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Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DG DN Sport Review

Dustin Abbott

November 16th, 2023

It’s finally here! After Sigma released their 24-70mm F2.8 DN ART at the beginning of 2020, we all expected that a 70-200mm alternative to the expensive GM lens would be right behind. But three months later it was Tamron that came out with their 70-180mm F2.8 VXD, and that lens became the de facto alternative to the GM lens. Surely Sigma’s own 70-200mm would come soon…but three more years have gone by. During that time Sony released an exceptional (but expensive!) 70-200mm F2.8 GM II, and earlier this year Tamron was back with a much improved G2 version of their 70-180mm F2.8 lens. I say all of that to say that Sigma has obviously waited to refine the formula for their own lens – the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DG DN Sport – and give it an extra degree of polish. That has undoubtedly resulted in a more complete lens, but it also means that some of the competitors have had time to become more thoroughly established in the market. Has taking their time paid off for Sigma? You can get my thoughts in my video review below or by reading on…

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Thanks to Sigma Canada (Gentec) 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.

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The Sigma 70-200mm DN follows Sigma’s recent trend of competing directly with Sony’s own GM lenses in terms of features and performance…but not with price. This is an extremely feature rich lens, and, as per usual, Sigma’s “Sport” designated lenses carry Sigma’s highest degree of build quality. This is a lens capable of performing in challenging environmental conditions and producing stunning images.

I think one of the main reasons why Sigma held off as they did is that while their lest robust STM motors might work with a lens like the 24-70mm F2.8, a 70-200mm lens (particularly with the “Sport” designation) required a more robust focus system. Sigma developed and first released that system with the 60-600mm Sport lens they released at the beginning of 2023. That focus system is called HLA, and it is a high powered linear focus system that allows for the faster, more responsive focus needed in a sport oriented lens like this one. In this case we have dual HLA motors and focus is near instantaneous. That allows you to tackle more subjects with the lens.

The Sigma offers real value compared to the GM lens, coming to market at an MSRP of $1499 USD, meaning that it is $1300 cheaper than the $2800 USD Sony GM II lens and a few hundred dollars more expensive than the $1300 USD Tamron 70-180mm G2. That feels like a good price point for the Sigma where it can offer strong value for money on either Sony E or Leica L mounts. Let’s dive into the details and find out if that is in fact the case.

Sigma 70-200mm DN Build and Handling

Sigma divides its lenses into three different categories: Contemporary, Art, and Sport.  The Contemporary lineup gets the lowest level of build and weather sealing while the Sport lenses do have the highest grade of weather sealing because they are the most likely to be used in inclement conditions (the ART lenses fall in between).  Many sporting events will take place regardless of weather conditions, and, surprisingly enough, most wildlife is waterproof!  With that in mind, the Sigma 70-200mm DN Sport has Sigma’s highest grade of weather sealing.  While I haven’t seen a diagram yet (I’m doing this review before the public release of the lens and before any such diagrams are available), Sigma says this of the weather sealing, “The mount connection, manual focus ring, zoom ring, switches, switch panel and exterior connection are all dust and splash resistant* to prevent dust and dirt from entering the lens.”  That sounds like proper seals in all the places I would expect.

As with other “Sport” lenses I’ve tested, the 70-200mm DN feels very professional grade.  Sigma uses a variety of materials in the design of the lens body and hood, including magnesium, carbon fiber reinforced plastics, and “thermally stable composite” (a high end engineered plastic that has an excellent thermal expansion rate). Sigma’s last 70-200mm F2.8 Sport lens for DSLR mounts was far and away the heaviest lens in the class (1800 grams), but Sigma has been more diligent in reducing the weight here. The 70-200mm DN Sport weighs in at 1345g (47.4oz), which is 455g less. Unfortunately that still makes it the heavyweight on Sony E mount, as the Sony 70-200 GM II is only 1045g and the reduced focal range Tamron a lighter still 855g. I happened to still have the Tamron on hand from my review of that lens, and the difference in weight is extremely noticeable. The Sigma will not be the top choice of those interested in “traveling light”, but it does feel very robust and professional grade. The Tamron continues to be the top choice if you want to pack light – the visual difference between it and the Sigma is significant.

They scarcely look like the same class of lens, particularly when the Tamron is in the retracted position. That weight difference is slightly exaggerated by the fact that the Sigma has a full non-removable tripod collar. It is an integrated design. The Sony GM II also has an integrated tripod collar, but in that case the foot can be easily removed (without tools). You can only remove the Sigma foot with tools, so prepare to have it mounted all the time. On a positive note, I found the weight balance on a tripod to be excellent using the tripod collar, and I also appreciated that it has strong detents at the four cardinal positions, making it easy to stop at those spots by feel. One core advantage over the GM lens is that the Sigma tripod foot is ARCA-compatible, meaning that it can go onto most tripods without the need of a quick release plate.

The 70-200mm DN is an internally zooming lens, so it will not change length during either zooming or focusing. The constant exterior dimensions are 90.6mm in diameter (3.6″) and 205mm in length (8.1″). That is very slightly larger than the GM II lens, which is 88 x 200 mm. The front filter thread is a very common 77mm, which is smaller than the 82mm filter thread the Sigma Sport lens for DSLRs sported.

The lens hood mounts and marries into the lens in an interesting way. The mounting mechanism is more like Sigma’s larger telephotos lenses, as it It attaches via a tension knob on the bottom (it doesn’t bayonet on). But what is interesting is that the way hood mounts actually results in a bit of overlap over the zoom ring near the front of the lens (by perhaps 3mm), resulting in an unusual look that I associate more with a lens hood reversed for storage. There’s still plenty of room to access the zoom ring, but the look is a bit odd.

The lens hood is made of carbon fiber infused plastics, is ribbed inside, and, as is common with long telephotos, has a rubberized rim that will allow you to stand the lens on the lens hood (which is much more stable a position than standing it up on the rear lens cap). I would probably have preferred a more traditional bayonet style hood (I find hoods with the tension ring more fidgety to mount and remove), but I do give Sigma some appreciation for the way they’ve taken a few chances and experimented with some of the basics in recent lenses. I’m not sure they’ve improved things over the traditional process, but at least they’re trying.

A large nylon padded case with a carrying strap is also included. Sigma’s lens storage cases are among the nicest in the industry.  Sigma does go the extra mile in the presentation of their lenses, and they are proud that their products continue to be fully assembled in Japan.  

The 70-200mm DN is an extremely feature rich lens that easily rivals the most recent GM lenses for controls. That starts with the basic like the Focus Hold/Function buttons, which are redundantly added in three different positions, meaning that you have easy access to one regardless of how the lens is rotated. They all have the same function; there are three of them for easy access, not for multiple functions.

You can see from the first photo in the sequence below that there is a lot going on if you look at the side the lens. It may take a little longer to learn where everything is just because there are so many different controls on the lens.

There’s a bank of four switches on the left side of the lens.  The top switch (AF/MF) is a fairly good size, but the other three switches (like the 60-600mm Sport) are smaller, fairly flush, and a little stiff to operate.  The first of these is a focus limiter with three options, including Full, 3m to infinity, and minimum focus to 3m.  You can obviously increase focus speed by employing this, though I did find that focus was fast enough that I never reached for it.  The third switch down is a three position switch for different OS (optical stabilizer) modes.  Mode 1 is the Standard mode, while Mode 2 should be utilized while panning, as one axis of stabilization will be turned off to provide for smoother side to side panning.   Sigma does note that the 70-200mm DN has “Intelligent OS” that utilizes info from an accelerometer to help with panning.  The third position is an OFF switch for the stabilizer. 

The final switch is dedicated to custom modes (OFF | C1 | C2).  On DSLRs you could buy the Sigma USB dock and use the Sigma Optimization Pro software to tweak some functionality (including the function of custom buttons), and, while that same functionality is available to Leica L mount customers, it isn’t for Sony shooters (who make up the lion’s share of the market).  That means that function of these switch positions is fixed, and they are really just more OS options.  C1 prioritizes stabilizing the viewfinder (probably a good option if you’re shooting video or just have shaky hands), while C2 is called “Moderate View” and seems to focus more on stabilizing the image at capture and less on stabilizing the viewfinder (a good option in situations where you need to be very reactive to erratic movement).  This final option option gives you the most stable results on your shots, but the image in the viewfinder will not feel very stable.  C1 does a nice job of really keeping the viewfinder steady, though, and is my favorite for video capture. To recap – on Sony (at least for now), the “Custom” buttons are not really customizable buttons but are additional modes for the OS system. If you are using the L-mount version of the lens and the USB dock, you’ll be able to also tweak the distance employed on the focus limiter and assign a new value to the custom buttons. I think Sigma should probably follow Tamron’s lead and start in build a USB-C port into the lenses so that Sony shooters can benefit from the same custom options as L-mount shooters.

The OS is a Sigma’s new and improved system (OS2) which significantly improves the rating of the OS compared to previous Sigma lenses.  This new system is rated at a whopping 7.5 stops on the wide end and 5.5 stops on the telephoto end, and you can really feel the improvement. As before, you can’t turn off the lens’ OS without turning off the camera’s IBIS, so I can’t tell you whether the two systems work in conjunction or not.  What I can tell you is that the stabilization works well in both steadying the viewfinder and in allowing for low shutter speeds. Here’s one at 200mm and 1/6th of a second.

Sigma has found a way to work an aperture ring into the design of the 70-200mm DN, which will be welcome to those who enjoy this type of aperture control and also to video shooters because of the “declick” option. The is the first Sigma zoom (ever) to get an aperture ring. The aperture ring is the first of three rings on the lens barrel, and it is quite slim.

There are a variety of different options for controlling the behavior of the ring. The standard setup is that the ring has detents at each 1/3rd stop from F2.8 through F22. Those “clicks” are well defined and have a fair amount of resistances at each one. To the left of F22 is some resistance and then a gap to “A” or automatic mode where aperture is controlled from within the camera (either by the camera or the photographer). On the right side of the barrel there is a “Iris Lock” switch that allows you to lock into the aperture ring (keeping you from inadvertently switching into Automatic mode) or to lock you out of the manual focus ring and keep you in Automatic mode if you prefer not using manual aperture control. This being a constant aperture zoom, the maximum aperture of F2.8 remains throughout the zoom range.

Down underneath the bank of switches is another switch that allows you to “declick” the aperture. This removes all of the detents at traditional aperture positions and allows you to smoothly “rack” the aperture iris open or closed. This is mostly preferred by video shooters for the ability to rack the aperture to control depth of field during shots. This is a feature perhaps wasted on many photographers, but it is obviously a highly requested one, as we see this showing up on more and more premium lenses. The switch is a little inaccessible, but that’s probably okay, as this is not a switch you’ll regularly be reaching for. You tend to set it according to your preference and leave it.

There are two other rings on the lens – the zoom and manual focus rings.  The manual focus ring is the first of the two, coming right after the aperture ring with just a few millimeters of space between them.  It has very nice damping and a good feel, and the ergonomic position is good. When handholding the lens the tripod foot sits naturally in the palm of your hand, leaving your thumb and forefinger free to smoothly rotate the ring. 

The zoom ring is located near the front of the lens and has a nice bevel in the first third of the ring to help to give it a tactile distinction from the other rings. It also has a larger, wider rib pattern. I do find the overhang of the lens hood a little odd, but there is still plenty of room there to grip it and zoom. This is an internally zooming lens, so nothing extends during zooming action. Internally zooming lenses tend to have smoother zooming action, and that’s true here, though there is a tiny bit of “drag” that I feel during the zoom action. It isn’t quite as smooth as the GM lens when zooming. It’s worth noting that Sigma persists in their zoom and focus direction being opposite of every other lens that I’m aware of on the Sony platform. Everything moves left to right, while Sony lenses (along with other brands) go right to left. My muscle memory often had me attempting to zoom or focus in the wrong direction as a byproduct of that.

Unfortunately there is another key area where the Sony E-mount version of the lens is limited compared to the L-mount version. Sony has limited teleconverter compatibility to first party Sony lenses, so unfortunately you won’t be able to use teleconverters with the 70-200mm DN on Sony. I was able to physically mount my Sony 1.4x teleconverter, but nothing registered through the camera with that combination. No aperture or lens information, and, unlike in the DSLR days when manual focus was direct, you can’t even use the lens as a manual focus lens because manual focus only works when the focus input is routed through the focus motors. You simply cannot use the lens with a Sony TC mounted…and there are no Sigma branded E-mount teleconverters. That’s not Sigma’s fault, but unfortunately it will be one reason for some photographers to spend the extra money and get the Sony version.

L-mount users can use either the TC-1411 (1.4x) or TC-2011 (2.0x) teleconverters with the lens.  There are obviously a couple of advantages for Leica L-mount owners due to Sigma being part of a consortium that utilizes the mount and its focus protocols.  It is technically a “first party” lens in L mount.

Like many modern zoom lenses, the 70-200mm DN has a variable minimum focus distance depending on the focal length.  At 70mm the MFD is 65cm (25.6″), but at 200mm the MFD is 100cm (39″).  The maximum magnification figure is on the telephoto end, where you can get a 0.19x magnification. Here’s what that maximum magnification (at 200mm) looks like.

That’s useful, but unfortunately it does lag significantly behind the Tamron (0.38x) and Sony (0.30x). That didn’t stop me from getting some lovely “up close” images with the lens.

This has a become an extremely competitive class of lens in recent years, but the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DN is largely able to stand toe to toe with the Sony GM II lens and match it feature for feature…and at a much lower price. The biggest downside has to be the extra weight for the Sigma, but other than that it is a beautifully made lens loaded with professional grade features.

Sigma 70-200mm DN Autofocus

I’m glad that Sigma waited until they had developed their new focus system before releasing this lens, as the 70-200mm DN will be one of the most important lenses in their lineup.  The new HLA (High-response Linear Actuator) focus motor is a definite improvement over the stepping motors Sigma used in the past (and continues to use in less demanding lenses).  Here’s how Sigma describes the focus system, “A linear motor is a linear actuator that controls electromagnetic forces and can be driven freely, enabling high-speed AF. It can move the heavy focus group while ensuring the lens remains quiet, but the weight is relatively heavier.”  “The weight is relatively heavier” is an awkward phrase in English, but it essentially means that while typical stepping motors are smaller and lighter, the linear focus motor here is more powerful and has the necessary torque for rapid focus changes even with the heavy glass elements that a telephoto zoom with a maximum aperture of F2.8 throughout has. Sigma actually employs dual HLA focus motors in this setup to assure there is plenty of speed for all activities.  And you can definitely feel the speed, as there is little hesitation when making focus changes and instead focus is essentially where you need it be near instantaneously.  

A 70-200mm F2.8 zoom is a workhorse. It joins a standard zoom like Sigma’s 24-70mm F2.8 DN as being one of the top two most used lenses for many professionals. That means that it will be used for a wide variety of subjects – from portraits to sports and pretty much everything else in between. The inability to use teleconverters (on Sony) means that sports will perhaps be limited to court-based sports (basketball, volleyball, etc…), but a lens like this needs to be very reactive to focus changes to assure that people don’t miss those critical action shots.

But let’s start with the simpler side of autofocus. When doing my focus change tests, I found that most major autofocus changes either indoors or outdoors were near instantaneous. Low lighting conditions will slow things down very slight (as per usual), but the powerful focus motors allow focus to be prompt even in those conditions.

Eye AF lock was quick and accurate. I could move around and the “green box” would stay sticky on the eye of my subject at different angles. I had perfect results during a portrait session even when I put a variety of different layers in front of my subject. She wore sunglasses for part of the session, but that proved no problem.

It’s always a little frustrating to me when I get telephoto lenses for testing in winter…and though it is November, winter came early this year.  Many of my typical wildlife subjects are either in hibernation, have limited movement, or have just headed to warmer climes for the winter!  It’s difficult to find active subjects, and I did a few hikes through the woods packing the 70-200mm DN without seeing a single bird or even a squirrel. I had to find alternate subjects.

One of those came in the form of Nala, who was kind enough to at least move around on the snow so I could track her action. She wasn’t moving particularly fast (snow is new to her), but tracking was pretty much perfect during that sequence (263 shots during a few bursts) with only a few very minor variations.

I wanted something moving a little faster, so I asked my son if I could shoot a sequence of him heading off to school on his eBike. The bike (which I reviewed here) can accelerate very quickly and has a top speed of 28MPH, making it a decent action subject. Further complicating things was a sudden snowstorm, so you’ll be able to clearly document the misery of riding to school in a snowstorm from my son’s face. All of the falling snowflakes makes for a focus challenge, but I was happy to see that focus stayed linear and tracked him well without getting distracted.

I had hoped to photograph basketball, but when we went to the gym for a pickup game, we discovered that all of the space had been booked by badminton and pickleball clubs, so we weren’t allowed in. I saw enough during my action sequences to get a good feel of the performance. As per usual, I do think that the 2nd gen Sony branded 70-200mm lenses (70-200 GMII and 70-200mm F4 G Macro) provide slightly better performance than any of the third party alternatives, but the Sigma 70-200mm DN is clearly better than the first gen Sony lenses and is close to the 2nd gen lenses in tracking performance.

During my video autofocus tests I saw promising results. Focus pulls were smooth and confident. I also noted that focus breathing was well controlled, allowing the framing of the subject to be fairly constant regardless of the focus position.

When I did my “hand test” where I alternately block/unblock the camera’s view of my eye with my hand. The focus transitions were smooth other than one sequence where it grabbed the background instead of switching to my hand. This was consistent with a few experiences I had for stills where autofocus refused to grab the foreground subject and required me to manually focus into the right zone. That happens on occasion, and using the focus limiter can help.

This brings me to one other area on Sony where Sony has artificially tilted the playing field in their favor. Burst rate for third party (non-Sony) lenses is artificially limited on Sony’s sport cameras (the a9 or Alpha 1 series) to 15FPS in burst speed.  15FPS is still very fast, obviously, but if you’ve made a big investment in a sports camera, you might want to consider a Sony lens for that simple reason. I haven’t yet tested this on the a9III and its insane burst rate, but on my Alpha 1 the burst speed with a Sony lens is up to 30FPS but only 15FPS with a non-Sony lens.  It’s not fair, obviously, but it’s pretty typical for camera makers to try to bias things in favor of their own lenses.  This and the limitation on teleconverters does give Sigma a few disadvantages to have to work around.

But this might just be something you are willing to put up with in order to keep an additional $1200+ in the bank! Sigma has equipped the 70-200mm DN lens with a premium autofocus system, and I suspect that most people will be very happy with autofocus performance.

Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 Sport Image Quality Breakdown

The Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DN is a fairly complex optical design of 20 elements in 15 groups. This includes a total 11 exotic elements, broken down as 6 FLD (low dispersion), 2 SLD (special low dispersion), and 3 aspherical elements). Sigma’s most recent 70-200mm lens (the 70-200mm F2.8 Sport) released in 2019 for DSLR mounts like Canon EF and Nikon F. Sigma’s lens technology has clearly progressed since that point, however, as they are able to deliver a lens that is clearly improved at both the wide and telephoto end despite condensing the size and reducing the weight. The MTF result is excellent, delivering a better than 80% result all across the frame on the wide and telephoto ends. The 200mm results in particular are exceptional, starting at extremely sharp in the center of the frame and dropping only about 8% even in the extreme corners. Impressive.

Gone are the days when lenses released into this segment were asked to resolve only 20 or 22MP.  Today a lens like this will be asked to resolve 61 MP Sony a7RIV/V or Sigma FP-L bodies…so flaws are easier to spot. Lenses need to be extremely sharp to shine despite those demands, but the Sigma has no problem doing so.

We’ll dive into more scientific tests together, starting with a look at controlling longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA). This shows up as fringing before and after the plane of focus, particularly at large apertures. We can see from the chart result that fringing is nearly perfectly controlled both before and after the plane of focus.

Light coming through this glass mug also provides a great opportunity for some fringing, but you can see from the detail crop from this photo that there is no fringing to see.

I also saw little evidence of lateral chromatic aberrations along the edge of the frame. You can see that the transitions from black to white are clean without any evidence of fringing.

How about vignette and distortion? Here is a look at the distortion and vignette patterns at 70mm, 135mm, and 200mm. 

At 70mm there is a very mild amount of pincushion distortion that is very linear and easy to correct. I used a -3 and got a perfect correction. Vignetting was also very mild, requiring a +27 (about one stop) to correct.

The amount of pincushion distortion slightly increases at 135mm, needing a -7 for proper correction. The distortion pattern remains nicely linear and corrected easily. I used a +26 to correct the very mild vignette.

At 200mm there is a slight bit more distortion (-8 to correct) but vignette was surprisingly less still, requiring only a +21.

You can see from this uncorrected landscape shot at 104mm, F2.8, that neither vignette nor distortion presents a problem. This is a very well corrected lens.

I did have access to a correction profile Lightroom/ACR provided by Sigma, but frankly it really wasn’t needed. There isn’t enough distortion or vignette to present any kind of real correction issue. Sigma lenses enjoy solid profile support in camera for JPEGs and video along with good profile correction support in editing software.

So how about sharpness and contrast? The MTF charts from Sigma suggest an exceptional performance. Is that we’ll find? 

All of the tests below are done on the 61MP Sony a7RV, which is Sony’s highest resolution full frame mirrorless camera at the time of this review.  Here’s a look at the test chart we’re using for the tests.

If we start at 70mm, F2.8, we find that the lens produces stunningly good sharpness across the frame. The corners in particular stand out to me for excellent sharpness and contrast. Here are the roughly 180% magnification crops from the center, mid-frame, and lower right corner.

There’s enough resolution there for any task even on this high MP camera. Here’s a 70mm, F2.8 shot of friends out for a winter walk with us. You can easily see what model of camera my friend is holding in his hand…and that was just shooting MRAW resolution on my Alpha 1.

There was plenty of resolution for this wide open landscape shot at 70mm:

Such a strong wide-open performance leaves less room for improvement when stopping down. I didn’t expect any major improvements at smaller apertures, and that proved accurate. You can see a bit of a boost in spots across the frame when choosing F4 rather than F2.8:

By F5.6 the Sigma 70-200mm DN is producing corners that are just about as sharp as I’ve ever seen with a 61MP sensor. They look remarkably good.

In real world use you won’t be looking at 200% (and probably rarely at 100%), so you can primarily use stopping the lens down for increased depth of field rather than a need for increased sharpness or contrast.

Diffraction will be a factor after F8, however, particularly on the high resolution cameras. Minimum aperture is F22, but you can see that from F8 to F22 the image has dramatically softened due to diffraction. F22 is the minimum aperture throughout the zoom range, but the same observation is true at other focal lengths.

At 100mm the lens is very slightly softer across the frame, but still extremely good. You can only see the difference when comparing 70mm and 100mm:

You can see from this F2.8 “Jolly Roger” shot that the lens is extremely crisp in real world use at 100mm.

Stopping down to F4 improves image quality to levels that we saw at 70mm. There’s a much more dramatic difference when stopping down than we saw previously. Look at how much more contrast there is on Churchill’s face on the right side.

At 135mm the lens starts to sing. It is ridiculously sharp even at F2.8. You can see just how fantastic it looks compared to 100mm (135mm on the right side):

Remember that this is being shown at 200% magnification on a 61MP camera. That’s very, very impressive! Detail for portraits is exceptionally high.

This is a lens you are more likely to soften rather than try to sharpen!

You can squeeze a bit more sharpness out of 135mm by stopping the lens down a bit, but again I would say you only need to if you are looking for more depth of field rather than more resolution.

170mm (also marked on the lens barrel) is nearly as sharp, having perhaps 1-2% less contrast but still exceptionally good. The 170mm result is on the right side in the comparison below.

Here’s a portrait shot taken near 170mm. It is fantastically sharp even at F2.8:

So if 135mm is the high water mark thus far, how does the critical 200mm mark compare? Let’s take a look:

200mm is almost identical to the 170mm mark. It is very slightly softer than 135mm, but is exceptionally sharp. It’s a shame a lens like this cannot be used with teleconverters on Sony, as it would obviously handle them very well. It’s got the sharpness, contrast, and low aberrations that would allow it handle that stress and still deliver very sharp results. At least on Sony (at least on my a7RV) I have the option of easily switching to APS-C mode and getting 300mm on the telephoto end with a still useful 26MP of resolution.

It goes without saying that portrait shots at 200mm show fabulous detail:

Some of you may be asking for some context for this fabulous performance. I also raved over the sharpness of the recent Tamron 70-180mm F2.8 G2 lens. How do they compare? Here’s a 70mm, F2.8 comparison from the center of the frame.

The Tamron is delivering slightly more detail and contrast, though both are great. How about the corner?

Not much difference there. The Tamron image seems slightly brighter, but the amount of detail and contrast is quite similar. If I look at 200% all across the frame I see a little give and take between the two. They are both fantastic.

So how about the telephoto end? The Tamron ends at 180mm, so I’ll compare that to the 200mm of the Sigma, as the Sigma delivered nearly identical performances at 170mm and 200mm.

The Tamron is a little better in the center, while the Sigma shows an advantage in the corner. Once again there is some give and take depending on where you look in the frame, but both lenses are exceptionally sharp.

So who is the winner? You can see a more thorough comparison in this video:

But ultimately, we are, as the consumers. We not only have two very different alternatives to the outstanding but expensive Sony 70-200mm F2.8 GM II; we have two exceptionally good alternatives.

There will always be two schools of opinion when it comes to using telephoto prime lenses or zooms, and, as we can see, the zoom options are perfectly capable of providing all the detail we could want while also providing the versatility of the zoom range. Where prime lenses tend to excel is in their ability to deliver shallower backgrounds because of typically having larger maximum apertures. Put simply, a good prime lens will often deliver nicer bokeh than the equivalent focal length on a zoom lens. That’s true here, too, as the bokeh is very nice from the 70-200mm DN, but not as exceptionally creamy as, say, a 135mm F1.8 prime lens. At closer focus distances, 200mm will pretty much obliterate a background, which certainly helps.

At medium distances you’ll find that the backgrounds aren’t quite as clean, however. There’s a few more edges than what I would like, though I still really like the image despite that.

The bokeh in both the foreground and background looked nice in my portrait session, so I have no real complaints about the quality of bokeh.

Unfortunately the sun decided to not show its face during my review period, leaving me to have to simulate it with a spotlight. Not as effective, but at least it allowed me to evaluate how the 70-200mm DN did with bright lights in the frame. Flare resistance seems good, with just a mild ghosting pattern at smaller apertures (like F11 – in first image) but little loss of contrast and detail. Larger apertures hold up really well, so this should be an easy lens to shoot backlit portraits or if you get stadium lights in the background.

All in all, this is an exceptional optical performance. Sigma clearly took their time and got this lens right. There really isn’t much any optical weakness that stands out, and this lens will give you near a GM level of performance at a much lower price tag. You can check out even more photos by visiting the lens image gallery here

Conclusion

The Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DG DN Sport lens nails the Sigma formula, namely to provide similar levels of features, build, and performance as the top first party lenses at a much lower price tag. The Sigma checks most all of the boxes that I could have hoped for: nice build, great feature set, great OS, great autofocus, and a fantastic optical performance.

There are only two flies in the ointment: the first is the fact that the Sigma is easily the heaviest lens in the class, so there will be some that out of necessity or preference will choose a lighter option. The second potential issue is Tamron’s excellent 70-180mm F2.8 G2 lens. The Sigma is better built, has more features, and better OS (not to mention that crucial extra 20mm), but the Tamron is cheaper, MUCH lighter and smaller, and delivers similar levels of optical performance. There’s no wrong answer, there, but neither is there a clear cut winner.

The Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DN is a more direct competitor to the Sony G Master lens, however, and if all things were equal, it would be hard to justify the extra $1300 for the GM lens. But Sony has made sure things aren’t equal, however, so if you want to use teleconverters or unlock the top burst speeds on Sony’s sport cameras, you still have to spend the extra money and choose the Sony lens. But not everyone wants to use teleconverters, and not everyone is shooting with an a9 or Alpha 1 body, so I suspect there will be plenty of takers for Sigma’s long awaited take on the vital 70-200mm F2.8 zoom lens. The 70-200mm DN is an exceptional lens: feature rich, beautifully built, and high performing. And, at a price point of $1499 USD, it’s also reasonable. And, on Leica L, this probably becomes the most desirable telephoto zoom available from day one.

That’s a win.

We’re glad the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DG DN Sport is finally here!

Pros:

  • Good quality of construction including robust weather sealing
  • Feature rich – competes directly with Sony
  • An aperture ring!
  • Improved OS – up to 7.5 stops on the wide end and 5.5 stops on the telephoto end
  • Dual HLA focus motors provide quick, accurate focus
  • Enough focus speed and reactiveness for sports
  • Good video AF performance
  • Low focus breathing
  • Low distortion and vignette
  • CA well controlled
  • Great sharpness across the zoom range
  • Good flare resistance
  • Nice bokeh rendering
  • Great price to performance ratio

Cons:

  • Heavier than competing lenses
  • Lower burst rate on Sony’s top sports cameras compared to a Sony lens
  • No teleconverters on Sony

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Keywords: Sigma 70-200, Sigma 70-200mm, Sigma 70-200 DN, Sigma 70-200mm Review, Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DN Review, DN, DG, OS, DG, Sport, Tamron 150-500 VC Review, Sony 200-600, Sony 200-600mm, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN DG OS Sport, Sigma 100-400, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II,  Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin, DA

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Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DG DN Sport Gallery

Dustin Abbott

November 16th, 2023

It’s finally here! After Sigma released their 24-70mm F2.8 DN ART at the beginning of 2020, we all expected that a 70-200mm alternative to the expensive GM lens would be right behind. But three months later it was Tamron that came out with their 70-180mm F2.8 VXD, and that lens became the de facto alternative to the GM lens. Surely Sigma’s own 70-200mm would come soon…but three more years have gone by. During that time Sony released an exceptional (but expensive!) 70-200mm F2.8 GM II, and earlier this year Tamron was back with a much improved G2 version of their 70-180mm F2.8 lens. I say all of that to say that Sigma has obviously waited to refine the formula for their own lens – the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DG DN Sport – and give it an extra degree of polish. That has undoubtedly resulted in a more complete lens, but it also means that some of the competitors have had time to become more thoroughly established in the market. Has taking their time paid off for Sigma?

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Thanks to Sigma Canada (Gentec) 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.

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The Sigma 70-200mm DN follows Sigma’s recent trend of competing directly with Sony’s own GM lenses in terms of features and performance…but not with price. This is an extremely feature rich lens, and, as per usual, Sigma’s “Sport” designated lenses carry Sigma’s highest degree of build quality. This is a lens capable of performing in challenging environmental conditions and producing stunning images.

I think one of the main reasons why Sigma held off as they did is that while their lest robust STM motors might work with a lens like the 24-70mm F2.8, a 70-200mm lens (particularly with the “Sport” designation) required a more robust focus system. Sigma developed and first released that system with the 60-600mm Sport lens they released at the beginning of 2023. That focus system is called HLA, and it is a high powered linear focus system that allows for the faster, more responsive focus needed in a sport oriented lens like this one. In this case we have dual HLA motors and focus is near instantaneous. That allows you to tackle more subjects with the lens.

The final piece of the puzzle is the price, and, while that has not been finalized at the time of my review, the range is between $1500-1600 USD, meaning that it is over $1000 cheaper than the $2800 USD Sony GM II lens and a few hundred dollars more expensive than the $1300 USD Tamron 70-180mm G2. That feels like a good price point for the Sigma where it can offer strong value for money on either Sony E or Leica L mounts. You can watch the video review above, read my text review, or just enjoy the photos here.

Photos of the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 Sport

Photos Taken with the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 Sport

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Purchase the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DN @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

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Keywords: Sigma 70-200, Sigma 70-200mm, Sigma 70-200 DN, Sigma 70-200mm Review, Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DN Review, DN, DG, OS, DG, Sport, Tamron 150-500 VC Review, Sony 200-600, Sony 200-600mm, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN DG OS Sport, Sigma 100-400, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II,  Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin, DA

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Sigma 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 DG DN OS Sport Review

Dustin Abbott

January 12th, 2023

It’s hard to believe that just a few short years ago the primary complaint on the Sony platform was a lack of telephoto options.  Sony was the first to address the problem with the 200-600G (my review here), but then Sigma and Tamron jumped in with both feet.  Sigma released the 100-400mm DN (my review here) followed by the 150-600mm DN Sport (my review here).  Tamron, not to be outdone, released the 70-300mm RXD (my review here), then the 150-500mm VXD (my review here), and then followed that up with the 50-400mm VXD lens (my review here).  That’s six quality telephoto options in the past three years, but Sigma has at least one more trick up their sleeve.  One of their last new lenses for DSLRs was released in early 2019 in the form of the 60-600mm Sport (my review here), a lens that dramatically increased the subject possibilities when compared to the typical 150-600mm focal range.  That extra foray into wider angle meant that suddenly the zoom ratio jumped from 4x to 10x.  Sigma has brought a new version of that lens into the mirrorless world in the form of the new Sigma 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 DG DN OS Sport (hereafter referred to as the 60-600DN).  This will instantly become the most dramatic telephoto focal range on the Sony platform, allowing you to frame a scene like this at 60mm:

…but also punch into it and capture the details like this at 600mm:

Can you think of a few subject possibilities for a zoom range like that?  I thought so!

If you don’t “speak Sigma”, here’s a quick breakdown of what those letter combinations in the name mean.  DG is Sigma’ designation for a lens designed for full frame (DC denotes APS-C).  DN refers to lenses designed for mirrorless cameras (in this case the lens will initially come to Sony E-mount [tested here] and Leica L mount, with hopefully other mounts in the future).  OS refers to “Optical Stabilizer”, an in-lens stabilization system which is one of the upgrades in this design (to Sigma’s new OS2 designation).  Finally, “Sport” is the designation Sigma gives to its better quality telephoto lenses designed for capturing action in demanding situations…or birds in flight.

The other highlighted feature here is a new focus system designed with the idea of increased torque and speed for a high performing lens like this one.  Sigma calls this “HLA”, which stands for “High-response Linear Actuator”.  There is a clear improvement in focus speed with this new focus motor, delivering near instant focus changes.  That’s really going to help Sigma be more competitive with the other telephoto options listed here, as that focus speed will really enable you to capture the action you’re looking for.

There are a lot of positives in this new lens that will come to market at the same price as the previous 60-600mm Sport lens (about $2000 USD).  That’s about a $500 premium (at MSRP pricing) over the Sigma 150-600mm Sport and about the same as the Sony 200-600G lens.  The Sigma obviously has the best focal range of any of these lenses, but is it your best bang for the buck?  You can judge for yourself by either watching my video review below or reading on to get the full picture.

 

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Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release 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 a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Sigma 60-600 DN Build and Handling

Sigma divides its lenses into three different categories: Contemporary, Art, and Sport.  The Contemporary lineup gets the lowest level of build and weather sealing, while the lines are a little more blurred with the Art and Sport lenses.  Typically, however, the Sport lenses do have the highest grade of weather sealing because they are the most likely to be used in inclement conditions.  Many sporting events will take place regardless of weather conditions, and, surprisingly enough, most wildlife is waterproof!  With that in mind, the Sigma 150-600 DN Sport has Sigma’s highest grade of weather sealing.  While I haven’t seen a diagram yet (I’m doing this review before the public release of the lens and before any such diagrams are available), Sigma says this of the weather sealing, “Dust and Splash Resistant Structure is applied to the joints of the mount, manual focus ring, zoom ring, switches, switch panel, and exterior parts to prevent dust and dirt from entering the lens. Water and Oil Repellent Coating is applied to the front element of the lens.”  That sounds like a very thorough weather sealing to me.

As has been the case with all of the “Sport” lenses I’ve tested, the 60-600DN feels very well built.  Sigma uses a variety of materials in the design, including magnesium, carbon fiber reinforced plastics, and “thermally stable composite” (a high end engineered plastic that has an excellent thermal expansion rate).   The byproduct of these quality and yet lightweight materials is that the lens has shed 205g when compared to the DSLR version.  That’s very welcome in a lens that still weighs in at 2485g (87.7oz).  This is not a light lens…but it is lighter.  Even this lighter weight makes it the heaviest in this class on Sony.  That’s about 370g heavier than the Sigma 200-600G (2115g) and the Sony 150-600 DN (2100g), though you have to remember that it has a much larger zoom range than either of these lenses.

This is an externally zooming lens, so, while the retracted length of the lens is 267mm, the lens barrel does extend by a full ten centimeters (100mm), making the extended length actually longer than the Sony 200-600 G by about 65mm (the Sony is internally zooming).  Here’s a look at how they compare when extended.

Sigma designed this to be a “dual-action” zoom, meaning that you can either twist the zoom ring or just grab the lens hood and treat it like a “push-pull” design.

There’s also a significant lens hood here (about 85mm long), which makes for a really long combination when you have the lens hood attached and the lens fully extended.  That’s about 46.5cm in overall length, or roughly 20″.  The good news is that while the lens is heavy (and you are going to have to get used to supporting that kind of weight), the balance point of the lens isn’t bad and it doesn’t feel front heavy in the way that the first Sigma 150-600mm Sport (on DSLRs) did. The large hood is actually fairly lightweight.  It attached via a tension knob on the bottom (it doesn’t bayonet on), and there is a nylon cover that goes over the lens hood when you have that attached or reversed for storage.  Sigma also includes a traditional pinch cap in the box, though that is hard to access if you have the lens hood mounted (it’s quite a ways in there!).  The lens hood is ribbed inside and, as is common with long telephotos, has a rubberized rim that will allow you to stand the lens on the lens hood (which is much more stable a position than standing it up on the rear lens cap).

A large nylon padded case with a carrying strap is also included.  Sigma does go the extra mile in the presentation of their lenses, and they are proud that their products continue to be fully assembled in Japan.  

Worth noting is that the front filter threads take an extremely large (and hard to find) 105mm front filter size, which is larger than the 95mm size found on either the Sony or the Sigma 150-600 DN. 

Sigma went away from the Zoom Torque Switch they debuted on the 150-600 DN and have instead gone back to a standard zoom lock to prevent zoom creep.  The lock will engage at either the 60mm or 600mm position.

Like the Sony telephotos, the 150-600 DN employs the Focus Hold button in three different positions, meaning that you have easy access to one regardless of how the lens is rotated.

Sigma employs a tripod foot that is Arca-Swiss compatible, meaning that it can be directly mounted onto a tripod without the need for a quick release plate.  For some reason Sony (and Canon) do not employ this Arca design…and I’ve never understood why.  Sigma’s tripod collar is not removable (a downside), but on the upside it does employ very nice detents at the four cardinal positions, which does make it easier to rotate quickly and to find the proper position.  The tripod foot itself is removable and replaceable, though this is not a tool less operation.  There are also strap connection points on either side of the tripod collar, which is also very welcome.

There’s a fairly standard bank of switches along the left side of the lens fairly near the lens mount.  This is quite a large lens, obviously, and so I was fairly surprised to find this section felt a little cramped.  The tripod collar is raised on one side, and the lens quickly slopes away on the other side towards the fairly narrow Sony lens mount.  The top switch (AF/MF) is a fairly good size, but the other three switches are smaller, fairly flush, and a little stiff to operate.  The first of these is a focus limiter with three options, including Full, 6m to infinity, and minimum focus to 6m.  You can obviously increase focus speed by employing this, though I did find that focus was fast enough that I never reached for it.  The third switch down is a three position switch for different OS (optical stabilizer) modes.  Mode 1 is the Standard mode, while Mode 2 should be utilized while panning, as one axis of stabilization will be turned off to provide for smoother side to side panning.   Sigma does note that the 60-600DN has “Intelligent OS” that utilizes info from an accelerometer to help with panning.  The third position is an OFF switch for the stabilizer. 

As noted in the intro, the OS is a new and improved system (OS2) which significantly improves the rating of the OS compared to the 150-600 DN (which was rated at four stops).  This new system is rated at a whopping 7 stops on the wide end and 6 stops on the telephoto end, and you can really feel the improvement. As before, you can’t turn off the lens’ OS without turning off the camera’s IBIS, so I can’t tell you whether the two systems work in conjunction or not.  I shared the lens with a few other photographers, and they were blown away by how stable the lens was despite the incredibly long focal length.  I was amazed to get two steady shots in a row of this 1/5th of a second shot at 600mm on my Alpha 1 – which is near 7 stops of assistance.  This is probably the best telephoto stabilization result as I’ve ever seen.

Where things get a little confusing is that the final switch is dedicated to custom modes (OFF | C1 | C2).  On DSLRs you could buy the Sigma USB dock and use the Sigma Optimization Pro software to tweak some functionality (including the function of custom buttons), and, while that same functionality is available to Leica L mount customers, it isn’t for Sony shooters (who make up the lion’s share of the market).  That means that function of these switch positions is fixed, and they are really just more OS options.  C1 prioritizes stabilizing the viewfinder (probably a good option if you’re shooting video or just have shaky hands), while C2 is called “Moderate View” and seems to focus more on stabilizing the image at capture and less on stabilizing the viewfinder (a good option when panning, for example).  This final option option gives you the most stable results on your shots, but in most situations having a shaky viewfinder image at 600mm just complicates things.  C1 does a nice job of really keeping the viewfinder steady, though. It was pretty much rock solid even at 600mm. 

If you are using the Leica L version of the lens and the USB dock, you’ll be able to also tweak the distance employed on the focus limiter and assign a new value to the custom buttons.

Sony has limited teleconverter compatibility to first party Sony lenses, so unfortunately you won’t be able to use teleconverters with the 60-600DN on Sony.  L-mount users can use either the TC-1411 (1.4x) or TC-2011 (2.0x) teleconverters with the lens.  There are obviously a couple of advantages for Leica L-mount owners due to Sigma being part of a cooperative that uses the mount.  It is more of a “first party” lens on that platform.

There are two rings on the lens – the typical zoom and manual focus rings.  The manual focus ring is closest to the camera.  It has very nice damping and a good feel, and I was able to make focus changes with a finger (somewhat important since you need to continue to support the lens with that hand).  The zoom ring moves fairly smoothly, but I found the resistance a little stiff and it is a fairly long zoom throw that will require two rotations to run the full zoom range.  This is one area where the Sony 200-600 G is much nicer in the field.  It has an internally zooming design that is really smooth and allows for very quick zoom changes.  I can see some shots being missed on the Sigma by comparison just due to the amount of time it takes to change the zoom position, and you can pretty much forget smoothly zooming during video capture. Sigma does provide the option to push/pull the zoom (grab the front of the lens and pull it to the desired zoom position).  This is faster, though fewer people are familiar with/comfortable with push/pull and will have to mentally reprogram for this approach.  It’s worth learning, however, as it does allow you to be more reactive to changing conditions in the field.

This is a variable aperture lens, starting at F4.5 at 60mm:

  • 60-81mm = F4.5
  • 82-136mm = F5
  • 137-359mm = F5.6
  • 360-600mm = F6.3

This isn’t a bad performance, lagging only very slightly behind the 150-600 DN Sport and arriving at F6.3 slower than the Sony 200-600G.

Like many modern zoom lenses, the 60-600DN has a variable minimum focus distance depending on the focal length.  At 60mm the MFD is just 45 cm (17.8″), but at 600mm the MFD is 260cm (102.4″).  The maximum magnification figure is actually found at 200mm, where you can get at 1:2.4 (nearly 0.42x) magnification, which is going to be very useful for getting nearly half size macro with a great working distance.  Here’s what that maximum magnification (at 200mm) looks like.

You can get closer at 60mm, obviously, but I prefer the more blurred out backgrounds at 600mm despite the longer working distance.  Using 200mm will kind of get the best of both worlds if you want high magnification.  The third shot shows the big specular highlights you can produce at 200mm.

This is another nicely made, highly functional lens rom Sigma.  There’s some give and take relative to the Sony and Tamron alternatives, but all are nicely made lenses with slightly different design philosophies, strengths, and weaknesses.

Sigma 60-600mm DN Autofocus

It’s always exciting to see a lensmaker take a leap forward, and that’s the case with Sigma here.  The new HLA (High-response Linear Actuator) focus motor is a definite improvement over the stepping motors Sigma has used to this point.  Here’s how Sigma describes the focus system, “A linear motor is a linear actuator that controls electromagnetic forces and can be driven freely, enabling high-speed AF. It can move the heavy focus group while ensuring the lens remains quiet, but the weight is relatively heavier.”  That final phrase can be a little difficult, but essentially they are making the distinction that while typical stepping motors are smaller and lighter, the linear focus motor here is more powerful and has the necessary torque for rapid focus changes even with the heavy glass elements that a big lens like this has.  And you can definitely feel the speed, as there is little hesitation when making focus changes and instead focus is essentially where you need it be near instantaneously.  

I had no problem acquiring a bird in flight and getting perfect focus even for one single shot at roughly 550mm.  Once I had the bird in frame and started focus the lens locked on near instantly.

But the 150-600 DN Sport could basically do that.  The question that I had was how the new HLA motor would handle high speed tracking sequences – an area where I found the 150-600DN bested by both the Sony 200-600G and the Tamron 150-500mm VXD.  I will note that Sigma informed me that my prerelease copy of the 60-600DN had a beta version of the firmware and that the release firmware they had been working helped improve tracking accuracy even further.  Obviously I can’t test what I don’t have, but I did do a series of tests with several different telephoto lenses to compare with the Sigma. 

It’s always a little frustrating to me when I get telephoto lenses for testing in the dead of winter.  Many of my typical wildlife subjects are either in hibernation, have limited movement, or have just headed to warmer climes for the winter!  It’s difficult to find active subjects, and carrying heavy lenses deep into the woods through heavy snow (which I did a fair bit of!) is not a particular joy for me.  It’s not unusual to trudge though heavy snow for hours carrying a big telephoto lens and come back with ten shots of dead leaves because I saw no living thing out there!

Rant aside, I set up a test with the one willing subject I could find – my son.  He agreed to run for me again and again while I tracked him.  These sequences were probably about 30 meters (100 feet or so) as he ran towards me with the camera and my bursts were typically 7-8 seconds in length.  I started with the Sony 200-600 G mounted on my Sony Alpha 1, and the Sony combination at 30 FPS was magic as per usual.  You can see the timelapse of those shots in my video review, but it is basically like watching slow motion video footage.  Very smooth, and focus is perfect throughout the sequence of 206 shots (about 7 seconds worth).  You can see how little space elapses over the three shots from the sequence I’ll show below, and also that focus is nailed in all of them.

I then switched to the Sigma and did multiple runs.    The Sigma is artificially limited on Sony’s sport cameras (the a9 or Alpha 1 series) to 15FPS in burst speed, as this is another area where Sony has put its finger on the scale in favor of its own lenses.  You can only get a maximum of 15FPS with any third party lens on Sony.  The timelapse is slightly more choppy due to the fact that I was capturing 15FPS rather than 30FPS (I captured about 125 frames per run).  Most importantly, however, is that as you watch the timelapse footage you see perfect focus throughout the run.  No swings to front or backfocus and the tracking stays “sticky” on my son throughout the whole sequence…even when he got close to the camera.  Here’s a total of 12 shots in four groups of three in a row taken from two different run sequences.  There’s a bit of motion blur in some of them (shutter speed ranged from 1/400th to 1/500th, not quite enough for this action), but focus is perfect in each of them.

I’ll also note that I visually had very good “stickiness” in terms of the eye tracking in the viewfinder.  Focus was staying properly locked and the end results confirm this.  The HLA motor is going to make a huge difference in tracking accuracy due to its higher torque that allows it to more quickly activate focus, and Sigma’s focus algorithms (even in the beta version that I tested) are clearly improved.  This is a much more competitive instrument for sports and wildlife tracking, and, while it can’t compare to the Sony combination because of the burst rate difference, the focus accuracy seems pretty close to the Sony performance. 

I’m impressed.  This new focus motor was just what Sigma needed to up their game in the one area that I felt was lacking a bit.

Autofocus accuracy is fantastic for the usual stuff.  Eye AF works perfectly:

Animal Eye AF also delivers exceptionally good results.  I got perfect lock-on to Nala’s eyes and got a beautiful series of shots of her with light from a nearby window.

The only negative here is the fact that the Sigma is artificially limited on Sony’s sport cameras (the a9 or Alpha 1 series) to 15FPS in burst speed.  15FPS is still very fast, obviously, but if you’ve made a big investment in a sports camera, you might want to consider a Sony lens for that simple reason.  It’s not fair, obviously, but it’s pretty typical for camera makers to try to bias things in favor of their own lenses.  The chief advantage for the Sigma in this case is the fact that you are getting that additional 140mm in focal range – a pretty significant advantage over the Sony.

I’ll end with a general observation:  variable aperture lenses like this are not designed for low light work.  That maximum aperture of F6.3 means that in very low light conditions the focus system isn’t left with a lot to work with, as the physical aperture can only open so wide to let in light.  This lens (or any similar lens) will work best in decent lighting conditions, be it natural light or good stadium/arena lights.  You need to be aware of that if you are purchasing the lens to shoot sports.  It also means that if you want to keep the shutter speed up high enough to stop action, you’ll probably be shooting at higher ISO values in an arena, for example.  The only alternative, unfortunately, is to buy one of the serious telephoto primes that have a larger maximum aperture and cost 6x as much.  Most of us will just make do!  

Sigma 60-600DN Sport Image Quality Breakdown

Part of what has made Sigma’s 60-600mm lenses interesting in both the DSLR and mirrorless iterations is that somehow they’ve managed to keep the image quality on par with the 150-600mm Sport.  I didn’t really feel like that was the case with the copy of each lens that I tested in the previous generation, but there’s no question that, if anything, the 60-600DN actually outperforms the 150-600 DN across their shared zoom range while also adding that crucial additional 90mm of framing options on the wide end.  The MTF charts show a very consistent performance across the zoom range, with 60mm ranking as the weakest and performance peaking at 400mm, though with a very mild drop off at 600mm.

Gone are the days when lenses releases into this segment were asked to resolve only 20 or 22MP.  Today this lens must excel on a 50 MP sensor like my Sony Alpha 1, or the even higher resolution 61 MP Sony a7RIV/V or Sigma FP-L bodies…so flaws are easier to spot. The primary competitors (Sony 200-600 G, 150-600 Sport, and Tamron 150-500 VXD) are all optically excellent, with the Sony having the slight edge (particularly on the edges of the frame).  Sigma has an optical design of 27 elements in 19 groups, with two of those elements being FLD (Extreme Low Dispersion) and another three being SLD (Low Dispersion) elements.  This optical formula delivers, however, with very crisp results all the way out to 600mm along with some very nice bokeh:

While I didn’t love lugging this beast through deep snow to get to where I took this shot, I loved have the 600mm on tap to grab the shot of this red squirrel.  This shot also serves a nice secondary purpose, as the crop shows the bright transition edge on the top of the snow to the background, and you can see only the slightest hint of longitudinal chromatic aberrations (fringing) in that transition.

Take a look at this casual portrait shot and you’ll see that the frames with the exterior light spilling into the room have no fringing on them, either.

I also saw little evidence of lateral chromatic aberrations along the edge of the frame.

Before jumping into the sharpness tests, I will give you one practical caveat about telephoto lenses in general.  Long range shots can sometimes be less than satisfying at a pixel level in some conditions for the simple reason that telephoto images are more likely to be affected by atmospheric conditions like pockets of rising warm air.  This “heat haze” or “heat shimmer” bends and distorts light waves.  You’ve seen extreme examples perhaps in a movie where you can see heat waves rising off hot asphalt on a desert road, for example, but even milder conditions can sometimes reduce contrast or apparent detail through smaller amounts of “atmospheric distortion”.  This has nothing to do with the quality of your lens and everything to do with the environmental conditions.   I share this to help those who might buy a relatively expensive lens and then get “freaked out” when sharpness in certain situations is less than expected.

So let’s dive into the technical side of things and look at strengths and weaknesses from a clinical perspective.  We’ll start with vignette and distortion at 60mm.  There’s a mild amount of pincushion distortion and a moderate amount of vignette.  The distortion I corrected with a -2 and the vignette with a +56 and moving the midpoint to zero. 

At 400mm the pincushion distortion is slightly increased (-5 to correct) and the vignette is roughly the same (+59).

At 600mm both figures decrease, with less distortion (-3) and distortion (+41).

I was doing my review before there was a standard correction profile for RAW images was available in Lightroom/ACR, but Sigma lenses enjoy solid profile support in camera for JPEGs and video, and I have no doubt that the correction profile will soon be available in major software editions for RAW images.  There’s enough vignette that I did see it in real world situations and wanted to correct it, like in this shot of these flying ravens.

Nothing major here, though.  All of this is easily correctable. 

We’ll move on to testing sharpness.  All of the tests and photos shown in this review are done on the 50MP Sony Alpha 1, which is Sony’s second-highest resolution full frame mirrorless camera at the time of this review.  Here’s a look at the test chart we’re using for the tests.

If we start at 60mm, F4.5, we find that the lens produces stunningly good sharpness in the center of the frame, good mid frame performance, and that resolution holds up into the corners even when viewed at nearly 200% magnification here. 

The MTFs suggest that this is the weakest place in the zoom range, which should give everyone a lot of reassurance.  It’s well worth noting that this is a much stronger performance than any of the alternative lenses for the simple reason that they don’t even show up for nearly 100mm!

This somewhat gloomy landscape was shot at 60mm, F4.5, in less than ideal light (ISO 3200) but nonetheless shows good detail across the 50MP image frame:

You’ll find some increased contrast and a slight resolution boost at F5.6, and a bit more at F8.  Minimum aperture is F22 at 60mm, but diffraction really softens the image past F11.

Performance at 100mm is similar with just a little less corner sharpness.  Stopped down a bit I prefer 100mm in the center of the frame and in the midframe, but 60mm is better in the corners.

At 150mm the performance is quite similar to what I saw at 60mm, though at a smaller maximum aperture of F5.6.  When stopping down to F8 I prefer the 150mm performance to the 60mm or 100mm performance.  If I go back and compare to the 150-600mm Sport, the new 60-600mm is an easy winner as this 200% crop comparison from the midframe shows.

When we get to 200mm we arrive at the steepest competition on the platform, the genuinely excellent Sony 200-600mm G lens.  Both lenses are excellent at 200mm, though I would give the very slightest of edges to the Sony both in the center:

…and at the edges.

It is remarkable how sharp lenses like this can be at their best.

At 400mm the MTF chart suggests that the 60-600DN is at its best, and we can that it bests the 150-600DN in both the center:

…and at the edges.

The 60-600DN Sport stays closer to the Sony at 600mm than any of these lenses I’ve tested to date.  The Sony probably has the slightest edge, but I’m not sure you could perceive it without looking at them side by side at 200% magnification.  I also preferred it in both the center and edges to the performance of the 150-600 Sport:

It’s pretty remarkable how well the Sigma 60-600mm does when one considers that it is a 10X zoom compared to the 3x zoom of the Sony and 4x zoom of the 150-600 Sport.

Real world performance at 600mm looks excellent:

I was consistently impressed with the look of images.  I would zoom in even the back of my camera (or, even better, the high resolution viewfinder of the Alpha 1), and loved the crisp detail.  I also liked the overall “look” of images, that have a great feel to them.

Some of that comes down to the bokeh and overall rendering from the lens, which I felt was very nice.  That long focal length allows for a lot of compression of backgrounds.  This often results in beautifully soft and creamy bokeh in a lot of situations, like this.

Here’s another example.

It’s hard for shorter focal lengths to imitate that degree of defocus irrespective of aperture.  Even when the background was less compressed, though, the bokeh looked quite good:

You can achieve the most defocus for specular highlights at medium distances at 200mm, where you can keep the close focus distance of 60mm but with higher magnification.  Specular highlight geometry looks great at 200m, too.  I can hardly achieve defocus at 600mm because we are so near the minimum focus distance.  Shown here is 60mm, 200mm, and 600mm:

Bottom line is that the 60-600mm DN Sport is a very strong performance optically and impressed me more than the copy of the 60-600mm that I tested four years ago.

Flare resistance also proved to be quite good.  It’s somewhat rare to end up with the sun in the frame when the angle of view is so small (particularly on the telephoto end!), but when I intentionally put it that, I saw very minimal impact from the sun either wide open or stopped down to F11.

In short, there really isn’t a lot to complain about optically here.  You can check out even more photos by visiting the lens image gallery here.  The Sony 200-600G is still slightly sharper, but the Sigma has a much larger zoom range and the potential for much higher magnification if you shoot at 200mm.

Conclusion

The Sigma 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 DN OS | Sport is a very welcome addition to telephoto zoom options available on Sony or Leica L.  It’s the largest lens in the class by weight (and size if you count the extended length), but it is also unique in the amount of zoom that it offers.  It is a real competitor to the Sony 200-600G in both price and performance, though there will always be a few built-in advantages for the Sony (TC compatibility and burst rate on the sports bodies).  I prefer the handling of the Sony in the field (smoother zoom action and the internal zoom design means that I don’t have to deal with zoom creep while hiking), but I definitely prefer the zoom ratio of the Sigma along with the excellent magnification results.

The improved focus motor helps to close the gap with the Sony in terms of focus speed and tracking performance, though I would still slightly prefer the Sony because it is pretty magical for tracking.  I think the Sigma will do a great focus job for photographers, however, and again – that focal range is a huge advantage for the types of subjects you can capture.

The loser here may be Sigma’s own 150-600mm DN Sport, which is only very marginally smaller and is outclassed by the 60-600DN in performance in basically every metric.  The 60-600mm is sharper, faster to focus, and has better optical stabilization.  The 150-600mm’s biggest advantage is going to be price, where it will run at least $500 cheaper than the 60-600mm’s $2000 USD.  My advice:  save for a few extra months and buy the 60-600mm DN; it is Sigma’s “killer app” for this class of lens.

 

Pros:

  • That zoom ratio is just so useful
  • Good quality of construction including robust weather sealing
  • Feature rich – competes directly with Sony
  • Improved autofocus is noticeably better than previous Sigma models
  • The improved OS is better than anything I’ve seen in this class
  • Fairly low distortion and vignette
  • CA well controlled
  • Good sharpness across the zoom range
  • Great magnification and close up performance
  • Nice bokeh rendering
  • Zoom action can be push/pull or twist controlled

Cons:

  • Cannot be used with teleconverters
  • Lower burst rate on Sony’s top sports cameras compared to a Sony lens
  • Zoom action a little stiff

 

 

Purchase the Sigma 60-600mm DN Sport @ B&H Photo  | Amazon | Camera Canada  | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK 

Purchase the Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN OS Sport @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada  | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Tamron 150-500mm VC VXD @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3G OSS:  B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK Amazon Germany | Ebay 

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Keywords: Sigma 60-600, Sigma 60-600mm, Sigma 60-600 DN, Sigma 60-600 Review, Sigma 60-600mm DN Review, DN, DG, OS, DG, Sport, Tamron 150-500 VC Review, Sony 200-600, Sony 200-600mm, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN DG OS Sport, Sigma 100-400, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II,  Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #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.

Sigma 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 DN OS Sport Gallery

Dustin Abbott

January 12th, 2023

It’s hard to believe that just a few short years ago the primary complaint on the Sony platform was a lack of telephoto options.  Sony was the first to address the problem with the 200-600G (my review here), but then Sigma and Tamron jumped in with both feet.  Sigma released the 100-400mm DN (my review here) followed by the 150-600mm DN Sport (my review here).  Tamron, not to be outdone, released the 70-300mm RXD (my review here), then the 150-500mm VXD (my review here), and then followed that up with the 50-400mm VXD lens (my review here).  That’s six quality telephoto options in the past three years, but Sigma has at least one more trick up their sleeve.  One of their last new lenses for DSLRs was released in early 2019 in the form of the 60-600mm Sport (my review here), a lens that dramatically increased the subject possibilities when compared to the typical 150-600mm focal range.  That extra foray into wider angle meant that suddenly the zoom ratio jumped from 4x to 10x.  Sigma has brought a new version of that lens into the mirrorless world in the form of the new Sigma 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 DG DN OS Sport (hereafter referred to as the 60-600DN).  This will instantly become the most dramatic telephoto focal range on the Sony platform, allowing you to frame a scene like this at 60mm:

…but also punch into it and capture the details like this at 600mm:

Can you think of a few subject possibilities for a zoom range like that?  I thought so!

If you don’t “speak Sigma”, here’s a quick breakdown of what those letter combinations in the name mean.  DG is Sigma’ designation for a lens designed for full frame (DC denotes APS-C).  DN refers to lenses designed for mirrorless cameras (in this case the lens will initially come to Sony E-mount [tested here] and Leica L mount, with hopefully other mounts in the future).  OS refers to “Optical Stabilizer”, an in-lens stabilization system which is one of the upgrades in this design (to Sigma’s new OS2 designation).  Finally, “Sport” is the designation Sigma gives to its better quality telephoto lenses designed for capturing action in demanding situations…or birds in flight.

The other highlighted feature here is a new focus system designed with the idea of increased torque and speed for a high performing lens like this one.  Sigma calls this “HLA”, which stands for “High-response Linear Actuator”.  There is a clear improvement in focus speed with this new focus motor, delivering near instant focus changes.  That’s really going to help Sigma be more competitive with the other telephoto options listed here, as that focus speed will really enable you to capture the action you’re looking for.

There are a lot of positives in this new lens that will come to market at the same price as the previous 60-600mm Sport lens (about $2000 USD).  That’s about a $500 premium (at MSRP pricing) over the Sigma 150-600mm Sport and about the same as the Sony 200-600G lens.  If you want more information, you can watch my video review or read my text review…or just enjoy the photos below.

 

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Thanks to Gentec (Sigma’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a pre-release 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 a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Photos of the Sigma 60-600mm DN Sport

 

Photos Taken with the Sigma 60-600mm DN Sport

 

 

Purchase the Sigma 60-600mm DN Sport @ B&H Photo  | Amazon | Camera Canada  | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK 

Purchase the Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN OS Sport @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada  | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Tamron 150-500mm VC VXD @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3G OSS:  B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase the Sony a7IV @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Sony Alpha 1 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase a Sony a9M2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

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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.

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Receive 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!

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product:  Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

 


Purchase the Sigma 60-600mm DN Sport @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/3IxQ2mh  | Amazon https://amzn.to/3ZqEtmU | Camera Canada  | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/3GnJ5lc | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/3GABb8m

Keywords: Sigma 60-600, Sigma 60-600mm, Sigma 60-600 DN, Sigma 60-600 Review, Sigma 60-600mm DN Review, DN, DG, OS, DG, Sport, Tamron 150-500 VC Review, Sony 200-600, Sony 200-600mm, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN DG OS Sport, Sigma 100-400, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II,  Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #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.

Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN OS Sport Review

Dustin Abbott

August 4th, 2021

The Sony telephoto wars are heating up!  For a long time the big hole in the Sony lineup was anything over 200mm. I found Sony’s development of the FE 200-600mm F5-6.3 G OSS lens in 2019 very welcome because it gave Sony shooters the first long lens with a somewhat affordable price point.  I gave it very high marks in my review and eventually purchased one for myself.  The Sigma 100-400mm F5-6.3 DN OS (my review here) later came to market as an affordable alternative, though that lens is more of a cheaper alternative to the Sony 100-400mm G Master lens (my review here).  The most recent challenger to the Sony FE 200-600mm OSS was the Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 Di III VC VXD (my review here), which made for a different alternative due to a different kind of design that resulted in a much more compact lens (and a fair bit cheaper).   But now Sigma is dropping its greatest challenger yet; an optically excellent big telephoto that reaches all the way to 600mm – the Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS Sport.  It “sports” a larger zoom range, has a great built and good autofocus, and really delivers on the optical end while still undercutting Sony in price.  There are still some variables to consider here, but there’s no question that Sigma will make some waves with their new lens, which we’ll refer to as the Sigma 150-600 DN for brevity in this review.  These tests and the photos shown in the review have all been done with the new Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).  The 150-600 DN will also be released in a Leica L mount.

While Tamron has taken a unique approach to design on the Sony platform, Sigma has largely elected to go head to head with Sony offerings.  This is a pretty traditional design that looks and behaves much like their DSLR equivalents, though with an important caveat.  The new 150-600 DN is a bit smaller (11mm narrower | 27mm shorter)  and significantly lighter (2100g) than the 150-600mm Sport (2860g) in, say, Canon EF form.  One of my chief complaints about that lens (my review here) was it was very heavy, and, more importantly, the weight was distributed in such a way that one had to support a lot of weight quite far out from your body.  It was a tiring lens to use for any length of time.  I find the new 150-600 DN to be a much easier lens to use, and the balance is much better.  It is still a large, heavy lens, but a far more accessible one, I think, and it is actually slightly lighter than the Sony 200-600 G (5g) despite having an additional 50mm of focal length.  The new Sigma 150-600 DN is closer to the Sony 200-600 G in size, though having an externally zooming design means that the Sigma can retract smaller (about 55mm) and will be a bit easier to transport.  The Tamron 150-500mm VC RXD remains the most compact option here at nearly 75mm shorter length retracted than the Sigma, though the Sigma has both 100mm of extra zoom range along with a slightly smaller larger maximum aperture (F6.3 vs F6.7).  Here’s a look at some various comparison points:

Lenses like this as valued by a variety of photographers:  those who shoot outdoor sports, wildlife photographers, and, in particular, those who enjoy photographing birds in flight.

The recent trend in zoom lens design has been to have different minimum focus distances for the wide and telephoto ends of the zoom range, which is true here as well.  You can focus as closely as 58cm on the wide end and that distance grows to a fairly long 2.8m on the telephoto end.  What’s interesting, though, is that maximum magnification is actually unleashed at the 180mm focal length, where you get an unusually high 1:2.9 ratio, or about 0.34x magnification, which is slightly higher than the 0.32x figure Tamron provides with their 150-500mm VXD lens, and a figure significantly higher than either the Sony 200-600 (0.20x) or the older Sigma 150-600 Sport lens (0.20x).  Here’s a look at how much a marigold blossom fills the frame with that 0.34x magnification:

The Sony 200-600 G has been the king since it was released, but Sigma has gone toe to toe with Sony a number of times over the past year and a half and has done quite well.  In this arena, however, the first party Sony has some built-in advantages.  The first is this:  it strongly seems that Sony is limiting teleconverter access on their platform to native Sony lenses.  The 150-600 DN, like previous Sigma lenses, will have 1.4x and 2x teleconverters available on Leica L mounts, but not on Sony.  The second big one is this:  on Sony high speed bodies like my Alpha 1, the 200-600 G can take advantage of the blazing 30 FPS burst rate while enjoying real time tracking.  With a Sigma or Tamron lens, the fastest burst rate I can get is 15 FPS with tracking; I can only get the 30 FPS if I turn off autofocus…which really defeats the purpose.  I’ve tried balanced emphasis (my usual setup) along with release priority (which in theory should speed things up), but in either case I get exactly 15 FPS with autofocus turned on.  The “good news” is that I saw a similar trend on previous lenses when I shot with an a9 or a9II, and the limit was exactly 15 FPS.  That means you lose a bit less (relatively) if you shoot on an a9 body, and you won’t notice it at all with the current a7 or a7R series bodies.  The playing field is not level, unfortunately, so Sigma has to overcome these obstacles.  I lamented the same issues when reviewing the Tamron 150-500mm a few months ago.  The good news is that I found the 150-600 DN to deliver very good autofocus results for tracking birds in flight, for example, so if those two obstacles I mention aren’t deal-breakers for you, the Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN OS Sport is going to be a very compelling option.  Read on or watch either my long format definitive or shorter standard video reviews to find out why:

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Thanks to Sigma Canada (Gentec) for getting me an early loaner of the lens.  As always, this is a completely independent review.

Sigma 150-600 DN Build and Handling

Sigma divides its lenses into three different categories: Contemporary, Art, and Sport.  The Contemporary lineup gets the lowest level of build and weather sealing, while the lines are a little more blurred with the Art and Sport lenses.  Typically, however, the Sport lenses do have the highest grade of weather sealing because they are the most likely to be used in inclement conditions.  Many sporting events will take place regardless of weather conditions, and, surprisingly enough, most wildlife is waterproof!  With that in mind, the Sigma 150-600 DN Sport has Sigma’s highest grade of weather sealing.  While I haven’t seen a diagram yet (I’m doing this review before the public release of the lens and before any such diagrams are available), Sigma does claim a thorough “dust and splash resistant structure” which combines internal seals with a gasket at the lens mount and a water and oil repelling coating on the front element.

The lens feels very well built, with a lot of metal components (brass mount, magnesium tripod socket, and aluminum body sections) combined with a few “Thermally Stable Composite” sections, a kind of polycarbonate (engineered plastic) that has similar thermal expansion rates to aluminum and thus behaves similarly in various weather conditions.  This helps maintain the weather sealing and performance of the lens while also helping shave a bit of weight.  The DSLR version of the lens was probably unnecessarily heavy due to less nuance with the construction materials.

This is an externally zooming lens, so, while the retracted length of the lens is 263.6mm, the lens barrel does extend by a full ten centimeters (100mm), making the extended length actually longer than the Sony 200-600 G by about 65mm.  Here’s a look at that extension:

Sigma designed this to be a “dual-action” zoom, meaning that you can either twist the zoom ring or just grab the lens hood and treat it like a “push-pull” design.

There’s also a significant lens hood here (about 82mm long), which makes for a really long combination when you have the lens hood attached and the lens fully extended.  That’s about 45cm in overall length, or roughly 1 1/2′.  The good news is that there isn’t nearly as much weight out front and that the lens feels much easier to support when zoomed out.  The large hood is actually fairly lightweight.  It attached via a tension knob on the bottom (it doesn’t bayonet on), and there is a nylon cover that goes over the lens hood when you have that attached or reversed for storage.  Sigma also includes a traditional pinch cap in the box, though that is hard to access if you have the lens hood mounted (it’s quite a ways in there!).  The lens hood is ribbed inside and, as is common with long telephotos, has a rubberized rim that will allow you to stand the lens on the lens hood (which is much more stable a position than standing it up on the rear lens cap).

A large nylon padded case with a carrying strap is also included.  Sigma does go the extra mile in the presentation of their lenses, and they are proud that their products continue to be fully assembled in Japan.  

Worth noting is that the front element is a large 95mm, but that is actually the size that the Contemporary version of the lens had on DSLRs, as the Sport version had an extremely large (and hard to find) 105mm front filter size.  The 95mm size is shared with the Sony 200-600 G.  95mm filters are a bit expensive, but much more common than 105mm filters.

Sigma debuted a new switch on this lens, but one that I’m a little ambiguous to.  They call this the “Zoom Torque Switch”, and it mimics what some others have done with a tension ring.  The “S” (Smooth) position allows the zoom action to be very free.  If the lens is pointed down it will almost immediately extend to the 600mm position.  The “T” (Tight) position increases the tension of the zoom ring.  Zoom creep is gone, but you have to be really intentional about moving the zoom ring, as there is a lot of friction on it.  This will allow you to hold a preferred position, but still move the zoom ring if desired.  The L (Lock) position only locks at the 150mm position. 

In practice, I find the switch to be a little hard to use.  It is located between the focus and zoom rings, but in a very low position.  There’s not really an easy or natural way to access it, which often means I’m turning the lens to the side to visually see the switch.  Moving between the Smooth and Tight positions requires a lot of force, and, of course, you can only engage the L option if the lens is fully retracted.  I prefer both the tension rings I find on the Canon or Sony 100-400mm lenses and the clutch mechanism that Tamron employed on the 150-500mm VXD which allowed for near instant locking at any position.  I found both options much more natural to use in the field.  At the same time, I’m glad the option is here, as different situations benefit from different degrees of tension.

Like the Sony telephotos, the 150-600 DN employs the Focus Hold button in three different positions, meaning that you have easy access to one regardless of how the lens is rotated.

Like Tamron, Sigma employs a tripod foot that is Arca-Swiss compatible, meaning that it can be directly mounted onto a tripod without the need for a quick release plate.  For some reason Sony (and Canon) do not employ this Arca design…and I’ve never understood why.  Unlike Tamron, Sigma’s tripod collar is not removable (a downside), but on the upside it does employ very nice detents at the four cardinal positions, which does make it easier to rotate quickly and to find the proper position.  The tripod foot itself is removable and replaceable, though this is not a tool less operation.  There are also strap connection points on either side of the tripod collar, which is also very welcome.

There’s a fairly standard bank of switches along the left side of the lens fairly near the lens mount.  This is quite a large lens, obviously, and so I was fairly surprised to find this section felt a little cramped.  The tripod collar is raised on one side, and the lens quickly slopes away on the other side towards the fairly narrow Sony lens mount.  The top switch (AF/MF) is a fairly good size, but the other three switches are smaller, fairly flush, and a little stiff to operate.  The first of these is a focus limited with three options, including Full, 10m to infinity, and minimum focus to 10m.  You can obviously increase focus speed by employing this, though I did find that focus was fast enough that I never reached for it.  The third switch down is a three position switch for different OS (optical stabilizer) modes.  Mode 1 is the Standard mode, while Mode 2 should be utilized while panning, as one axis of stabilization will be turned off to provide for smoother side to side panning.  The third position is just an OFF switch for the stabilizer.  The OS is rated at four stops, and it is essentially impossible to distinguish between what the lens OS does and what the camera’s IBIS (In Body Image Stabilization) does.  You can’t turn off the lens’ OS without turning off the camera’s IBIS.  I can’t tell you whether the two systems work in conjunction or not.  The OS seems to work fairly well, though, and I would probably rate it as slightly more effective than what I saw on the Tamron 150-500mm (a more stable viewfinder experience) and roughly similar to what I see on the Sony 200-600mm.  This 1/13th second shot at 600mm isn’t tack sharp but also doesn’t show any real motion blur.  That’s about 4.5 stops of assistance.

Where things get a little confusing is that the final switch is dedicated to custom modes (OFF | C1 | C2).  On DSLRs you could buy the Sigma USB dock and use the Sigma Optimization Pro software to tweak some functionality (including the function of custom buttons), and, while that same functionality is available to Leica L mount customers, it isn’t for Sony shooters (who make up the lion’s share of the market).  That means that function of these switch positions is fixed, and they are really just more OS options.  C1 prioritizes stabilizing the viewfinder (probably a good option if you’re shooting video or just have shaky hands), while C2 is called “Moderate View” and seems to focus more on stabilizing the image at capture and less on stabilizing the viewfinder.  This final option option gives you the most stable results on your shots, but in most situations having a shaky viewfinder image at 600mm just complicates things.  C1 does a nice job of really keeping the viewfinder steady, though.  If you don’t read the manual on the lens (or read my reviews), however, you’d probably have no idea what C1 and C2 do.

There are two rings on the lens – the typical zoom and manual focus rings.  The manual focus ring is closest to the camera.  It has very nice damping and a good feel, though making major focus changes will require a lot of rotations.  The zoom ring obviously will have a variable tension based on your selection, but it is a fairly long zoom throw and will require two rotations to run the full zoom range.  This is one area where the Sony 200-600 G is much nicer in the field.  It has an internally zooming design that is really smooth and allows for very quick zoom changes.  I can see some shots being missed on the Sigma by comparison just due to the amount of time it takes to change the zoom position.  Sigma does provide the option to push/pull the zoom (grab the front of the lens and pull it to the desired zoom position).  This is faster, though fewer people are familiar with/comfortable with push/pull and will have to mentally reprogram for this approach.  It’s worth learning, however, as it does allow you to be more reactive to changing conditions in the field.

This is a variable aperture lens, starting at F5 at 150mm, though F5 is only held through about 175mm, at it turns to F5.6 at 176mm.  The lens holds F5.6 until 368mm, and then shifts to F6.3.  It does hold F5.6 longer than the 150-600mm Sport in the Canon mount did, however, as that lens only held F5.6 until 320mm.  The Sony 200-600mm starts at F5.6 and holds that only until 308mm, where it switches to F6.3, so there are a few places where the Sigma 150-600 DN has a bit of an advantage.

This is a nicely made, highly functional lens.  There’s some give and take relative to the Sony and Tamron alternatives, but all are nicely made lenses with slightly different design philosophies, strengths, and weaknesses.

Sigma 150-600mm DN Autofocus

Mirrorless cameras have had a rapid technological advancement in autofocus technology.  Cameras like the Sony Alpha 1 that I’m using for this test have better focus and tracking abilities than any DSLR I’ve ever used, and do so while maintaining a faster burst rate than any DSLR.  It almost felt like cheating the first time I did tracking with the Sony a9 and a quality Sony telephoto.  Tracking was so effortless and precise that it really seemed like I didn’t need much skill as a photographer to make it happen.  The fact that the first party autofocus is now so good puts a tremendous amount of pressure on third party companies like Sigma to compete.  Fortunately my overall findings are very positive.  Sigma says, “The 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS | Sports comes with the pro-level functionality that defines the SIGMA Sports line lens, which is designed for capturing fast-action subjects.  With an AF actuator controlled by a stepping motor, the lens combines fast and quiet autofocus with excellent tracking of moving objects. Furthermore, a high-precision magnetic sensor enables highly accurate positioning for fast and high-precision AF.”  There are two key components in effective autofocus:  a focus system with a lot of torque, enabling it to quickly drive the focusing group of element with a lot of speed and, essentially, a good set of brakes that will stop that movement at the precisely correct spot without hunting or pulsing.  For some types of work, Sigma seems to have a winning combination here, as I’ve found the focus to be up tracking certain movements effectively.  Here’s a case in point. 

Obviously my goal here was to capture the seagull as it took off, but I was too slow in getting the camera up.  Despite that slow reaction on my part, the autofocus managed to deliver accurate focus on what it had to work with.  That’s very positive.

Here’s another single shot (not part of a burst), that shows that tracking birds in flight is no problem at all with the 150-600 DN and a decent camera.

Things were a little less impressive when I tested for high speed action in challenging conditions.  Since I own the Sony FE 200-600 F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens, I was able to compare the two lenses side by side.  I found the performance of the 150-600 DN to be somewhat similar to the Sigma 100-400mm DN lens, which is to say not nearly at the level of the Sony for intense tracking.  That’s to be expected, however, as Sony has the advantage of working with their own focus algorithms while Sigma has to reverse engineer them.  The Tamron 150-500mm VXD also seemed to perform a bit better than the Sigma for the intense action tracking, though it wasn’t quite at the level of the Sony.  Tamron has the advantage of having at least some access to Sony’s focus algorithms because Sony has an investment stake in Tamron. 

What I found is that focus tended to lag behind the action just a little bit.  I got some well focused results during my challenging sequence, but just as many looked like this, where the focus was more on the back leg and not of the face of our dog Bella.

This was further compounded by a few swings where focus was lost and needed to be regained during the burst.  But what stood out to me is that I had very few exceptional results where detail popped in an individual frame from the burst of high speed action.  This was one of my better shots from a couple of sequences totaling about 150 images…and it’s just okay.

 

I switched over to the Sony 200-600, and even though the conditions were even more challenging (Bella is beautiful but not overly cooperative), the Sony showed great accuracy throughout the same kind of sequence.  Bella ran a different path than I wanted and stayed in deep shadow, which meant that my shutter speed dropped lower than what is optimal for stopping action.  But I could still see throughout the sequence that focus stayed right with her face, delivering a crisply focused result in this frame even despite some motion blur.

Look at the difference between the two shots:

The Sigma has the advantage of the better shutter speed (1/800th second) and thus the better light.  The Sony was dealing with deeper shadows and had a resulting shutter speed of only 1/320th second.  I was also getting 30FPS in that burst rather than 15FPS, so the camera was literally having to move twice as fast…and yet the Sony results are much better focused.  For this kind of action, the Sigma isn’t on the same level as the Sony despite having just as good of optics (read on for more on that).  

Now, as noted, there are few focus situations as demanding as this one.  As a gear reviewer, I try to test the limits, because if a piece of gear can do reasonably well there, it means that most people in most situations will be happy with it.  If your photography style includes normal wildlife action, outdoor sports, or even birds in flight, I think the Sigma will deliver good results for you.

If you typically shoot more demanding action in slightly poorer lighting, though, the Sony 200-600 G remains the top choice in this class, and even the Tamron 150-500mm is slightly better.  

Autofocus accuracy is fantastic for the usual stuff.  Eye AF works perfectly:

Animal Eye AF also delivers exceptionally good results:

Bird Eye AF also tracked well and delivered very crisp results (just look at the detail in those feathers!)

In full disclosure I will confess that I was actually surprised that my high speed tracking results weren’t better because the autofocus performance in other situations was generally excellent.  I felt similarly about the Sigma 100-400mm DN.  For most photographers, the autofocus will be just fine, but if your priority is capturing fast action, you probably should pony up for the Sony instead.  There is some possibility that focus will be further improved via firmware, too, but I can only report on what I see.

I’ll end with a general observation:  variable aperture lenses like this are not designed for low light work.  That maximum aperture of F6.3 means that in very low light conditions the focus system isn’t left with a lot to work with, as the physical aperture can only open so wide to let in light.  This lens (or any similar lens) will work best in decent lighting conditions, be they natural light or good stadium/arena lights.  You need to be aware of that if you are purchasing to shoot sports.  It also means that if you want to keep the shutter speed up high enough to stop action, you’ll probably be shooting at higher ISO values in an arena, for example.  The only alternative, unfortunately, is to buy one of the serious telephoto primes that have a larger maximum aperture and cost 8x as much.  Most of us will just make do!  

Sigma 150-600 DN Image Quality Breakdown

Engineering a high performing telephoto zoom that reaches out to 600mm is no small task.  This is a 4x zoom range that goes from telephoto:

to extreme telephoto:

…and expectations just keep growing for the kind of performance people want from lenses like this.  Tamron really shook up this segment with the release of their original SP 150-600mm F5-6.3 VC in very early 2014, and that lens spawned a number of competitors.  I tested that lens (and then later the Sigma 150-600 Sport) on a 20 MP Canon EOS 6D, and the “high resolution” option from Canon at the time was the 22 MP 5DIII!  Today this lens must excel on a 50 MP sensor like my Sony Alpha 1, or the even higher resolution 61 MP Sony a7RIV or Sigma FP-L bodies…so flaws are easier to spot. The primary competitors (Sony 200-600 G and Tamron 150-500 VXD) are both optically excellent, with the Sony having the slight edge (particularly on the edges of the frame).  Sigma has an optical design of 25 elements in 15 groups, with four of those elements being FLD (Extreme Low Dispersion) and another two being SLD (Low Dispersion) elements.  This optical formula delivers, however, with very crisp results all the way out to 600mm along with some very nice bokeh:

If you look over the MTF charts from the three different competitors, you will find three excellent results.  All three lenses promise very strong results across most of the frame with only a mild dropoff in the corners.  It’s worth noting that any of these lenses will easily best any of the DSLR 150-600mm type competitors.  I’ve collated the three different MTF charts onto one graphic for you.

You’ll note from the image of the wildflower above and its crop that longitudinal chromatic aberrations are well controlled in the real world.  I found the same with my chart tests, where I see little evidence of any fringing before or after the plane of focus.

I also saw little evidence of lateral chromatic aberrations along the edge of the frame.

Before jumping into the sharpness tests, I will give you one practical caveat about telephoto lenses in general.  Long range shots can sometimes be less than satisfying at a pixel level in some conditions for the simple reason that telephoto images are more likely to be affected by atmospheric conditions like pockets of rising warm air.  This “heat haze” or “heat shimmer” bends and distorts light waves.  You’ve seen extreme examples perhaps in a movie where you can see heat waves rising off hot asphalt on a desert road, for example, but even milder conditions can sometimes reduce contrast or apparent detail through smaller amounts of “atmospheric distortion”.  This has nothing to do with the quality of your lens and everything to do with the environmental conditions.   I share this to help those who might buy a relatively expensive lens and then get “freaked out” when sharpness in certain situations is less than expected.

So let’s dive into the technical side of things and look at strengths and weaknesses from a clinical perspective.  We’ll start with vignette and distortion at 150mm.  There’s a mild amount of pincushion distortion and a minimal amount of vignette.  The distortion I corrected with a -3 and the vignette with a +38 and moving the midpoint to zero. 

Both of these are fairly negligible, and, while I do manual corrections to help measure the amounts of optical flaws, the reality is that most people will get automatic corrections either in camera (video and JPEGs) or through the inevitable correction profile for RAW images that will show up soon.  That’s a tiny bit less distortion than the Tamron 150-500mm and a bit more vignette.

At 600mm the amount of distortion and vignette increases by one correction point and the vignette gets heavier.

I used a -4 to correct distortion and a +63 to correct the vignette while moving the midpoint to zero for a nice, linear correction.  That’s an identical amount of distortion to the Tamron (both mild) and a fair bit more vignette.  There’s enough vignette that I did see it in real world situations and wanted to correct it, like in this shot of a flying seagull:

Nothing major here, though.  All of this is easily correctable. 

We’ll move on to testing sharpness.  All of the tests and photos shown in this review are done on the 50MP Sony Alpha 1, which is Sony’s second-highest resolution full frame mirrorless camera at the time of this review.

If we start at 150mm, F5, we find that the lens produces stunningly good sharpness in the center of the frame and still very good performance in the corner.

If we compare the 150mm wide end of the 150-600 DN to the Tamron 150-500, we see that the lenses are very similar with perhaps a 1% edge to the Tamron in the center though the Sigma has the edge in the corner of the frame:

I found stopping the 150-600 DN down to F5.6 produced slightly better contrast at the 150mm mark, with a bigger lift at F8, where contrast and detail were noticeably better, though that advantage is more obvious in the corner of the frame than in the center.  

Real world performance at 150mm, F5 looks great, with crisp results right out to the edge of the frame:

Performance at 200mm is better still, with excellent results across the frame at F5.6 (now maximum aperture) that become fantastic at F8 even in the extreme corners:

It is remarkable how sharp lenses like this can be at their best.

At 300mm the maximum aperture is now the maximum of F6.3, where it will remain throughout the zoom range.  The Tamron is a little better at holding a slight advantage in aperture (it was F5 still at 200mm, and F5.6 at 300mm), though the Tamron eventually is a little slower in the end (F6.3 for the Sigma; F6.7 for the Tamron).  Optically the Sigma 150-600 DN remains fantastically good; incredibly sharp both in the center and all the way out to the end.  Stopping down increases contrast a bit, but sharpness is already fantastic.  Look at this wide open shot of Loki and the detail crop:

I love that crisp resolution!

By 400mm there is a very mild regression in terms of contrast and resolution, though the results are still very good and the performance is consistent across the frame.

Arguably the most crucial areas of performance are found at the end of the zoom range, and I was surprised to find that the results were sharper at 600mm than they were at 500mm.  The lens was clearly optimized for a little better performance at the end of the zoom range.  At 500mm, the Tamron is sharper in the center of the frame and the two lenses about equal in the corners.  The Sigma’s center performance at 600mm is closer to the Tamron’s performance at 500mm, though.  That extra 100mm of reach is going to make all the difference in the world for many photographers.  You can hardly have too much reach!

How about vs the Sony at 600mm?  I found the Sony a bit sharper in the center of the frame and perhaps in the corner, though the difference there was minimal:

Real world performance at 600mm looks excellent:

I was consistently impressed with the look of images.  I would zoom in even the back of my camera (or, even better, the high resolution viewfinder of the Alpha 1), and loved the crisp detail.  I also liked the overall “look” of images, that have a great feel to them.

Some of that comes down to the bokeh and overall rendering from the lens, which I felt was very nice.  That long focal length allows for a lot of compression of backgrounds.  This often results in beautifully soft and creamy bokeh in a lot of situations, like this.

Here’s another example.

It’s hard for shorter focal lengths to imitate that degree of defocus irrespective of aperture.  Even when the background was less compressed, though, the bokeh looked quite good:

Some shots had a less favorable ratio of subject to background, but I still thought that distant shots had a nice defocused look to them.

There is some “cat-eye” deformation of the geometry along the edges of the frame, but I still loved this image of dew on the morning grasses.

Bottom line is that the 150-600 DN has some beautiful optics and is a great value for money – it is priced about $700 cheaper than the 150-600 Sport in a Canon EF mount, and this new lens is optically superior.

Flare resistance also proved to be quite good.  It’s somewhat rare to end up with the sun in the frame when the angle of view is so small (particularly on the telephoto end!), but when I intentionally put it that, I saw very minimal impact from the sun either wide open or stopped down to F11.

In short, there really isn’t a lot to complain about optically here.  You can check out even more photos by visiting the lens image gallery hereby visiting the lens image gallery here.  I would still (slightly) call the Sony 200-600 G the top of the heap here, but it’s not by a wide margin… and the Sony is $700 more!

Conclusion

The Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN OS | Sport is a very welcome addition to the  Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 VC VXDSigma 100-400mm F5-6.3 OS DN, and the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS as quality telephoto zooms available all available at $2000 or less.  The Sigma makes a very good case for itself on paper when compared to the Tamron, offering up that extra 100mm of reach with a slightly larger maximum aperture…and at the price point of roughly $1500 USD – only $100 more.  The Sony has some real advantages, but there are also some areas where the Sigma is preferable – its cheaper, smaller, lighter, has a slightly larger zoom range, has an Arca-swiss tripod collar, and has a much better magnification figure.

Like with the Tamron, however, there are a few unfortunate limitations imposed upon it by Sony.  These include an inability to use the lens with teleconverters and also a limitation on maximum burst rate on Sony’s higher end sports cameras like the a9 series and the Alpha 1.  For the moment, at least, you won’t get more than 15FPS on those cameras, though for many people that might just be enough.  I also found that the Sigma 150-600 DN even lagged a bit behind the Tamron in focus performance when tracking action, and the gap between it and the Sony 200-600 G was wider still.  It was fast enough for birds in flight and some actions shots, but I felt much more confidence for getting quality frames at high speed with the Sony.

Sigma’s chief advantage here is going to be in the raw realities.  It can’t claim to be as compact as the Tamron lens, but it does offer a larger zoom ratio than the Sony while also being a bit smaller.  It has an excellent optical performance and great build.  And, at $1500 USD, the price point may seem like a greater value than that of the Tamron.  I suspect that there is room for all three of these lenses on the platform, as they all have unique strengths and weaknesses.  The Sigma 150-600 DN is a very welcome addition to the growing number of options for long telephoto performance on Sony!

 

Pros:

  • Smaller than the Sony 200-600 G while also having a larger zoom ratio
  • Good quality of construction including robust weather sealing
  • Feature rich – competes directly with Sony
  • Autofocus is smooth, quiet, and fast enough for most situations
  • Inclusion of VC means more stable results
  • Fairly low distortion and vignette
  • CA well controlled
  • Good sharpness across the zoom range
  • Great magnification and close up performance
  • Nice bokeh rendering
  • Well priced
  • Zoom action can be push/pull or twist controlled

Cons:

  • Cannot be used with teleconverters
  • Tracking performance not as good as Sony or Tamron competitors
  • Lower burst rate on Sony’s top sports cameras compared to a Sony lens

 

 

Gear Used:

 

Purchase the Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN OS Sport @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada  | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Tamron 150-500mm VC VXD @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3G OSS:  B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase the Sony Alpha 1 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase a Sony a9M2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Sony a9 Camera:  B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada  | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 
Sony a7RIV Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

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BenQ SW271 4K Photo Editing Monitor – B&H Photo  | Amazon | Amazon.ca | Amazon UK
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Keywords:  Sigma 150-600, Sigma 150-600mm, Sigma 150-600 DN, Sigma 150-600 Review, Sigma 150-600mm DN Review, DN, DG, OS, DG, Sport, Tamron 150-500 VC Review, Sony 200-600, Sony 200-600mm, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN DG OS Sport, Sigma 100-400, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II,  Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1

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Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN OS | Sport Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

August 4th, 2021

 

The Sony telephoto wars are heating up!  For a long time the big hole in the Sony lineup was anything over 200mm. I found Sony’s development of the FE 200-600mm F5-6.3 G OSS lens in 2019 very welcome because it gave Sony shooters the first long lens with a somewhat affordable price point.  I gave it very high marks in my review and eventually purchased one for myself.  The Sigma 100-400mm F5-6.3 DN OS (my review here) later came to market as an affordable alternative, though that lens is more of a cheaper alternative to the Sony 100-400mm G Master lens (my review here).  The most recent challenger to the Sony FE 200-600mm OSS was the Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 Di III VC VXD (my review here), which made for a different alternative due to a different kind of design that resulted in a much more compact lens (and a fair bit cheaper).   But now Sigma is dropping its greatest challenger yet; an optically excellent big telephoto that reaches all the way to 600mm – the Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS Sport.  It “sports” a larger zoom range, has a great built and good autofocus, and really delivers on the optical end while still undercutting Sony in price.  There are still some variables to consider here, but there’s no question that Sigma will make some waves with their new 150-600mm DN supertelephoto lens.  These photos shown in the gallery below have all been taken with the new Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).  The 150-600 DN will also be released in a Leica L mount.

While Tamron has taken a unique approach to design on the Sony platform, Sigma has largely elected to go head to head with Sony offerings.  This is a pretty traditional design that looks and behaves much like their DSLR equivalents, though with an important caveat.  The new 150-600mm DN is a bit smaller (11mm narrower | 27mm shorter)  and significantly lighter (2100g) than the 150-600mm Sport (2860g) in, say, Canon EF form.  One of my chief complaints about that lens (my review here) was it was very heavy, and, more importantly, the weight was distributed in such a way that one had to support a lot of weight quite far out from your body.  It was a tiring lens to use for any length of time.  I find the new 150-600 DN to be a much easier lens to use, and the balance is much better.  It is still a large, heavy lens, but a far more accessible one, I think, and it is actually slightly lighter than the Sony 200-600 G (5g) despite having an additional 50mm of focal length.  The new Sigma 150-600mm DN is closer to the Sony 200-600 G in size, though having an externally zooming design means that the Sigma can retract smaller (about 55mm) and will be a bit easier to transport.  The Tamron 150-500mm VC RXD remains the most compact option here at nearly 75mm shorter length retracted than the Sigma, though the Sigma has both 100mm of extra zoom range along with a slightly smaller larger maximum aperture (F6.3 vs F6.7).  Here’s a look at some various comparison points:

Lenses like this as valued by a variety of photographers:  those who shoot outdoor sports, wildlife photographers, and, in particular, those who enjoy photographing birds in flight.

The recent trend in zoom lens design has been to have different minimum focus distances for the wide and telephoto ends of the zoom range, which is true here as well.  You can focus as closely as 58cm on the wide end and that distance grows to a fairly long 2.8m on the telephoto end.  What’s interesting, though, is that maximum magnification is actually unleashed at the 180mm focal length, where you get an unusually high 1:2.9 ratio, or about 0.34x magnification, which is slightly higher than the 0.32x figure Tamron provides with their 150-500mm VXD lens, and a figure significantly higher than either the Sony 200-600 (0.20x) or the older Sigma 150-600 Sport lens (0.20x).  Here’s a look at how much a marigold blossom fills the frame with that 0.34x magnification:

The Sony 200-600 G has been the king since it was released, but Sigma has gone toe to toe with Sony a number of times over the past year and a half and has done quite well.  In this arena, however, the first party Sony has some built-in advantages.  The first is this:  it strongly seems that Sony is limiting teleconverter access on their platform to native Sony lenses.  The 150-600mm DN, like previous Sigma lenses, will have 1.4x and 2x teleconverters available on Leica L mounts, but not on Sony.  The second big one is this:  on Sony high speed bodies like my Alpha 1, the 200-600 G can take advantage of the blazing 30 FPS burst rate while enjoying real time tracking.  With a Sigma or Tamron lens, the fastest burst rate I can get is 15 FPS with tracking; I can only get the 30 FPS if I turn off autofocus…which really defeats the purpose.  I’ve tried balanced emphasis (my usual setup) along with release priority (which in theory should speed things up), but in either case I get exactly 15 FPS with autofocus turned on.  The “good news” is that I saw a similar trend on previous lenses when I shot with an a9 or a9II, and the limit was exactly 15 FPS.  That means you lose a bit less (relatively) if you shoot on an a9 body, and you won’t notice it at all with the current a7 or a7R series bodies.  The playing field is not level, unfortunately, so Sigma has to overcome these obstacles.  I lamented the same issues when reviewing the Tamron 150-500mm a few months ago.  The good news is that I found the 150-600 DN to deliver very good autofocus results for tracking birds in flight, for example, so if those two obstacles I mention aren’t deal-breakers for you, the Sigma 150-600mm DN OS Sport is going to be a very compelling option.  You can read my text review or watch either my long format definitive or shorter standard video reviews to find out why…or just enjoy the photos below.

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Thanks to Sigma Canada (Gentec) for getting me an early loaner of the lens.  As always, this is a completely independent review.

Photos of the Sigma 150-600mm DN Sport

Photos Taken with the Sigma 150-600mm DN

 

 

 

Gear Used:

 

Purchase the Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN OS Sport @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada  | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany 

Purchase the Tamron 150-500mm VC VXD @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

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Keywords:  Sigma 150-600, Sigma 150-600mm, Sigma 150-600 DN, Sigma 150-600 Review, Sigma 150-600mm DN Review, DN, DG, OS, DG, Sport, Tamron 150-500 VC Review, Sony 200-600, Sony 200-600mm, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DN DG OS Sport, Sigma 100-400, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II,  Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1

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Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 VC VXD (A057) Review

Dustin Abbott

June 8th, 2021

The Sony FE catalog of lenses is one of the most robust ever.  Sony’s bet on developing a more open source platform and welcoming third party development has really paid off, as at most focal lengths photographers have a plethora of choice.  The lone exception to this has been at longer telephoto lengths where both first party Sony options along with third party lenses have been rare.  I found Sony’s development of the FE 200-600mm F5-6.3 G OSS lens in 2019 very welcome because it gave Sony shooters the first long lens with a somewhat affordable price point.  I gave it very high marks in my review and eventually purchased one for myself.  That lens has largely gone unchallenged since its release, with only the Sigma 100-400mm F5-6.3 DN OS coming to market as an affordable alternative, though that lens was limited by being incompatible with extenders and thus topping out at 400mm of reach.  I found in my review that focus wasn’t quite up to Sony standards during tracking, either.  But now we have a more direct competitor, and with the “Tamron on Sony” advantage of having direct access to focus algorithms due to Sony having a financial stake in Tamron.  My experience has been that the Tamron lenses with RXD and VXD motors focus essentially as well on Sony as native Sony lenses.  That makes the Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 Di III VC VXD an interesting proposition, particularly when you consider that its price point of $1399 USD positions it about $600 cheaper than the Sony 200-600G.  The photos and tests that I share as a part of my review cycle of the A057 (Tamron’s code for this lens) have all been done with the new Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Tamron has taken a completely different approach to this design than what Sony did, electing to design as compactly as possible.  That makes this lens a MUCH easier lens to store and/or travel with, as you can see above.  They accomplished this by creating an externally zooming design and a smaller-than-typical maximum aperture on the long end of F6.7.  It used to be that pretty much all lenses conformed to a maximum aperture standard of F5.6, as this was considered the limit of what the focus systems in many DSLRs could handle.  Anything smaller and the focus system didn’t get enough light to effectively focus, and, in many cases, the focus system would just refuse to autofocus at all if a combination with a smaller maximum aperture was mounted on it (say an F5.6 lens along with a 1.4x TC, resulting in a maximum aperture of F8).  Tamron and Sigma did have some lenses with a maximum aperture of F6.3, but they accomplished that through a bit of electronic trickery that told the camera the maximum aperture was actually F5.6.  That limitation does not exist with many mirrorless cameras, though, and Canon has even produced a few RF telephotos lenses with a maximum aperture of F11.  The 150-500mm VXD is less extreme, and the maximum aperture at 500mm of F6.7 is two-thirds stop smaller than F5.6 but only one-third stop slower than the maximum aperture of F6.3 found on the Sony 200-600G.  The difference between the lenses is less pronounced when they are fully zoomed out as the Sony lens is internally zooming.

Like many recent Tamron lenses, the 150-500mm VXD has a very strong performance at minimum focus distance, with two different magnification levels at the wide and telephoto ends.  At 150mm you can achieve nearly a 1:3 ratio of magnification (0.322x), which is extremely useful:

Tamron recognized that this focal range is just too long to rely solely on the in-body-image-stabilization of Sony bodies, so this is the first of their full frame lenses for Sony FE that has Tamron’s VC (Vibration Compensation) optical stabilizing system.  The A057 also has their high speed, high torque VXD (Voice-coil eXtreme-torque Drive) linear motor focus system.  This is an impressive lens on paper, but what is the real life performance like?  Is this a serious alternative to the admittedly large but also excellent 200-600G?  That’s what I attempt to answer in either my text or video reviews.  You can read on to find out my conclusions, or click on the thumbnails below to watch the video review below.

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Thanks to Tamron USA for getting me an early loaner of the lens.  As always, this is a completely independent review.

A057 Build and Handling

Tamron has a tried and true formula on Sony that they’ve largely stuck to until this point.  That has included weather sealing, no switches on the barrel, a standard 67mm front filter thread, no aperture ring or focus hold button, and a reliance on Sony’s IBIS (In-Body-Image Stabilization) to handle the optical stabilization.  The nature of the A057 means that the blueprint simply doesn’t apply here, and in many ways this lens looks more like the G2 lineup from the DSLR days.  We’ve got a tripod collar, four switches on the barrel plus a zoom lock, a clutch mechanism, VC (Vibration Compensation, or an optical stabilizer), an 82mm front filter thread, and a substantially larger lens than anything we’ve seen from Tamron on Sony before.  In fact, the weight of the 150-500mm VXD is only 110g lighter than the Tamron 150-600mm G2 lens despite having a smaller zoom range, a smaller maximum aperture, a smaller size (the 150-600 G2 was 108.4 x 260.2mm while the new lens is 93 x 209.6mm), and being made for mirrorless.  That tells me that the A057 has a robust build and some serious optical construction packed into that more compact body.  Here’s a look at basic specs and comparisons against some other alternatives.

On Sony, obviously, the physical comparisons to the DSLR lenses are not particularly relevant.  In fact, most relevant to the discussion will be two lenses, most likely.  The first is the smaller, lighter, and cheaper Sigma 100-400mm DN, while the latter is the bigger, heavier, and more expensive Sony 200-600mm OSS.  If you want to go as light as possible (and don’t need 500mm of reach), then the Sigma might be an attractive option, though its not quite in the class of the Tamron on a number of levels.  Those wanting more reach are going to more seriously consider the Sony 200-600 G as an alternative.  As we’ve seen in our introduction, however, Tamron has taken a very different approach to design relative to the Sony.  Let’s quickly break down a few design advantages for Tamron’s approach:

  • The retracted Tamron lens is about 41% shorter
  • The Tamron will fit in far more carry solutions, and might allow you to transport with the camera mounted and ready for use
  • The front filter thread is a much more common 82mm vs 95mm for the Sony
  • The Tamron switches are more definite and easier to use
  • The Tamron is 215g lighter
  • The Tamron has higher magnification figures and more versatile MFD distances
  • The Tamron tripod foot is Arca-swiss

A few Sony advantages:

  • The internally zooming design makes it easier to use in the field
  • Many photographers trust the weather sealing of internally zooming lenses more
  • The Sony has a focus hold button (x3)
  • The Sony can be used with teleconverters
  • The Sony has an additional 50mm in zoom range

There’s some give and take here, obviously.  I prefer the ergonomics of the Sony once I’m in the field, but I prefer the Tamron for storage in between and for getting there due to its externally zooming design.  As noted, the Tamron is very compact when the zoom is retracted.  It’s dimensions are only slightly larger than the Canon 100-400mm lens I had standing in for the Sony 100-400 GM (the two lenses are extremely similar in size).

The Sony is in a completely different class of size, obviously.  The differences become even more pronounced with the lens hood attached, as the A057 has a much more compact lens hood relative to the large, deep one found on the Sony.  The Tamron presents a substantial yet compact form when not zoomed out.

The lens extends nearly 8cm when zoomed to 500mm (about three inches), so that does cause the gap between the sizes of the lenses to close somewhat.

The zoom action is smooth with about 75° of rotation to achieve full zoom.  While this is a good performance, it can’t quite compare to the even smoother, quicker performance of the Sony’s internal zooming mechanism.

A lot of photographers have strong reservations about the sealing of any externally zooming lens.  I personally haven’t had issues with professional grade, well sealed externally zooming lenses, but neither do I live in an extremely dusty or moist climate.  Tamron has done a thorough job of weather sealing the lens, however, with seal points that begin at the lens mount and extend throughout the lens to a fluorine coating on the front element.  I see roughly 11 seal points as a part of the design.

Time will tell how effective the sealing is, but I haven’t heard anecdotal negative feedback from my audience over the sealing on other Tamron lenses for Sony.  If you live in a high impact environment and have concerns over sealing, you might want to consider the Sony 200-600 G instead, as it is basically the only lens in this class with an internally zooming design.

While Sigma has taken a lot of design cues from Sony for some recent lenses (aperture ring, focus hold button, declickable aperture), Tamron has stuck with their tried-and-true DLSR design.  There is no focus hold button, but there are some other innovative features.  There are four switches in a raised bank on the side of the lens, and I find the switches to have a more substantial, definite feel relative to those found on the Sony 200-600.  The first switch is a three position focus limiter that gives you the option to have the full range of focus available or to restrict either the distant focus (greater than the 3m) or close focus (15m and beyond).  Using a focus limiter can be even more important when using a lens with close focus abilities like this one, though autofocus is fast enough that I rarely resorted to the focus limiter.

The second switch is an AF/MF switch, followed by an ON/OFF for the VC.  The third switch gives you an option of three different modes for the Vibration Compensation system.  The first is the standard mode for general purpose, mode 2 is for panning, and mode three is called “Framing Priority” which seems to engage the stabilizer a little more actively in the viewfinder and would probably be the preferred mode for video.  The VC system seems to work smoothly, though it is basically impossible to determine if the system works in concert with the IBIS in your camera (if so equipped).  I saw pretty typical results from the VC, with a reasonably stabilized viewfinder image and fairly good results at low shutter speeds, though that’s not really the best use of these systems.  The first shot here is a 150mm shot taken handheld at 1/8th of a second, and the second is a 1/30 second handheld at 500mm.  

Neither is what I would call “tack-sharp”, but both are acceptably sharp even on a 50MP sensor.  More importantly is that I got reliable results with static subjects in moments when my shutter speed dipped to 1/100th or so.

One very cool new feature here is a clutch mechanism on the zoom ring that allows you to move the zoom ring forward and look the zoom position.  A white ring will show when the zoom position is locked.  This works really well in the field, allowing you to pretty much instantly either lock or unlock the zoom ring.  

What’s interesting is that the A057 also comes with a more traditional zoom lock as well, and, like usual, it only works at the 150mm position.  I see this more as something to use during transport or storage and the clutch mechanism as the preferred method to use in the field.

I also like the tripod collar design.  The actual function is pretty typical, with a locking knob that will allow you to rotate the collar 360° to your preferred position, and, if you continue to loosen it, the collar will come off altogether.  I like the fact that you can remove or attach the tripod collar with the lens attached to the camera and also that the lens has a finished area underneath where the tripod collar would sit when it is removed.  Some lenses have exposed screws or look unfinished with the collar removed. But what I really like here is that the tripod foot is Arca-swiss compatible, meaning that it can easily be mounted onto a tripod without the need for quick release plate.  The Sony’s foot is not Arca-compatible, and I have no idea why.

The lens hood is, as mentioned, fairly shallow for such a long focal length, but it seems to do the job and I’m certainly not complaining!  It does not have a locking mechanism, but does bayonet precisely and tightly into place.  It also has rubberized, reinforced front lip in recognition that often big lenses mounted on cameras will be set down facing downwards and also that things that stick further out in front of a photographer (like a long lens!) are more likely to get bumped on something!

One distinct advantage for the A057 over the Sony 200-600G is when it comes to versatility at minimum focus distance and maximum magnification.  The 200-600G is a fairy telephoto lens in this regard, with a constant MFD of just 2.4m (nearly 8 feet) and a maximum magnification figure of 0.20x, which is useful, for sure, but unexceptional compared to the Tamron.  Like many recent Tamron lenses, the A057 has a variable MFD with the ability to get closer on the wide end (just 0.6m [23.6 in] at 150mm) than on the telephoto end (1.8m [70.9 in] at 500mm).  This gives you an exceptional over 0.32x on the wide end and an also very useful 0.27x on the telephoto end.  You also get a lot more flexibility about your working distance with your subject, and the ability to do near-macro work.  Here’s what the Sony magnification looks like (1) vs the Tamron at 500mm (2) and then at its highest magnification level at 150mm (3).

In many ways this is one of the most useful variable-MFD lenses, as the working distance even at 150mm is still plenty and so you don’t feel you are right on top of your subject.  The A057 is capable of giving you a lot of lovely closeup shots at any point in the zoom range.

This is a definite strength for the lens and adds to its versatility.

The big appeal here is going to be the fact that Tamron has delivered a high quality lens that is going to fit in a lot of places where the Sony 200-600G simply won’t.  If you are traveling, for example, that could make all the difference in the world.  Different designs appeal to different consumers, and Tamron has delivered a different enough product at a different enough price point ($1400 vs $2000) that I think they will find a unique market.  I found the A057 easy to use in the field and easy to transport for a lens that reaches out to 500mm.

Tamron 150-500mm VC Autofocus

Tamron lenses have been fantastic in the autofocus department on Sony (though I’m less impressed with the lenses equipped with the OSD focus system, namely the 20mm, 24mm, and 35mm F2.8 OSD primes).  The lenses equipped with either their RXD or VXD linear motors have been fantastic, and the fact that Sony has a financial stake in Tamron has resulted in them having something more akin to first party treatment in terms of focus algorithms and even being able to get firmware updates in camera like first party lenses.  Tamron has utilized their high speed, high torque VXD (Voice-coil eXtreme-torque Drive) linear motor focus system in the A057.  This is the second lens (following the 70-180mm F2.8 VXD) to receive this particular focus system, so clearly it is a more robust focus motor in terms of torque than the RXD focus motors that they’ve utilized in slightly less demanding lenses.  It works very well here, delivering very fast, quiet, and accurate autofocus.

I had an opportunity to compare the A057 side-by-side with what I consider to be its most natural competitor – the Sony FE 200-600 F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens.  The Sony focuses amazingly well on Sony’s better cameras (I’ve used it on both A9 and Alpha 1 bodies along with the a7RIII).  For most work, you simply won’t notice a difference between the two lenses.  Both are very fast, very quiet, and very accurate.  We are in a bit of a golden age for focus, and both of these lenses are far beyond what we found on, say, the 150-600mm lenses from Tamron and Sigma that made this kind of zoom range popular on DSLRs.

The Tamron will deliver excellent results in the typical, non-challenging settings like mild action or still subjects…but I fully expected that.  What I wanted to know is if it could compete with the Sony for fast action and demanding tracking situations.  I found the Sigma 100-400mm DN to be fairly good for tracking, though at something like a 70% keeper rate while the Sony was something more like 97% in comparisons.  The Tamron is definitely better than the Sigma for tracking, though still a few percentage points below the Sony in absolute performance.  I would put it more at the 90% range.  That makes it more than good enough for most photographers in most situations, though there is a caveat if you are shooting with Sony’s action cameras that I’ll detail in a moment.

Once again I turned to my friends at Jengar Goldens) to supply subjects for my tests, and they brought four Golden Retrievers of varying ages to Black Bear Beach along the Ottawa River for me to put these lenses to the test.  The great news was that the Tamron proved a great partner for tracking action.  My first sequence was one I knew would be difficult, as I wanted the sparkle off the water in the background, but that meant having the light at the back of the dogs (making tracking more difficult).  I did notice a few swings where focus moved ahead of the subject, and, towards the very end where the dog was closest and the glare off the water was most intense, I lost focus again, but I had mostly very well focused resulted in what I would categorize as an extremely challenging situation. 

I had about an 87% keeper rate, with most of the misses being at the end of each run where the lighting conditions were just a little too challenging.  To put that in perspective, that was about 300 shots with 260 well focused results under very challenging conditions.  For comparison sake, I got about a 92% keeper rate with the Sony 200-600G in the same kind of sequence, though these results are not entirely scientific.  There are too many variables, as the dogs don’t always run the same path, or the same speed, etc…  

In other sequences I tracked action laterally, or with the sun frontlighting rather than backlighting the dogs, and my keeper rate rose much higher.  Out of about 400 other shots with the A057, I only had 10 that were poorly focused, and they were all from one sequence where a foreground object distracted focus. 

It’s worth noting that the dogs were running away from me and there was no eye to track.  Fortunately there was some stylistic quality to those shots, so they turned out not to be wasted anyway!

This is a lens that has plenty of speed for tracking accuracy, and, while it isn’t quite as good as the Sony 200-600G, it is probably about 93% as good.  It’s definitely a tier above the Sigma 100-400 DN, too.

But there was a burning question I had when Tamron released this lens due to something that has become increasingly obvious as Sony has enhanced its action cameras.  I had noted on the a9 and a9II that I didn’t really get the 20FPS top burst rate with third party lenses.  It was limited to somewhere around 15FPS.  On the a9 it wasn’t a huge deal, as 5FPS isn’t a deal breaker, and if you shoot on the a7, a7R, or a7C cameras, you wouldn’t even see a difference.  But my test body is now the Alpha 1, which sports a 30FPS upper limit.  With Sony lenses I can in fact achieve that 30FPS, but in my tests I have discovered that third party lenses are still capped at the 15FPS range.  I wondered if this Tamron would be different…but unfortunately it is not.  I achieved a maximum burst rate of 15FPS in my sequences with the A057 attached, but when I switched over to the 200-600G, I saw the full 30FPS unleashed.  

This is obviously an artificial limitation imposed by Sony to help advantage first party telephotos, and it will only affect you if you have the higher end action cameras, but if you happen to own an a9 or Alpha 1 series camera, this is information you probably need to know.

And before we end this section, we’ll have to raise another as well:  Sony has limited the use of teleconverters to its first party lenses.  500mm is already a lot of reach, obviously, but the idea of getting out to 700mm with a TC would be attractive to some photographers.  If you want the flexibility of using a TC, though, you’ll have to pony up for a Sony lens at this stage of the game.  This isn’t on Tamron, as they have delivered a lens with a fantastic focus system, but sometimes as a third party lens maker you have to deal with some barriers presented by the first parties. 

I’ll end with a general observation:  variable aperture lenses like this are not designed for low light work.  That maximum aperture of F6.7 means that in very low light conditions the focus system isn’t left with a lot to work with, as the physical aperture can only open so wide to let in light.  This lens (or any similar lens) will work best in decent lighting conditions, be they natural light or good stadium/arena lights.  You need to be aware of that if you are purchasing to shoot sports.  It also means that if you want to keep the shutter speed up high enough to stop action, you’ll probably be shooting at higher ISO values in an arena, for example.  The only alternative, unfortunately, is to buy one of the serious telephoto primes that have a larger maximum aperture and cost 8x as much.  Most of us will just make do!  

A057 Image Quality Breakdown

Engineering a high performing telephoto zoom that reaches out to 500mm is no small task.  Tamron really shook up this segment with the release of their original SP 150-600mm F5-6.3 VC, which, incidentally, was one of my first times to have a lens before the public release date and the ensuing traffic when I released my review literally broke my website.  That lens and the following G2 upgraded version have been major success stories for Tamron, and clearly they hope to catch lightning in a bottle again with the A057.  Expectations are higher in 2021, however, and the existing Sony 200-600G is very, very good optically.  Tamron has an optical design of 25 elements in 16 groups, with five of those elements being LD (Low Dispersion), another XLD (eXtra Low Disperation), and two of them being Hybrid Aspherical elements.  You can see the optical diagram along with the MTF charts for both lenses below:

The MTF charts suggest that the Tamron should be quite close to the Sony lens optically at both ends of the zoom range.  I went back and looked at the MTF charts from the original 150-600mm VC and found that the new lens shows improvement in both resolution and contrast throughout the zoom range.  The new 150-500mm has a reduced zoom range relative to the older lenses, but there’s no question that this remains an extremely useful telephoto zoom range:

There’s also no question that the A057 is capable of giving you lovely, richly detailed and colored images in a wide variety of settings:

I will give you one practical caveat about telephoto lenses in general.  Long range shots can sometimes be less than satisfying at a pixel level in some conditions for the simple reason that telephoto images are more likely to be affected by atmospheric conditions like pockets of rising warm air.  This “heat haze” or “heat shimmer” bends and distorts light waves.  You’ve seen extreme examples perhaps in a movie where you can see heat waves rising off hot asphalt on a desert road, for example, but even milder conditions can sometimes reduce contrast or apparent detail through smaller amounts of “atmospheric distortion”.  This has nothing to do with the quality of your lens and everything to do with the environmental conditions.   This kayaking shot at 400mm is an example of this:

But this 500mm shot in more welcoming conditions produced a much sharper, higher contrast image:

I share this to help those who might buy a relatively expensive lens and then get “freaked out” when sharpness in certain situations is less than expected.

Let’s turn to the technical side of things for a moment, however, and look at strengths and weaknesses from a clinical perspective.  We’ll start with vignette and distortion at 150mm.  There’s a mild amount of pincushion distortion and a minimal amount of vignette.  The distortion I corrected with a -5 and the vignette with a +27 and moving the midpoint to zero. 

Both of these are fairly negligible, and, while I do manual corrections to help measure the amounts of optical flaws, the reality is that most people will get automatic corrections either in camera (video and JPEGs) or through the inevitable correction profile for RAW images that will show up soon.

At 500m the amount of distortion and vignette is actually a tiny bit LESS, which is frankly quite surprising.  It isn’t unusual to see a fairly heavy amount of distortion and vignette on the telephoto end of zooms.

I used a -4 to correct distortion and a +22 to correct the vignette while moving the midpoint to zero for a nice, linear correction.  This is a very positive result when it comes to both of these factors, and I can’t see either vignette or distortion being any kind of issue for real world work.

I also didn’t see any issues with chromatic aberrations.  Even shooting a very high contrast subject like these irises backlit by sun produced no apparent CA.

Likewise in this high contrast shot of a dog running with both sand and water droplets in the air along with very bright highlights in the background, we see no evidence of any kind of color fringing.

These signs point towards a strong optical performance.  All of the tests and photos shown in this review are done on the 50MP Sony Alpha 1, which is Sony’s second-highest resolution full frame mirrorless camera at the time of this review.

If we start at 150mm, F5, we find that the lens produces stunningly good sharpness in the center of the frame and still very good performance in the corner.

If we compare the 150mm wide end of the A057 to the Sony 200-600g at 200mm, we find that the Tamron is about 99% as good in the center of the frame:

The Sony is a little more dominant in the corner, however, delivering a crisper, higher contrast result.

I found stopping the A057 down to F5.6 produced slightly better contrast at the 150mm mark, with a bigger lift at F8, where contrast and detail were noticeably better.

Performance at 200mm was better still, with less variance between the center and edge of the frame.  The 200mm corners rival what we just saw from the Sony.  In fact, if you stop the Tamron down to F5.6 (it still has a maximum aperture of F5 at 200mm), and do an apples to apples comparison, the Tamron actually wins:

That’s an excellent performance.

At 300mm the maximum aperture is now F5.6, but the excellent optical performance continues.  The lens remains extremely sharp in both the center and corner of the frame, with only a mild improvement available when stopping down to F8 thanks to excellent wide open performance.

By 400mm the maximum aperture is F6.3, but the wide open performance is just as good as we’ve been seeing.  I’ve grabbed the bill I’ve got at mid-frame on the left, and the right image is the top corner.  The mid-frame image is fantastically good while the corner image is still strong.

Some of the older supertelephoto zooms would really fade on the long end, but that’s just not the case with the A057.  At 500mm we’ve reached the smallest maximum aperture of F6.7, but we’ve retained an extremely strong center performance that nearly matches the exceptional performance of the Sony.

The same can’t be said for the corners, however, where the Sony is quite dominant.

All things being considered, however, that still makes the Tamron the second best lens I’ve ever seen in this class optically, which is seriously impressive.  No one would have dreamed ten years ago that we could have gotten this strong of an optical performance from a zoom lens reaching 500mm that cost less than $1500.  Kudos to Tamron for building a very strong optical performer.

There’s more to image quality than just sharpness, though.  What about the bokeh quality and the overall look of the images?  One serious advantage long telephotos have is that the nature of the focal lengths allow for very compressed backgrounds along with very shallow depths of field.  This often results in beautifully soft and creamy bokeh in a lot of situations, like this.

Here’s another example.

It’s hard for shorter focal lengths to imitate that degree of defocus irrespective of aperture.  In many, many situations the A057 gave me images that I really, really liked, with great color and lovely defocus.

Some shots had a less favorable ratio of subject to background, but I still thought those shots that landed in the transition zone looked pretty good.

Telephoto lenses like this tend to be less good at the typical “Christmas light” bokeh, but they are also rarely used for those types of shots.  The biggest complaint I could come up with from real world shooting was that in some of my shots of the dogs in action the highlights of the light sparkling on the water turned a little lemon shaped at the edges and with a little busyness visible in some of the bokeh highlights.

That’s about as much negative as I’m capable of coming up with, as by and large I think that images looked pretty great.

Flare resistance also proved to be quite good.  This lens has G2 (2nd Generation) B-BAR coatings, which are generally excellent.  It’s somewhat rare to end up with the sun in the frame when the angle of view is so small (particularly on the telephoto end!), but when I intentionally put it that, I saw very minimal impact from the sun either wide open or stopped down to F11.

In short, there really isn’t a lot to complain about optically here.  You can check out even more photos by visiting the lens image gallery here.  The A057 is improved from earlier Tamron supertelephoto zooms and is competitive with the Sony, which is the best lens of this type that I’ve tested.  Good stuff!

Conclusion

The Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 VC VXD is a very welcome addition to the Sony catalog of lenses.  It slots very neatly between the Sigma 100-400mm F5-6.3 OS DN and the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lenses in terms of size, prize, and performance.  The Sigma is a good value lens, but it doesn’t have the reach of the other lenses and the autofocus is a bit behind the other two lenses.  The Sony is an exceptionally good lens, but it is larger, heavier, and more expensive than some photographers are willing to pay for.  The Tamron A057 gives a nice alternative to both, with a good size and price, good autofocus performance, and very nice image quality.

It did well in basically all areas of tested performance, though with a few unfortunate limitations imposed upon it by Sony.  These include an inability to use the lens with teleconverters and also a limitation on maximum burst rate on Sony’s higher end sports cameras like the a9 series and the Alpha 1.  For the moment, at least, you won’t get more than 15FPS on those cameras, though for many people that might just be enough.  It’s certainly enough to capture great action shots.

Perhaps the chief advantage for many potential buyers will the compact nature of the lens, which is a full 50mm shorter than the 150-600mm G2 lens from Tamron, and nearly 110mm shorter than the Sony 200-600.  That will allow owners of the A57 a lot more versatility in how they pack and transport the lens, which may just be the difference between the lens getting used instead of collecting dust on a shelf at home.  It is sometimes the practical considerations that are the most important.  And, at $1400 USD, the price point is within the range of far more photographers.  All of this adds up to the likelihood that Tamron has another hit on their hands in the form of the A057.

 

Pros:

  • The A057 is significantly smaller than the Sony 200-600G
  • Good quality of construction including robust weather sealing
  • Good function of design with generous controls
  • New zoom lock clutch design works well
  • VXD autofocus is quick, quiet, and accurate
  • Inclusion of VC means more stable results
  • Very low distortion and vignette
  • CA well controlled
  • Good sharpness across the zoom range
  • Great magnification and close up performance
  • Nice bokeh rendering
  • Well priced

Cons:

  • Cannot be used with teleconverters
  • Smaller maximum aperture than competitors
  • Lower burst rate on Sony’s top sports cameras compared to a Sony lens
  • No focus hold button

 

 

Gear Used:

Purchase the Tamron 150-500mm VC VXD @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3G OSS:  B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase the Sony Alpha 1 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase a Sony a9M2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Sony a9 Camera:  B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada  | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 
Sony a7RIV Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Buy DA Merchandise https://bit.ly/TWIMerch

Purchase a Sony a7C @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Peak Design Leash Strap:  Peak Design StoreB&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada  | Amazon UK
BenQ SW271 4K Photo Editing Monitor – B&H Photo  | Amazon | Amazon.ca | Amazon UK
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Exposure Software X6 (Use Code “dustinabbott” to get 10% anything and everything)
Visit Dustin’s Amazon Storefront and see his favorite gear

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.

B&H Logo

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!

Check me out on:  My Patreon  | Sign Up for My Newsletter |  Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Flickr | 500px |  Google+ |


Purchase the Tamron 150-500mm VC VXD @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/3uypy9y | Amazon https://amzn.to/3yGXJPX | Camera Canada https://shrsl.com/2zwh3 | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/3c3yhKK | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/3yQgn7R | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/3fwkf6s | Ebay https://ebay.us/ga91n3

Purchase the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3G OSS @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/2sHUcUt | Amazon https://amzn.to/2ZRXXmi | Camera Canada https://shrsl.com/2zwhj | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/37CaUTV | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/37JQLuX | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/39LpGJF | Ebay http://bit.ly/FE200600

Keywords:  Tamron 150-500, Tamron 150-500mm, Tamron 150-500 VXD, Tamron 150-500 Review, Tamron 150-500mm Review, Di III, VC, VXD, A057, Tamron 150-500 VC Review, Sony 200-600, Sony 200-600mm, Sigma 100-400mm, Sigma 100-400, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II,  Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1

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.

Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 VC VXD Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

May 29th, 2021

The Sony FE catalog of lenses is one of the most robust ever.  Sony’s bet on developing a more open source platform and welcoming third party development has really paid off, as at most focal lengths photographers have a plethora of choice.  The lone exception to this has been at longer telephoto lengths where both first party Sony options along with third party lenses have been rare.  I found Sony’s development of the FE 200-600mm F5-6.3 G OSS lens in 2019 very welcome because it gave Sony shooters the first long lens with a somewhat affordable price point.  I gave it very high marks in my review and eventually purchased one for myself.  That lens has largely gone unchallenged since its release, with only the Sigma 100-400mm F5-6.3 DN OS coming to market as an affordable alternative, though that lens was limited by being incompatible with extenders and thus topping out at 400mm of reach.  I found in my review that focus wasn’t quite up to Sony standards during tracking, either.  But now we have a more direct competitor, and with the “Tamron on Sony” advantage of having direct access to focus algorithms due to Sony having a financial stake in Tamron.  My experience has been that the Tamron lenses with RXD and VXD motors focus essentially as well on Sony as native Sony lenses.  That makes the Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 Di III VC VXD an interesting proposition, particularly when you consider that its price point of $1399 USD positions it about $600 cheaper than the Sony 200-600G.  The photos and tests that I share as a part of my review cycle of the A057 (Tamron’s code for this lens) have all been done with the new Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Tamron has taken a completely different approach to this design than what Sony did, electing to design as compactly as possible.  That makes this lens a MUCH easier lens to store and/or travel with, as you can see above.  They accomplished this by creating an externally zooming design and a smaller-than-typical maximum aperture on the long end of F6.7.  It used to be that pretty much all lenses conformed to a maximum aperture standard of F5.6, as this was considered the limit of what the focus systems in many DSLRs could handle.  Anything smaller and the focus system didn’t get enough light to effectively focus, and, in many cases, the focus system would just refuse to autofocus at all if a combination with a smaller maximum aperture was mounted on it (say an F5.6 lens along with a 1.4x TC, resulting in a maximum aperture of F8).  Tamron and Sigma did have some lenses with a maximum aperture of F6.3, but they accomplished that through a bit of electronic trickery that told the camera the maximum aperture was actually F5.6.  That limitation does not exist with many mirrorless cameras, though, and Canon has even produced a few RF telephotos lenses with a maximum aperture of F11.  The 150-500mm VXD is less extreme, and the maximum aperture at 500mm of F6.7 is two-thirds stop smaller than F5.6 but only one-third stop slower than the maximum aperture of F6.3 found on the Sony 200-600G.  The difference between the lenses is less pronounced when they are fully zoomed out as the Sony lens is internally zooming.

Like many recent Tamron lenses, the 150-500mm VXD has a very strong performance at minimum focus distance, with two different magnification levels at the wide and telephoto ends.  At 150mm you can achieve nearly a 1:3 ratio of magnification (0.322x), which is extremely useful:

Tamron recognized that this focal range is just too long to rely solely on the in-body-image-stabilization of Sony bodies, so this is the first of their full frame lenses for Sony FE that has Tamron’s VC (Vibration Compensation) optical stabilizing system.  The A057 also has their high speed, high torque VXD (Voice-coil eXtreme-torque Drive) linear motor focus system.  This is an impressive lens on paper, but what is the real life performance like?  Is this a serious alternative to the admittedly large but also excellent 200-600G?  That’s what I attempt to answer in either my text or video reviews.  One thing is certain:  you can get beautiful photos with the Tamron 150-500mm VXD.  Enjoy the galleries below.

 

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Thanks to Tamron USA for getting me an early loaner of the lens.  As always, this is a completely independent review.

Images of the Tamron 150-500mm VXD 

Photos taken with the Tamron 150-500mm VXD

 

Gear Used:

Purchase the Tamron 150-500mm VC VXD @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3G OSS:  B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase the Sony Alpha 1 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Purchase a Sony a9M2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Sony a9 Camera:  B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada  | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 
Sony a7RIV Camera: B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Buy DA Merchandise https://bit.ly/TWIMerch

Purchase a Sony a7C @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay 

Peak Design Leash Strap:  Peak Design StoreB&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada  | Amazon UK
BenQ SW271 4K Photo Editing Monitor – B&H Photo  | Amazon | Amazon.ca | Amazon UK
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Exposure Software X6 (Use Code “dustinabbott” to get 10% anything and everything)
Visit Dustin’s Amazon Storefront and see his favorite gear

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.

B&H Logo

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!

Check me out on:  My Patreon  | Sign Up for My Newsletter |  Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Flickr | 500px |  Google+ |


Purchase the Tamron 150-500mm VC VXD @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/3uypy9y | Amazon https://amzn.to/3yGXJPX | Camera Canada https://shrsl.com/2zwh3 | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/3c3yhKK | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/3yQgn7R | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/3fwkf6s | Ebay https://ebay.us/ga91n3

Purchase the Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3G OSS @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/2sHUcUt | Amazon https://amzn.to/2ZRXXmi | Camera Canada https://shrsl.com/2zwhj | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/37CaUTV | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/37JQLuX | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/39LpGJF | Ebay http://bit.ly/FE200600

Keywords:  Tamron 150-500, Tamron 150-500mm, Tamron 150-500 VXD, Tamron 150-500 Review, Tamron 150-500mm Review, Di III, VC, VXD, A057, Tamron 150-500 VC Review, Sony 200-600, Sony 200-600mm, Sigma 100-400mm, Sigma 100-400, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7III, sony a7RIV, a9II,  Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1

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.