′). This gives you a maximum magnification figure of about 0.20x, which is useful but not exceptional. The FE 100-400GM easily bests this.
All told, this is a beautifully handling lens (if you can handle large!) that feels and operates like a serious, pro-grade lens. It isn’t giving up much of anything compared with far more expensive lenses that I’ve tested. The price point of $1999 USD, while not cheap, is definitely backed up by the professional grade build and handling of the lens.
Autofocus Performance
Sony’s website says this about the focus motor: “Sony’s DDSSM (Direct Drive Super Sonicwave Motor) system has the power and precision needed to drive the lens’s mechanism for remarkably fast, accurate focusing. High positioning accuracy means that no movement is wasted.” From everything I have seen, this is far from marketing hype. The focus system on the 200-600G is awesome, though the degree of awesomeness varies according to what camera you have the lens attached to.
Put simply, I saw a bigger degree of variability between my Sony a7RIII and my Sony a9 than I’ve previously seen in performance. The lens is good on the a7RIII but approaches sublime on the a9.
My main tracking tests were courtesy of a friend who is a dog breeder (Jengar Goldens) who brought three of her golden retrievers (of varying ages) out so that I could test tracking on them. We tracked the dogs in free play and also in some staged runs to torture test focus. The a9/200-600G combination felt pretty much like cheating. Since I wanted both JPEGs and RAW files, I kept the camera on Uncompressed RAW and Extra Fine JPEG (most demanding combination), so my burst rate dropped to about 14FPS (not much to complain about!). The ease with which the combination acquired and maintained focus was like no combination I’ve ever seen with the 150-600mm or 60-600mm variants.
At 14FPS you get a bunch of images in a hurry, and I can recall three throwaway images from nearly 500. In those three images I spotted some action and just started “pulling the trigger” before focus was really acquired, and got three completely unfocused frames before the AF caught on to what I wanted to do. Other than that, however, while there were minor variations of front/back focus during sequences, they were so minor that I had to pixel peep and strain to see them. And this was with dogs moving very, very fast towards the camera. Very impressive.
So focus speed and accuracy is excellent. I used Pet Eye AF during those sequences and saw a lot of eye tracking during flat out runs. Like I said – so good it felt like cheating.
Interestingly, I also tried video under the same conditions and found that the focus tracking for video was far less impressive. This might have been helped by changing the focus AF tracking sensitivity (I had it on 3 – standard), though I didn’t think to change that setting in the field as my primary purpose there was for photography tracking.
Human Eye AF also worked very well, though this is a pretty long lens to use for portrait work. You can see that focus was impeccable, though.
Focus was also extremely quiet under all conditions. The DDSSM does not produce any audible noise unless you put your ear right on the lens barrel.
On the a7RIII I had a little more mixed results, which is obviously more the nature of the focus system of the camera than of the lens. I tried to track little birds flitting around some trees (the amount of wildlife I have access to in a Canadian winter is limited!). I found acquiring focus more frustrating, as focus would seem to “stick” more often than with the a9. The shots I got were well focused, but there were also a number of shots I missed because focus was more reluctant to get where I wanted, and by the time I got focus there the birds had moved. Here’s one that I got in that scenario in APS-C mode (an equivalent of nearly 700mm on this shot):
For slower moving targets, this combination is fine, but I would recommend utilizing bodies like the a7RIV, a7III, and, best of all, the a9 or a9II for serious tracking. The advantage of the a7RIV here is that it has a killer APS-C mode with a 26mpx resolution, and the focal length becomes a killer 300-900mm equivalent on APS-C.
The 200-600G gets extremely high marks for its autofocus performance. Pair it with one of Sony’s better AF cameras and you will have a fantastic focus experience.
Sony FE 200-600G Image Quality
While Sony designated the 200-600G a “G” rather than “G Master” lens, the 200-600 has many of the qualities that I typically associate with a GM lens. The lens has a fairly complex optical formula with 24 elements in 17 groups, which includes one aspherical element and five ED (extra-low-dispersion) elements. Sony has also applied its Nano AR coatings on the elements to reduce flare and ghosting. In my tests I saw few optical flaws and feel like this lens gives a more consistent performance than what I’ve seen with any of the similar lenses that I’ve tested. You can get a good look interactively at the image quality by watching the image quality breakdown portion of the thorough review (begins at 17:52).
At 200mm there is a bit of pincushion distortion but negligible vignette. You will only see either flaw if you set out intentionally to look for it, as this will be corrected in-camera for JPEGs or video and RAW files have an embedded correction profile that will automatically show up in your editing software. Correction does a very clean job.
The story at 400mm is largely the same, with an even smaller amount of pincushion distortion and vignette that is easily and cleanly corrected.
Ditto at 600mm. No real concerns in this area…at all.
Due to very inclement weather during my scheduled time to do formal lens tests (a blizzard), I shot a series of tests indoors both with charts and then the beautiful cover of a book of portraits by Gregory Heisler. I positioned the book both in the center of the frame and then, in a second series, in the upper left corner of the frame. Here’s a look at the setup:
If we look at a pixel level from my 42mpx Sony a7RIII, we find that while resolution remains strong in the corner, the center of the frame exhibits higher levels of contrast and slightly higher resolution:
Other than the reduced contrast, even the corner of the frame looks exceptional (I have balanced the exposure difference in post).
Stopping down to F8 adds little in terms of additional resolution, though contrast is slightly improved (note that the bright areas are brighter while the dark areas are a little deeper in the F8 image):
The quick takeaway is that you are getting very close to peak performance wide open at 200mm. Here’s a few real world 200mm samples and crops:
Pretty great stuff.
At 400mm there is a little more disparity between the center and corner contrast, though there is still plenty of resolving power there:
Stopping down to F8 gives a hair more contrast in the corners, but it’s only minor:
Real world 400mm results were excellent (even when in action!):
Finally, we see a consistent performance at 600mm, where the difference between center and corner contrast and resolution is fairly even. There continues to be more center contrast, but this is an impressive performance:
Stopping down to F8 improves contrast levels as before, but you are getting great results even wide open at 600mm. Here’s some real world proof:
I would argue that 600mm is easily the most important part of this zoom range. I looked at my Lightroom catalog and calculated that nearly 40% of all the photos that I took during my review were shot at 600mm (from 588-600mm), and I suspect that number might be even higher if I had not been intentionally testing the lens at other focal lengths. The performance of 200-600G is remarkably even across the zoom range, which could be in part the decision to slightly restrict the focal range compared to the 150-600mm variants. I should also note that the great focus systems in some of Sony’s better cameras and their Real-time Eye AF and Pet AF tracking allows for the optical properties of this lens to be realized more consistently than what I’ve seen before. Kudos to Sony!
I also found that chromatic aberrations were well controlled, with next to no visible longitudinal CA to see in this test:
I saw a bit of veiling and ghosting when I panned the lens across the sun, but the narrow angle of view means that this will rarely (if ever) be an issue.
The bokeh from the 200-600G is not going to be mistaken for the often exceptional results from the uber-expensive super-tele primes. They often produce a near magical subject isolation due to the combination of aperture and focal length. This lens has a smaller maximum aperture, of course, and so it isn’t as special. Neither, however, was the bokeh objectionable in any way, and the long focal length/compression of the lens means that backgrounds will frequently be strongly blurred:
You can even use the lens for landscapes in certain big vistas:
All told, the Sony FE 200-600G is a lens that competes very, very strongly in this class and is unlikely to leave many people optically disappointed.
Conclusion
Essentially all the arguments against a lens like the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS are arguments against the type of lens rather than the reality of the lens. The high end purists will argue that a zoom lens with a smaller aperture like this is optically compromised, though the 200-600G is so well executed that this argument is a little harder to make. There are certainly situations where a lens with a smaller maximum aperture is going to require more light than an equivalent prime with a maximum aperture of F4, and the subject isolation is a little less pronounced. The alternative at the moment is the Sony FE 400mm F2.8 GM lens + a 1.4x teleconverter (which would give you 560mm F4), but that combination will cost you roughly $12,500 before taxes. Ouch! For many of us, the 200-600G is about as magical as we can afford, and shots like this “ain’t so bad”.
The other argument is due to the form factor. For many, the smaller size and reduced weight of a lens like the Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM is more attractive. Perhaps when you travel, you need to carefully watch the weight of what you carry, or perhaps the physical strain of handholding a larger lens like the 200-600G is a limiting factor. These are legitimate concerns. The counterargument is that where the two lenses overlap the 200-600G is every bit as good (and sometimes better) optically, and if you add the 1.4 TC to the 100-400GM the price becomes roughly 50% higher than the 200-600G.
There are few objections to the actual lens itself that I can make. It has a pro-grade level of build quality, weather sealing, and features (including one more mode on the OSS than the 100-400 GM). The DDSSM focus motor is silent, fast, and accurate. The image quality is consistently good across the zoom range with few optical shortcomings. I prefer the internally zooming design in the field because of the consistent balance and ease of zooming. Put simply, if you need longer reach for your photography, and can manage a bit of weight, the 200-600G is an easy choice. The nearly $2000 USD price tag is not cheap, but the performance to value ratio for this lens scores pretty high. This is the kind of lens that many of us wanted from Sony, and they have delivered a winner!
Pros:
Beautiful build quality including robust weather sealing
Excellent handling (internal zoom helps balance)
Incredible autofocus performance – quiet, fast, and accurate
The 200-600G tracks remarkably well with better cameras like the a9
Human and Pet Eye AF work well
Strong, consistent optical performance across the zoom range
Good contrast and chromatic aberration control
Cons:
Internal zoom design does make the lens larger for storage
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Keywords: Sony 200-600, Sony FE 200-600, 200-600, 200-600mm, Sony FE 200-600G, 200-600G Review, Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS, F5.6-6.3, 5.6-6.3, G, OSS, Dustin Abbott, Review, Autofocus, Sony a7RIII, Sony A7RIV, Sony a7R IV, Sony a9, Hands On, Video Test, Portrait, Video, Sharpness, Real World, Comparison, Action, AF-C, Tracking, Eye AF
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I personally welcomed the announcement of the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens. Tamron helped create a huge market for the “affordable super-telephoto” class of lenses when it released the 150-600mm F5-6.3 VC USD back at the beginning of 2014. Many amateur photographers will never be able to afford the supertelephoto prime lenses from Sony, Canon, or Nikon that often cost $8000-14,000, so to have a competent lens with a lot of reach is a huge deal. This Sony option has a slightly more restricted focal range (starting at 200mm rather than 150mm), and a slightly smaller maximum aperture (starting at F5.6 rather than F5), but it is a more competent lens than any of the other lenses I have used. It really sings on my Sony a9 body, and I’ve had more fun using it than any of the similar lenses before because the autofocus combination feels almost like cheating…in the best sort of way! You’ll be seeing more action shots than usual in my gallery! I’ll be reviewing the FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 on my Sony a7RIII and Sony a9 bodies, and you can see photos from both cameras below. Stay tuned for my ongoing coverage.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: Sony 200-600, Sony FE 200-600, 200-600, 200-600mm, Sony FE 200-600G, 200-600G Review, Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS, F5.6-6.3, 5.6-6.3, G, OSS, Dustin Abbott, Review, Autofocus, Sony a7RIII, Sony A7RIV, Sony a7R IV, Sony a9, Hands On, Video Test, Portrait, Video, Sharpness, Real World, Comparison, Action, AF-C, Tracking, Eye AF
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.