Trying out my Sigma 150-600mm F/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary

[Tronhard]

I recently mortgaged my soul and for the first time since going digital bought a lens that was not either a Canon of Nikon lens. The Sigma fills a gap that I had been finding frustrating, so not having the Masai Mara, the Galapagos or the Antarctic to go to right now, I went to my local zoo to see how it would behave.

I have the Canon mount version and tried several bodies before I settled on the EOS 80D - much because of the later tech inside but also the shutter seems a lot softer than my 7DII. I do have FF bodies but wanted the extra narrow FoV to pull in subjects as close as possible.

So here are some of the results, processed from RAW, but not massively so - cropping, sharpening to overcome the AA filter, and getting managing contrast. I have not tried to sharpen the images significantly...

Sigma Photos

Notes:

The lion I kept cropping to see how far I could go and get decent resolution, but I finally had enough noise and a facial.
The flamingo has a large circular artifact left in deliberately to demonstrate how the lens handles bokeh.

Comments welcome.

[Shadowman]

I've tried a few super teles (Tamron, Nikon) and they are a good bargain but haven't made the leap yet, nice captures.

[Cogito]

Nice set! You should be pleased! Even more so if they were hand-held

[Geoff F]

Works OK.

You need strong arms for steady hand held shots with these lenses. I have the Sport version and usually work with a tripod and lightly tensioned ball head which takes the weight but still allows plenty of flexibility for quick changes to the shooting angles. One potential problem with these lenses is a relatively shallow focus depth, even when shooting around F11 etc.

[zen]

Pretty sharp for hand held shots! Good for you, Trev.

Thx for sharing!

Zen

[Tronhard]

Works OK.

You need strong arms for steady hand held shots with these lenses. I have the Sport version and usually work with a tripod and lightly tensioned ball head which takes the weight but still allows plenty of flexibility for quick changes to the shooting angles. One potential problem with these lenses is a relatively shallow focus depth, even when shooting around F11 etc.

Hi Geoff and thanks for your imnput:

I chose the Contemporary version of the lens for a couple of reasons:
1. It's half the price of the Sport version - and for me that's a big difference.
2. It weighs a bit over a kilogram less than the sport version, so using it hand-held is a lot easier.

That said I deliberately do weights to give me the strength and control to use such a beast.