A new birding lens for my Nikon.

[Cage]

Oh Happy Days , it arrived on my doorstep this morning overnight from banana land

First impressions ..... It's humongous, and as expected, weighty, but I think the odd hand-held shot is a possibility. Oh, and it's a very high quality Pro grade lens.

It's still blowing a gale here so testing it outside is not a sensible option as anything in a tree is moving a metre or more side to side, and the wind is strong enough to cause vibration when using a tripod.

My first shot will be a test for auto focus accuracy, with adjustments if necessary. Dunno whether to use the dock or do it in-camera.

[Tannin]

Congratulations Kev! I'm sure you will get great value from it. As you know, Mark and others here get excellent results with theirs.

(No new monster for me yet, BBF, might be another week yet. Should get the new Lens Coat and a collapsible hood for it tomorrow. Being physically longer than the 500, it will be a very tight fit in the front seat of a car, particularly with a 1.4 converter mounted.)

[Gazza]

Oh Happy Days , it arrived on my doorstep this morning overnight from banana land

First impressions ..... It's humongous, and as expected, weighty, but I think the odd hand-held shot is a possibility. Oh, and it's a very high quality Pro grade lens.

It's still blowing a gale here so testing it outside is not a sensible option as anything in a tree is moving a metre or more side to side, and the wind is strong enough to cause vibration when using a tripod.

My first shot will be a test for auto focus accuracy, with adjustments if necessary. Dunno whether to use the dock or do it in-camera.

Geez, that was quick!!
Have fun playing with that new toy...I'll be watching from the side lines (cheap seats... )

[Cage]

Congratulations Kev! I'm sure you will get great value from it. As you know, Mark and others here get excellent results with theirs.

(No new monster for me yet, BBF, might be another week yet. Should get the new Lens Coat and a collapsible hood for it tomorrow. Being physically longer than the 500, it will be a very tight fit in the front seat of a car, particularly with a 1.4 converter mounted.)

Cheers Tony


I was rapt in how quickly mine arrived as I was like a kid a couple of days before Xmas. But arrived early.

I've got a lenscoat in the mail as well as a front pinch cap.

PS: If I take the shelf out of my humidity control cabinet it will fit in standing on it's end cap, so that's good news too.

- - - Updated - - -

Geez, that was quick!!
Have fun playing with that new toy...I'll be watching from the side lines (cheap seats... )

C'mon Gazza, ya' know ya' want one.

I think one of the things that clinched it for me was reading in Brad Hill's blog where he compared it with the Nikon and Sigma 500mm primes, and @500mm f8 he commented that it was on a par, IQ wise, with the primes.

I hope to find out when the bloody wind drops off.

PS: I've just watched about twenty minutes of tutes on customising the lens settings with the dock. Now I really do need that cuppa, a BEX and a lie down, a long one.

[J.davis]

I found the best way to set the focus was with 5 AA batteries aligned at 45deg to the lens.
Take pics at the given ranges, and recheck. Focus on the centre one and space further apart as the distance increases.

[Cage]

I found the best way to set the focus was with 5 AA batteries aligned at 45deg to the lens.
Take pics at the given ranges, and recheck. Focus on the centre one and space further apart as the distance increases.

Cheers JD.

I've used that method in the past and it works well.

[Mark L]

My first shot will be a test for auto focus accuracy, with adjustments if necessary. Dunno whether to use the dock or do it in-camera.

Do your testing in camera and use the dock to adjust things later if needs be.
I tested and found things were front focusing a fraction. The dock is a step up from Sigma I reckon.

[Cage]

Do your testing in camera and use the dock to adjust things later if needs be.
I tested and found things were front focusing a fraction. The dock is a step up from Sigma I reckon.

Cheers Mark.

Do you have the OS on when shooting with your monopod?

[Cage]

Well that was a frustrating, and wasted hour.

Downloaded the Optimisation Pro software and tried to do the firmware update but the program kept hanging. Uninstalled it, reinstalled it, same thing. Went online seeking answers but no joy.

I had the dock plugged into my usual USB3 port, which is backward compatible, and then remembered seeing somewhere in Sigma's early blurb that the dock was compatible with USB1, so I tried it in a USB2 port and away she went. Sheesh !!!

Now to check how accurate the auto-focus is.

[Tannin]

^ It will be something to do with the particular USB chipsets, I reckon, rather than a USB 2 / UBB 3 issue. Not that it makes any practical difference to you.

(In general, the USB 2 ports on a computer are controlled by an integrated multi-purpose main board chipset, while the USB 3 ports are controlled by an add-in chip, often from a different manufacturer.)

[Cage]

The wind is still blowing so haven't been able to test the auto-focus.

The B-fH's came in for their bath so decided to try some hand-held shots from about 12m.

The bird was in mottled light and wet, and I'm sure the OS didn't lock-on as I couldn't hold the lens steady enough to find the eye. This was the only one of about a dozen that was anywhere near focus but it has given me a bit of an idea of what the lens will be capable of in normal conditions.

Test Shot BfH.jpg

One thing I learnt is that I won't be hand-holding it unless there is something handy to use as a brace.

[Tannin]

Kev, that lens should be perfectly hand-holdable. It weighs more than a kilogram less than the 500/4 I hand-hold as routine, and I am of slender build and pushing 60. No soda the Sigma, sure, but you can do it for sure. One stupid mistake I often see so-called expert photographers making on Youtube is holding a big lens like a 300/2.8 or a 600/4 by the tripod foot. This is just plain daft. They might as well give lessons in Camera Shake 101. For a steady aim, the left hand has to go out as close to the objective lens as practicable. (Basic geometry - the longer the baseline, the smaller the angle subtended by any given movement of the hand.)

Trust me, you will find that with a little practice you'll be hand-holding happily at 600mm. Hell, if a decrepit old coot like me can hand hold a one-third heavier lens at 700mm, you can manage the little Sigma no worries.

[Cage]

Kev, that lens should be perfectly hand-holdable. It weighs more than a kilogram less than the 500/4 I hand-hold as routine, and I am of slender build and pushing 60. No soda the Sigma, sure, but you can do it for sure. One stupid mistake I often see so-called expert photographers making on Youtube is holding a big lens like a 300/2.8 or a 600/4 by the tripod foot. This is just plain daft. They might as well give lessons in Camera Shake 101. For a steady aim, the left hand has to go out as close to the objective lens as practicable. (Basic geometry - the longer the baseline, the smaller the angle subtended by any given movement of the hand.)

Trust me, you will find that with a little practice you'll be hand-holding happily at 600mm. Hell, if a decrepit old coot like me can hand hold a one-third heavier lens at 700mm, you can manage the little Sigma no worries.

Tony, I've pushed 60, and 70, now I'm having a look at 80 in 4 years, if I make it.

I've been pretty slack, exercise wise, for the last couple of years but about to get back into it, so that should help.

I believe the lens is well and truly going to live up to my expectations.

[Mark L]

Cheers Mark.

Do you have the OS on when shooting with your monopod?

Yes.
I tested a couple of times and while I got some nice photos with OS off I got better results with it on. All photos I've presented on AP have had OS on so don't be afraid to use it.
My 80D has 35 focus points. I use the centre point and the lens will go from infinity to two meter in less than a secound.

[Tannin]

Still under 80? What a slacker! From now on, you must always hand-hold, and no namby-pamby cheating like using both hands for it either.

[Cage]

Still under 80? What a slacker! From now on, you must always hand-hold, and no namby-pamby cheating like using both hands for it either.

I'm gunna need a bigger camera. The D7200 looks like a toy on the end of the lens.

[Cage]

And BTW Tony, the Sigma weighs in at 3.16kg with the hood on, which I think is around the same weight as your Canon.

And I've just done a quick 'n' dirty auto focus test inside with a tape measure at 45°, and like Marks lens it seem to be front focusing, but I won't do any adjustments till I can do the test outside at around 10m.

[Gazza]

Oh Happy Days , it arrived on my doorstep this morning overnight from banana land

Just bought a 'Lotto' ticket for tonight. Shall I order mine now, or wait for the morning?

[Cage]

Just bought a 'Lotto' ticket for tonight. Shall I order mine now, or wait for the morning?

Gazza, I suspect that the price that I paid is going to increase by at least five hundred bucks.

[Tannin]

Quite a bit lighter, Kev. Taking my figures from the ever-reliable Digital Picture -

Manufacturer specified weight. 500/4: 3.87kg; 150-600: 2.86kg. (Excludes hood and, in the case of the Canon, the tripod foot.)
Actual weight: 500/4: 4.015kg; 150-600: 2.86kg. (Still excluding hood.)
In-use weight: 500/4: 4.26kg; 150-600: 3.155kg. (A 35% difference.)

These figures should not be surprising. Both lenses are very solidly built for heavy-duty use with no shortcuts, but the 500 gathers roughly twice as much light and consequently needs more glass. It's actually surprising how light it is. (And the weight of the new Mark II 500 - 3.42kg in-use - is a downright miracle!) My guess is that Sigma were very keen to position the 150-600 Sport as the serious, professional quality lens it is, and were happy to spend a bit of extra metal on it to be sure that no-one doubted its build quality. It is interesting that the cheaper version of it - admittedly with different glass - comes in at just 2.035kg in-use, or less than half the weight of my 500. Even more interesting is that both the Tamrons weigh just 2.11kg.)

All that said, in my brief experience with the Sigma, I found it rather more difficult to hand-hold than I expected. (Ditto the Canon 200-400/4.) Was this (a) something to do with the weight distribution, I wondered? Or was it (b) to do with the more restricted choice of gripping points as the two zooms include both focus and zoom rings where the prime only needs a focus ring? Or (c) simply that I've owned the 500 for many years and am not used to holding the zooms? I'm inclined to suspect that (c) is the most important factor, but not the only one.

Anyway, I found the 150-600 surprisingly awkward, but I'd be happy to revise my opinion in the light of more experience with it. Feel free to post it to me and I'll try it out properly for a year or two and report my findings.

^ All that aside, my experience with the 500 was that I was aghast at the weight of it on first impression and didn't think it was anywhere near hand-holdable, but quickly became accustomed to it and have hand-held it regularly ever since. I reckon you might find the Sigma similar. Give it time and see what happens.