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

Product Information

Both shots were focused manually for optimal sharpness of the corner crop, shot from a heavy tripod with image stabilization switched off. As you can see turning the lens by 90 degrees around its optical axis has a devastating effect on corner sharpness. The lens develops quite some astigmatism which hints at a lens group tilting from its optimal position when the lens is turned. That 3 out of 3 lenses showed the same effect might also indicate that this problem affects more than just a few individual copies. My advice: If you buy this lens make sure your copy is not affected. Of course, you're not buying a lens like this for the wide end of the range. At its 600mm telephoto, we're still very impressed with center sharpness even wide-open at F6.3, and there's only a slight improvement in stopping down to F9. The extreme corners definitely aren't as strong, though, even when focus is set there. And stopping down to F9 only brings a more modest improvement in sharpness. Finally, you might have noticed in some of the side by side images that the Sony tends to render cooler colours in comparison to the other two lenses. With a lens this size you don't want to mount your camera directly on a tripod, as gravity will put some unnecessary stress on the lens mount. To that end, Sigma includes a removable tripod collar. Its sits near the base of the lens and has a thumb screw to tighten to set it in position; loosening the screw allows you to twist the collar, so you can switch between portrait and landscape orientation when working from a tripod or monopod. Sigma includes a rubber ring to cover the indentation in which the collar sits for protection if you opt to remove it.

Filter-thread: 95mm, like the Sony 200-600 and Tamron 150-600. The Tamron 150-500 has a 82mm thread, the Sigma 150-600 HSM Sports needs huge 105mm filters. [0]That's another great feature of the Sigma - maybe not true macro, but close enough for some nice close up work with smaller subjects. The specs say that its minimum focus distance allows for 0.3x magnification, which is quite impressive for such a long lens!

Finally, the 'S' position stands for "Smooth", and as its name would suggest this reduces the torque substantially. The lens will definitely exhibit creep if pointed upwards or downwards too much in this setting, but the zoom can be adjusted with much less force. So little, in fact, that you can adjust focal length not just by turning the zoom ring, but also in a push-pull fashion by gripping the lens in front of the zoom ring, just behind the lens hood. This is not a lens that you can hand-hold for very long at all, being much more at home mounted on a sturdy tripod or monopod. The bad thing is with TC's is the LENS INFO is wrong so for lens correction to the image is very hard to do.Slow shutter speeds are possible but the keeper rate is lower too, so make sure to take multiple pictures in a row As you'd expect for a lens of this type, the Sigma 150-600mm is pretty hefty. But it's not terribly heavy for what it is, and as the first ever Sports-line lens designed specifically for mirrorless, it definitely makes the most of its mirror-free format. The OS function delivers effective image stabilisation that offers an advantage of approximately 4 stops,

Optical construction is 25 elements in 15 groups, including 4 FLD (Fluorite-type Low Dispersion) and 2 SLD (Super Low Dispersion). The front element is oil repellant and if we look into the front of the lens we can clearly see the rounded 9 bladed diaphragm. Focusing is internal, so the length does not vary. The lens does extend when zooming. We use Imatest SFR (spatial frequency response) charts and analysis software to plot lens resolution at the centre of the image frame, corners and mid-point distances, across the range of aperture settings and, with zoom lenses, at four different focal lengths. The tests also measure distortion and color fringing (chromatic aberration). In the following days, I tested the Sigma 150-600mm on the wild horses as they galloped across the beach, fought over territory, and even raced through the surf. At a score of 0[-]/5[0]/11[+] the Sigma 150-600mm f5-6.3 DG DN OS offers a very good feature set including the unique option to get the lens-mount swapped (at a cost). It allows the use of teleconverters (at least for L-mount) thereby increasing maximum focal length to 1200mm, is easy to use as push/pull zoom and is thoroughly sealed against the elements. Plus it can reach magnifications of 1:2.5 at very usable working distances. But although much lighter than its DSLR sibling the lens still is heavy approaching 3kg with camera attached. Two long telephoto zoom lenses The difference between the Sigma 150-600mm f5-6.3 DG DN OS going up to 600mm versus the Tamron 150-500mm f5-6.7 Di III VC reaching “only” 500mm is visible but might not be the decisive factor for choosing a zoom lens. If the image at 500mm is sharp enough, cropping a 42MP shot at 500mm to match the angle-of-view at 600mm still nets you around 29MP. This might well be enough for the intended purpose.

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The focusing ring is much narrower, making it a little more difficult to locate in a rush, but it is well damped. There's no distance scale and no depth of field scale on this lens. These MTF charts show the computed lens-performance of lenses wide open without influence of diffraction at 10 line-pairs/mm (red) and 30 lp/mm (blue/green). Higher values are better (more contrast) and the closer the dotted and solid lines are together the less contrast dependents on the orientation of the test-pattern (less astigmatism). The x-axis displays the distance from the optical axis (=center of the sensor) in mm. As you'd expect in a lens of this price and class, the Sigma 150-600mm is comprehensively sealed to keep out dust and moisture. With individual seals and gaskets at the lens mount, the seams between sections and every individual switch, button or ring, you should be able to shoot in inclement weather with a degree of confidence.