150-600mm F5/-6.3 DG DN for Sony E

Product Information

The rearmost lens element is deeply inset, allowing use of Sigma's 1.4x and 2x teleconverters for L-mount shooters. Sadly, E-mount equivalents aren't available. The Deko platform is provided by Pay4Later Ltd, t/a Deko which acts as a credit broker, not a lender and does not charge you for credit broking services. Pay4Later Limited is registered in England and Wales (company number 06447333) and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (register number 728646). For more information please go to www.dekopay.com/support or visit www.dekopay.com. Next up is the manual focusing ring, which is electronic and totally smooth in action. Minimum focusing varies according to zoom position, 58cm (22.8 inches) at 150mm and 280cm (110.2 inches) at 600mm. The maximum magnification is 1:2.9 which is usefully close. The AF is driven by a stepping motor and there is a high precision magnetic sensor that detects the AF position for potentially greater accuracy. The AF is certainly very snappy and focusing on wildlife is not a problem. The only limitation is the one-second delay if OS (Optical Stabilisation) is switched on. The lens is priced at 1399 EUR / 1499 USD / 1199 GBP and so far only available for Sony E-mount and Leica L-mount. But I’m pretty sure Sigma is working on Z- and RF-mount versions of their lenses too.

The lens has a dust and splash-proof construction with a water and oil repellent front coating that should help it to withstand most inclement conditions.It offers an iris diaphragm with a rounded 9 blade diaphragm which creates an attractive blur to the out of focus areas of the image, 4 stops of built-in optical image stabilisation with 2 selectable OS modes, and a minimum focus distance of 58cm / 23in with a maximum magnification ratio of 1:2.9. The OS switch toggles the optical stabilization mode. It can be turned off completely, or set to one of two positions. Position 1 is used when you're holding the lens steady and want to capture a subject that isn't moving, and Position 2 should be used when panning the lens to capture a moving object, like a football player running across your field of view, or a bird in flight. Our tests showed that the stabilization system was quite effective. With the lens set to 600mm, I was able to get handheld shots at speeds as low as 1/100-second with consistently sharp results. There was some blur when cutting to 1/50-second, but images looked fine when viewed at Web resolution. At 1/20-second, I was able to get the occasional shot in crisp focus, but most of my test images showed blur, and 1/15-second resulted in more consistent, noticeable evidence of camera shake. At 1/6-second, all of the handheld shots were quite shaky. Still, consistently sharp results at 1/100-second and reasonably sharp images at 1/50-second is nothing to sneeze at. If you're using the lens with a monopod, you should have no trouble getting excellent results in the field at the shutter speeds you'll use for wildlife photography. Our used products are subject to wear and tear in comparison to brand new products. This also applies to accessories that are supplied with the camera including batteries which may have a lower optimum performance level/life expectancy. The Sony 200-600 blows the other ultra-zooms out of the water. All of them produce nice photos, but the Sony's handling is far better than the other options. Having a heavy 1/2 focus throw makes most of the lenses kind of impractical to use. The Sony comparatively has a 1/4 turn throw, and it's fingertip light. The Sigma closely follows the Sony when it comes to weight and diameter, but it is 5cm shorter when retracted. When extended to 600mm however, it becomes a few centimetres longer than the Sony lens.

Sigma has finally come up with a modern mirrorless design for a super-telephoto lens with a 4x zoom range: They managed to make it much lighter, optically better, and also cheaper than its predecessor – not a small feat! Optical performance is the best I’ve seen so far on a zoom lens reaching beyond 400mm focal length. But 3 out of 3 copies of the lens could only reach these results when used in landscape orientation: As soon as I turned to portrait orientation corner sharpness deteriorated significantly. A serious fault that Sigma hopefully can remedy. But other than that Sigma has designed a very compelling super-telephoto zoom which clearly earns a Highly Recommended – with the caveat that you need to find a good copy! The Sigma 150-600mm for Sony lens features an optical construction comprising of 25 elements in 15 groups, including 4 FLD and 2 ELD elements. The Tamron is also a new design for mirrorless cameras and is almost as sharp as the new Sigma. Priced roughly at the same level, the Tamron misses 100mm at the long end but for that is 265g (9.4oz.) lighter, 67mm shorter, and uses 82mm filters instead of 95mm. Feature-wise both lenses are almost on a par with the Sigma having the benefit of being able to use teleconverters – at least in its L-mount version – and the mount conversion service. So if you’re the owner of an L-mount camera, the Sigma is the only game in town. But when your looking for a long telephoto zoom lens for your E-mount Sony camera, you have a choice between the smaller and lighter Tamron and the reach of 600mm plus a better optical performance from the new Sigma.We also noted some issues with specular highlights. The good news is that the nine-bladed, rounded aperture diaphragm yield nice, round out-of-focus highlights even when stopped down to F8 (though this is to be expected, since F8 isn't stopped down much from wide open, especially on the long end).

Optical image stabilisation offers around 4-stops of compensation to compensate when handholding at slower shutter speeds. An OS switch along with c ustom mode switches also allow the user to change between settings to suit different shooting situations. A focus limiter switch caters for subject distance to speed up AF performance and there are also three customisable AFL buttons.Focus accuracy and repeatability is critical to consistently produce sharp shots. Repeatability (the accuracy of focus on the same subject after repeated focus-acquisition) of the Sigma 150-600mm f5-6.3 DG DN OS under well-lit test conditions is good (measured 96.4% in Reikan FoCal) but shows some focus variation especially when focusing from further away. And there was one clearly misfocused shot over a series of 40 shots. At 200mm focal length the lens focuses in around 0.7 sec from infinity to 2.08m (1:10 magnification). In darker conditions (+5EV) I encountered a lot of hunting at focal lengths of 300mm and beyond. Let’s compare the new Sigma 150-600mm f5-6.3 DG DN OS (“Sigma 150-600 DN” for short) to the Tamron 150-500mm f5-6.7 Di III VC (“Tamron 150-500”) and Sony FE 200-600mm f5.6-6.3 G OSS (“Sony 200-600″). For good measure I’ve also added the Sigma 150-600mm f5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports (Sigma 150-600 HSM Sports”) and Tamron SP AF 150-600mm f5-6.3 Di VC USD G2 (“Tamron 150-600”) to the mix. Although both lenses are older DSLR designs they were popular lenses then and still can be used via Sigma’s MC-11 Canon EF to Sony E mount converter – which adds 26mm in length, approx. 120g in weight and 250 EUR in costs. As usual I’ve rated the features with a [+] (or [++]), when it’s better than average or even state of the art, a [0] if it’s standard or just average, and [-] if there’s a disadvantage. suitable. TSC is a type of polycarbonate with a thermal expansion rate similar to that of aluminium, ensuring the The 150–600mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS | Sports is SIGMA Sports line’s first ultra-telephoto zoom lens, designed from the ground up specifically for full-frame mirrorless cameras. It offers outstanding levels of performance, functionality, and build quality required for ultra-telephoto shooting in the most demanding situations.