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

Product Information

To avoid bloating the article too much, I didn’t include every single aperture and focal length in my side by side shots. Instead, I concentrated on the examples that show you the most important differences between the three lenses. Image quality is exceptional, with ultra-high-performance glass capable of delivering ultra-sharp results even on the highest resolution cameras. The lens displays beautiful bokeh throughout its zoom range, and optical aberrations are kept well under control. It can be used with SIGMA’s 1.4× and 2× L-Mount teleconverters, with AF effective up to 1200mm. 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.

To test the effectiveness of the OS image stabilization of the Sigma 150-600mm f5-6.3 DG DN OS, I did a series of 120 test-shots hand-held at 600mm focal length and tested with shutter speeds from 1/640 of a second down to 1/40 sec. I used the shots at 1/640 sec with OS=off as reference of how good my hand-holding was at the time of the test and Reikan FoCal did the chore of evaluating the sharpness of all shots. Also with PS, Lr, ON1 Photo Raw 2019, Capture One, and GigaPixel you can enlarge your images to more pixels anyway so no sweat with capture image size. Close-up comparison: Photos taken at minimum focus distance at 150mm (left) and 600mm (right). Images edited in Capture One 21. The following examples illustrate how close you can get to the subject with the lens set to 600mm to aid magnification. BokehThe 150-600mm extends significantly in length as you zoom in, shifting balance forwards noticeably in the process. Closest focus distance (achieved with manual focus) is 0.53m (1.7ft.) with a very good magnification of 1:2.5 and a working distance of 0.24m (0.8ft.) at 150mm focal length. At 600mm focal length maximum magnification is 1:4.8 with a much longer working distance of around 2.3m (7.5ft.). The Tamron 150-500 goes to 1:2.8 at 150mm focal length (0.36m working distance) and 1:3.2 at 500mm focal length (1.32m working distance). The other lenses in this comparison achieve their maximum magnification at their longest focal length: This is 1:5 at around 2.1m working distance for the Sony 200-600 and Sigma 150-600 HSM Sports, and 1:3.5 at 1.6m working distance for the Tamron 150-600. The Sigma 150-600 DN achieves a magnification of 1:10 at its longest focal length at 5.5m (18ft.) distance. [+]

The T (Tight) setting puts the zoom ring resistance at its tightest setting which helps prevent zoom creep, useful when pointing the lens upwards. There is pincushion distortion on the three lenses but that is minimised when the lens profile is applied. Curiously, the Tamron is the one that needs less correction than the other two models. There's better news when it comes to close-up focusing, however. At the 150mm focal length, the Sigma 150-600mm can focus to as close as 22.8 inches, yielding a maximum magnification of 0.34x (1:2.9). That makes it quite a versatile lens, capable not just of bringing distant subjects up close, but also of handling close-up photography.Sigma’s service can change the mount of the lens between Sony’s E-mount and L-mount (at a cost). This is a unique feature that no other manufacturer offers. [++] As noted earlier, the manual focus ring is extremely smooth and well-damped – on a Panasonic L-mount body, you can tell the camera whether you want the focus movement to respond to the speed that you turn the lens ring (non-linear response), or you can have it set so that whatever speed you turn it, the focus shifts proportionally and repeatedly to the amount of turn (linear response). My tests turned out to be a bit less conclusive than I’m used to seeing. But it looks like I was able to get almost 50% shots with usable central sharpness even at 1/40 sec. This would be a 3-4 stop advantage from the image stabilization of the lens at 600mm focal length. I also came across test shots where the OS led to images with less sharp outer image areas. Best keep in mind that holding/shooting a combo that weighs almost 2.9kg over an extended period of time is always stressful and leads to increased shake. So it’s better to shoot from a tripod, monopod or any support you can get for the lens when using focal lengths beyond 200mm. Slower shutter speeds such as 1/30s, 1/15s or even 1/8s are possible, but the keeper rate decreases considerably.