The tripod foot also works as a handle making it easy to carry this lens and/or your camera together. One factor to consider, however, is that supertelephoto lenses are the most common type of lens to have issues with dust, humidity, or other elements getting in the lens. Here is where the comparison gets tougher, as both lenses are much sharper at the shorter focal lengths, and both are softer at the longer focal lengths. Both are sharper when stopped down to f/8 or f/9, than wide open. In my opinion, the difference in image quality between the two is negligible. There is no clear winner here, both having areas where they are slightly better than the other. The Sigma 150-600mm f5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports is a long telephoto zoom designed for full-frame mirrorless cameras with Sony E and Leica L-mounts. Announced in July 2021, it complements Sigma’s 100-400mm f5-6.3 DG DN OS Contemporary for those who need more reach. The focus ring is 15mm wide and is located just in front of the tripod mount. It also has a rubberized surface, moves smoothly, and can easily be operated with one finger. AF-operation and image stabilization of the Sigma 150-600 DN is inaudible if you record video with the built-in microphone.

One of the most common reasons to have blurry shots is when the camera shutter opens. With this, the sensor captures light and sends it through the lens, so you see blurry shots. Q3. Should you opt for a 300mm lens for sports? But if you stop down to f/7.1 or higher and do the testing, the difference between these lenses is even tighter. If you want to use teleconverters, mirrorless is the way to go. With a mirrorless camera like the Canon EOSR I have no problems using an insane combination of Canon EOSR, EF Control Ring Adapter, Extender EF 1.4x II and Extender EF 2x II, giving the equivalent of a 170-1,700mm f/12-16 lens! This crazy combo isn't the fastest at autofocus, but it still works and is easy enough to hand-hold: I’ve leveraged both its manual and autofocus modes for optimal precision. The lens’s Optical Stabilization system, with its general and panning modes, has been invaluable. Manual focus is excellent. It has a direct-coupled mechanical manual focus ring you may move at any time for instant manual focus override. It works in any position of the AF-MO-MF switch.f/5-6.3: It has a very wide zoom range, from 150mm, which is almost at portrait length, all the way up to extreme telephoto length at 600mm. But the maximum aperture depends on where in the zoom spectrum you are. At 150mm the maximum aperture is f/5. At 600mm, the maximum aperture is 6.3mm. So it’s not the fastest lens out there, but it’s in good company with other super telephotos that aren’t priced in the stratosphere. This is an off-brand third-party lens and may or may not work on your camera regardless of what anyone says. If it doesn't work, return it, or call Sigma, not your camera maker, for help. Used with teleconvertters the combination can be so long that I can photograph local airplanes in the sky and read their tail numbers. More at Teleconverters. These are purely computed; not actually measured. These are what Sigma calls "Diffraction MTF," which includes the calculated effects of diffraction. Sigma's "Geometric MTF" are fake, cheerfully excluding the very real softening effects of diffraction.

An example of this is the Tamron 70-200, which doesn't reach nearly 200mm when compared to the Nikon and Canon version. If this crop is about 6" (15cm) wide on your screen, then the complete image printed at this same extreme magnification would be about 29×43" (2.4×3.6 feet or 0.75×1.1 meters). I'd like to see a couple tear downs to see how well sealed these lenses are, and what the difference is. You may be surprised to see that these lenses don't at all change at the same focal lengths, meaning that one of the lenses is actually faster than the other. The addition of the 1.4x TC to the Sigma when stopped down, doesn’t seem to affect the image quality. The Sigma seems to have a clear advantage when it comes to chromatic aberration (CA), and even using the 1.4x TC there was noticeably less fringing in high contrast areas, when compared to the Tamron. Of course, CA is very easily corrected in Camera RAW or Lightroom when shooting in RAW.All of these tests are shot at f/6.3. The reason I'm showing the tests at f/6.3 is that it's the most common focal length you'd shoot this lens at.

Although Tamron pioneered the release of the first 150-600mm lens, Sigma followed suit by releasing two versions of lenses with exactly the same focal length and aperture ranges. The smaller and lighter version, the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary (the one we are reviewing today), targets the same market as the Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 Di VC USD, while the much larger and heavier “Sport” version is something unique to Sigma, with no other equivalent competing offers from any other manufacturer. Except for the rare sale that could happen with these lenses, you really won't find the price fluctuating much between retailers.If you're not getting ultra-sharp pictures with this, be sure not to shoot at f/11 or smaller where all lenses are softer due to diffraction, always shoot at ISO 100 or lower because cameras become softer at ISO 200 and above, avoid shooting across long distances over land which can lead to atmospheric heat shimmer, be sure everything is in perfect focus, set your camera's sharpening as you want it (I set mine to the maximum) and be sure nothing is moving, either camera or subject. If you want to ensure a soft image with any lens, shoot at f/16 at ISO 1,600 at default sharpening in daylight through heat shimmer of rapidly moving subjects at differing distances in the same image. As you can see, the Contemporary is actually faster than the Sport version from 313 to 389mm, which would be a pretty normal focal length to shoot with this lens. The Sigma 60-600mm covers a uniquely huge zoom range. It's also super-sharp, even in the center at 600mm, and focuses fast. If you don't mind the huge size, weight and expense, it's a swell lens. What I learned from this test is that the price of the lens is NOT a good indicator of the performance of the lens–at least in this case.

Still, I am not in any way implying that the 150-600mm lenses are no good. In fact, this particular design produces surprisingly great images overall, with sharpness that one often cannot match when using shorter focal length lenses and teleconverters. The newer Nikkor 80-400mm VR for example, just does not couple well with teleconverters and there is a dramatic drop of AF reliability at the long end with the 1.4x TC, which not only maxes out at 560mm, but also slows the setup down to f/8. Worse, there were times when shooting birds in Florida that I didn't bring the heavier lens with me because it was too much of a nuisance. Hence, while the experience of shooting with the Contemporary doesn’t measure up to the Sports, the relative compactness and light weight means this is a lens that I think will encourage a lot of people to ditch the tripod and just carry it around mounted on a lightweight camera body. How about this lens with a D5500 at 2350g (5.2lbs) and equivalent FoV of 225-900mm (a birders dream). Not too shabby! Even if it works on your camera today, there is no guarantee that it will work on whatever camera you buy 5 or 10 years from today.At shorter focal lengths, you really can't feel any difference between the autofocus speed of these lenses. The zoom ring itself is much larger and is in a more normal position on the lens, and the lens is lighter so the zoom ring twists much faster. The rule of thumb when shooting with long focal lengths is to set the shutter speed equal to, or greater than the focal length, so remember that when by adding the 1.4x TC to a 600mm, one is now shooting at 840mm on a full frame, and 1260 mm on a crop sensor. For sharp images, a shutter speed over 1/1000th of a second is a must. At 150mm, sharpness already approaches outstanding levels in the centre of the frame at maximum aperture and the clarity achieved towards the edges of the frame is excellent. There is no benefit to image quality with stopping down, unless it is a creative decision.