Trogon Photo Tours

October 2015 - This month's newsletter features images taken with and information about the Sigma 150-600 Contemporary lens.  I have been using this lens a fair amount since our Brazil tour this summer and have some thoughts about it's strengths and weaknesses.  Retailing at about $1,100 and weighing in at only 4.3 pounds it is an impressive lens especially considering the cost and weight considerations.  It is a significant improvement over the Sigma 150-500. 

Black-collared Hawk photographed August 2015 at Rio Claro Lodge, Mato Grosso, Brazil.  Canon 7D Mark II, Sigma 150-600 Contemporary at 302mm, 1/1600 F6.3, iso 800, Av mode, evaluative metering at 0, handheld from boat.  At Rio Claro Lodge they routinely feed the hawks pirahnas making it relatively easy to get good images of them fishing.  One thing that impressed me about the contemporary lens was it's ability to autofocus on birds against a busy background.  This is often an easy task to pick up the bird against a background like that and before I used it I was skeptical of how well this lens would do in that regard. In general I would say the autofocus is quite a bit more consistent in terms of acquiring focus quickly than the older Sigma 150-500. 

Here is another shot of the Black-collared Hawk from the same sequence 6 frames later, still in nice focus.  I was shooting in aperture priority here and I either should have been in manual or reduced the exposure compensation as the shutter speed dropped to 1/1000 and in the original the head was overexposed.  By reducing the exposure and the highlights in Adobe Camera Raw I was able to recover the details in post processing.  After this sequence I dialed in -0.7 of exposure compensation to preserve the whites on the next sequence. 

Great Black Hawk photographed August 2015, Rio Claro Lodge, Mato Grosso, Brazil.  Canon 7D Mark II, Sigma 150-600 Contemporary at 361mm, 1/100 F5.6, iso 1600, Av mode, evaluative metering -0.7, handheld from boat.  This shot shows one of the big improvements of the Sigma 150-600 over the Sigma 150-500, that is the image quality wide open.  I never shot my 150-500 wide open because the image quality was soft unless I stopped down to at least F8.  Well my Sigma 150-600 is much sharper wide open.  Given the choice I will still stop it down to F8 but if the light is low as in this example I feel comfortable shooting it either wide open or (better) close to wide open.  I don't own the Canon 100-400 version II, I have heard lots of good things about it, seen plenty of nice images taken with it and some photographers have asked me why I didn't buy that instead of the Sigma 150-600.  There are a couple of reasons, first is the focal length and the maximum aperture.  That's correct I said maximum aperture.  Photographers complain about the F6.3 being a deal breaker for them.  Well at 560mm we are at a maximum aperture of F6.3 with the Sigma 150-600.  With the Canon 100-400 to get to 560mm you have to add a 1.4x teleconverter and then you are at a maximum aperture of F8.  If you are comparing the 100-400 (or the Nikon 80-400 for that matter) without a teleconverter you are looking at a maximum aperture of F5.6 at 400mm which is pretty much the equivalent of the Sigma 150-600 which has a maximum aperture of F5.6 up to 387mm.  So for another 200mm I pay the price of losing just 1/3 of a stop to F6.3. (Really I generally don't shot the Sigma 150-600 at over 570mm for reasons I will explain later but you get the idea.). 

Large-billed Tern photographed August 2015, Transpanteira Road, Mato Grosso, Brazil.  Canon 7D2, Sigma 150-600 Contemporary at 313mm 1/2000 F8, iso 400, handheld.  Here is another flight shot taken with this combination.  Needless to say when terns are feeding they are not the easiest targets to attain good focus on, I was impressed with the ability of this combo of camera and lens to do so.

Green-headed Tanager photographed August 2015 at the Rio de Janeiro Primatology Center, Canon 5D3, Sigma 150-600 at 531mm, 1/800 F6.3, iso 1600.  This lens for the most part works very well with the Canon 5D3, the image quality even on large crops can be impressive.  For example this image is cropped down to about 6 megpixels out of the orginal 22.  This was a grab shot at the center as we were photographing captive monkeys and this stunning bird came down to feed on some fallen fruits between the primate exhibits.  This encounter emphasized the versatility of this lens.  At one moment you can be at 150mm photographing captive monkeys and the next you are photographing small wild songbirds.  The lens does have some vignetting in the corners when used with a full frame camera like a 5D3 or a Nikon D800.  In this image as it would be in many bird images the corners are cropped out.  When using a crop sensor camera such as a Canon 7D2 or a Nikon D7200 the vignetting is not an issue. 

Brahminy Kite photographed October 2015 Thale Noi, Thailand.  Canon 7D2, Sigma 150-600 Contemporary at 600mm, 1/2500 F8, iso 640.  I have found that at 600mm the lens is definetly not as sharp as it is if you back it off just a little bit to around 560mm so that is what I do now I shoot it at a maximum of about 560mm.  This is a dynamic take off pose but on close inspection of the tiff or raw file the sharpness isn't quite adequate.  

Brahminy Kite, juvenile photographed October 2015 at Thale Noi, Thailand.  Canon 7D2, Sigma 150-600 Contemporary at 562mm, 1/1600 F8, iso 400, handheld from boat.  While I am not very happy with the sharpness of this lens at 600mm if you just back off a bit to 560mm the results are very good, so this is what I routinely do at this point if even if the subject isn't close.  By the way I have shot with the Sigma 150-600 Sport which retails at about $2,000.  The image quality is very similar to the Contemporary lens, the biggest differences that I can see are that the Sport is quite a bit heavier at 6.3 pounds, bigger and more sturdily built.  I actually bought that version first but decided it was too large and heavy for my second, walk around type lens considering I already owned a 500F4 which weighs in at more than 8 pounds (version I).  I will be selling the Sport version.

In conclusion the Sigma 150-600 Contemporary lens is a significant value retailing at less than $1,100.  In comparison the Canon 100-400 version II retails at about $2,200 add a $500 teleconverter to match the focal length of this Sigma.  It has become the second most common lens that I use after my 500F4.  It goes without saying that the sharpness does not come close to a large prime like a Canon 500F4 but it's light weight, huge focal range and good image quality are all attractive features.  It is improved greatly over the Sigma 150-500 with it's performance at or near wide open.  As I have said in this article I recommend routinely backing off to 560mm or less as it loses a fair amount of sharpness when maxed out at 600mm.  It performs well with both the Canon 7D2 and Canon 5D3.  I prefer the image quality when used with the 5D3 but you lose focal length and you need to watch for some vignetting around the edges when used with a full frame camera.  Sigma also make this lens for Nikon and Sigma mounts.