sigma 150-600 sport lens, ( Thread is now a review )

[dannylightning]

EDIT, well i decided to buy the lens so i am giving it a review.

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Original post.....

this lens looks awesome from what i have read, you never know if people are being paid or what not to do good reviews though so ill ask here.

sigma claims the lens works great with their newest 1.4x or 2.0x converters, no auto focus issues or loss of IQ, just a loss of a stop or two, i kind of have my doubts about that. hopefully someone has tried this out.

i hear this lens takes very sharp photos even wide open.

compared to the old 150-500 ( if you have had exp with one) how much better is this lens.

i am thinking of selling my 150-500, i have my d5300 up for sale too, and using that money to help fund the 150-600 and 1.4x teleconverter.

 

[dannylightning]

Well, i am a idiot and put this lens on my credit card which i should not have done, that is allot of money to pay off. I just got the lens today, i bought it from a place with a great return policy, as much as it cost it better end up being totally awesome, if not i can send it back. hopefully it meets my expectations.

ill have a review on it here soon as far as IQ goes. ill say what i think about it as of this far. i did get to shoot with it for a few minutes today, the sun was going down and its very cloudy so the lightning conditions were bad, not many birds out today either. i got a photo of a pie billed gerbe which turned out very good ( photo is posted in wild life section ) with the bad lightning and how far away the gerbe was, it came out pretty good after a few min in light room. could not crop it that much or the photo looked really grainy.. i shot some leaves and trees and things that were close to the lens, the images looked great and they were very sharp but they were just random crappy images. i was shooting wide open at 600mm and the images were very sharp. they still say F/8 is the sweet spot on this lens for sharpness, from what i was reading it was saying this lens wide open is sharper than the sigma 150-500 and the tamron 150-600 when they are stopped down. so ill see how true that is. . shooting things that were far away the photos were pretty grainy which is to be expected in bad lightning with high ISO and the subjects being way to far away to really get good photos of, so basically anything i was close enough too the IQ seemed very good.. cant wait till i get to try it out on a nice well lit day.

auto focus is crazy fast compared to my sigma 150-500, i would say probably 2x-3X faster and i did not get any hunting at all, it just quickly focused in on a subject and seemed to be dead on. the vibration reduction seems to work very well but this lens is heavy, at at over 6lbs its a bare to hand hold, hopefully i can get used to the weight, i just cant shoot birds on a tripod, it just seems to slow me down and i miss shots so i hand hold. its hard to keep the focus point on the subject due to having to hold up all that weight. i could keep the 150-500 lens pretty steady because it was lighter, a extra 2lbs does not sound like much but it definitely is allot of extra weight but the VR on the 150-600 sport seems to be working great, i did not get any blurry images.

the build quality of this lens seems excellent, the lock switch to lock the lens at any focal length to get rid of any lens creep is awesome. the lens cap is something i am not sure about, its made out of cloth and Velcros on to the lens. the inside of the lens cover is lines with microfiber like material which is just setting against the lens when you have the cloth lens cap on, not sure how i feel about that.. over all the thing just seems to be heavy duty and made well, when you zoom in and out it moves very smoothly, it just feels like a quality lens all the way around.

i do not like how the strap attaches to the lens. its basically at the end of the lens near where you mount the lens to the camera, so its not balanced well if you have the lens hanging from the strap. with the 150-500mm the strap was further out so the camera would balance more level and i could swing the camera down on my hip and walk around and it was comfortable, the 150-600 sport just wants to hang straight down when hanging from the strap so you almost need to carry it in your arms all the time and not just let it hang from the strap. also the strap it came with is not long enough IMO it goes directly around your neck and with the weight that sucks. i like to put the strap around my neck and under my arm so all the weight is not directly on the back of my neck. i do not really have enough room to do that with this strap, its not long enough to do this and be able to move the camera around freely while the strap is still around your body. i do not want to use the cameras strap because all the weight of the lens would be on the mount and that would not bee good, the support from the strap should be from the lens and not the camera body..

 

[dannylightning]

took the lens out for a few this morning. this lens is sharp,

and i can crop like crazy as long as you get a photo with a good exposure.

here is a original and a crop of the original.. no editing has been done at all except for the crop..

and here is a red wing black bird i was able to sneak up on and get right next to.

and a photo of a woodpecker that was behind a bunch of leaves way up in a tree, i had to crop the image allot to get a good view of him, and you can see how sharp the eyes even though he was burred behind stuff.,

not a great trip to find birds this morning, most of them would not come out in the open for a good shot and there was some big construction boat thing floating i the lake making a bunch of noise.

 

[JacaRanda]

The Red-winged Black Bird is really nice! How did the weight feel if you were walking around for any length of time? I've heard that even though the lens hood is built like a tank, it adds unnecessary weight.

 

[kap55]

The Sport is a lot of money - at least a lot more than the Contemporary. Did you give any consideration to getting it instead and saving a thousand bucks? I have had the 150-600 C on a D750 for a couple of months and am very happy. I ordered the Sigma TC1401 a couple of days ago and should have it next week. I debated for quite a while whether to get the TC or pick up a D7200 for use with this lens. Depending on how the TC works I still might get a 7200. Here's a couple from last week.

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[Braineack]

a lot more users of both on the FM forums. those with the Sport tend to love it, and in comparisons to the C and Tamron it's a clear winner -- obviously.

Even the C edges in front of the Tamron. But I'm happy with mine -- I just wish I was able to find one used at the current going rate instead of buying new.

 

[jaomul]

a lot more users of both on the FM forums. those with the Sport tend to love it, and in comparisons to the C and Tamron it's a clear winner -- obviously.

Even the C edges in front of the Tamron. But I'm happy with mine -- I just wish I was able to find one used at the current going rate instead of buying new.

You have that tamron a bit to long now to still be regretting buying it new. At least having bought it new you know what way it's been taken care of.

 

[Braineack]

yeah, but I'm cheap.

 

[astroNikon]

a lot more users of both on the FM forums. those with the Sport tend to love it, and in comparisons to the C and Tamron it's a clear winner -- obviously.

Even the C edges in front of the Tamron. But I'm happy with mine -- I just wish I was able to find one used at the current going rate instead of buying new.

You could sell yours to yourself.
Barter yourself down silly until you get yourself into the $500 range.
Then sit back and feel good that you got a Tamzooka for cheap !!

 

[dannylightning]

the lens cap is 0.64 lbs, i just weighed it on my food scale. walking around with the lens for about a hour and well its taxing, my arms were tired, i always seem to have some wrenched up back muscles that are bothering me and its not super pleasant but its not horrible but i would suggest getting some 10 lb dumbbells and doing bicep curls and side to lateral shoulder raises to build up some endurance in those muscles or you will get fatigued quickly trying to carry this around and hold it up to get shots. its no joke on the weight. maybe a mono pod to let it rest on the ground when not actually shooting would be good but than again that adds more weight when you are holding the camera up in the air and what not.

i just went out in the yard and got a few shots with out the lens hood and it did not seem quite as bad but than again i was not out there that long. i was looking at prime lenses and well most of them are heavy and cost allot more. i went with the sport over the contemperarry becaus i figure if i am going to get one get the better one, its not what i would call affordable but it was the absolute most i would want to pay for the lens.

here are a few more pics. the one thing that does worry me is it seems like my ISO is up higher with this lens than with my old sigma, in the shake my ISO seems to be going up to 6400 or higher. i set the lens to f/8 since the lens is said to be sharpest there , 1/1000 to stop motion of animals - and auto ISO

the last 2 photo are heavily cropped

.

 

[JacaRanda]

Photo #1 with the 2 Sparrows and the 1st one with the berries are nice. #1 is my favorite. Love the dark rich colors in that.

 

[dannylightning]

I think the first one is a pair of female red wing black birds, not sparrows but i could be wrong, i am a bird photographer that does not know my birds that well. in my field guide the pic of the female red wing black birds look allot like those.

i feel that when i get a properly exposed image the colors are amazing from this lens.

here are a few photos of the new and old sigma lens..

 

[JacaRanda]

I believe you are right in regards to female RWBB.

 

[dannylightning]

yeah, the're about the size of a sparrow or warbler, there are nothing like the male RWBB, its kind of strange. i got a pic of one the other day and i could not figure out what it was, someone told me it was the female RRBB and i looked it up and sure enough they looked the same. after i got this pic today i looked it up again and it seems to be a match. its strange how different they are

 

[astroNikon]

I had the sigma 150-500 and now the tamron 150-600

When I carry it any distance I actually essentially put my hand on my hip or jacket pocket then the camera/lens goes into the triangle section I create, and I hold it in there - with the neckstrap still around my neck though loose. This prevents my neck from bearing the weight of the lens/camera while walking.