Better Bigma
Michael Topham field tests the Sigma 60-600mm f/4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports
Out of the five new lenses Sigma announced across its Art, Contemporary and Sports ranges at the end of last year, there was one that really caught my eye. The Sigma 60-600mm f/4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports replaces the discontinued Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM – an extremely popular zoom that has picked up the nickname ‘Bigma’ over the years, what with its long, heavy and thickset body. With a maximum reach of 600mm, it’s natural to associate Sigma’s newest long-reach tele zoom with the company’s 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports, but just like the Bigma of old, it possesses a significant advantage in that it has a shorter minimum focal length. By effectively merging the focal lengths of a 70-200mm lens and 150-600mm lens into one, it can save oneself having to swap lenses and cart around two heavy zooms that cover the same focal range. Any lens that can minimise the chance of missing a shot and can lighten the load we have to carry makes a strong case for itself. With Sigma’s promise that its new 60-600mm f/4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM achieves the same level of image quality as the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports, I was eager to get my hands on one to offer a full report on its usability and performance out in the field.
Getting acquainted
To get familiar with the lens I mounted my Canon-fit sample to the Sony A7 III via a Sigma MC-11 adapter updated to version 1.12 firmware, before grabbing it by its long permanently fixed tripod collar handle and making a dash to a local rugby match. In my rush to arrive in time for kick- off it suddenly dawned on me that I’d left my monopod at home – not ideal with a lens weighing 2.7kg slung across my shoulder. With no time to nip home and back again, I’d use this as my opportunity to find out if it can be used handheld. A few minutes into the game I noticed the action was rarely within a 6m range of where I was standing, so I changed the focus limit switch from its full position to 6m-infinity. By preventing the lens focusing across its full focus distance I was immediately aware of an improvement in the speed and accuracy of autofocus acquisition. Focus limit adjustment is just one of the settings that can be customised on this lens using Sigma’s USB dock and is well worth taking advantage of if you know roughly how far your subject is going to be from the lens. For sports such as rugby, setting the range to around 10m-infinity can yield a better set of results, and if you later find you want to disable it, it’s simply a case of turning the assigned custom switch on the barrel (whether it be C1 or C2) to off. During spells of action, I supported the front of the barrel in my left hand and operated the zoom using the push/pull method. This got me to where I needed to be in the zoom range faster than using the zoom ring, which isn’t easy to throw from 60mm to 600mm in a single movement when you’re supporting the barrel underneath. I also discovered that slightly more effort is required to shift the heavy elements to full telephoto than it does retracting the zoom. That said, the motion back and forth is consistently smooth.
Like many heavy telephoto zoom lenses, there’s a tendency for it to creep when it’s pointed down or carried over your shoulder. To avoid this you’ll need to engage the zoom lock. What’s particularly good about the zoom lock is that it can be used at any of the marked focal lengths on the barrel and doesn’t require the switch to be moved to unlock it; just give the zoom ring a sharp twist and it’ll be unlocked instantly. The only exception to this is at 60mm, where the lock has to be released using the switch. I went into my first time of using it confident that I’d be able to
support the lens handheld, but when the final whistle was blown, I was relieved to call it a day and put it down. By the end I found myself shooting bursts of shots for a minute or so before placing the lens beside me to give my arms a rest. Needless to say, if you’re going to use this lens for any length of time, supporting it on a monopod or tripod is a must and I didn’t make the mistake of leaving my monopod behind twice.
Long shots
Being a lens that’ll have mass appeal with motorsport, aviation and wildlife photographers, I spent time using it at a race circuit, an airport and a local nature reserve. Thorough testing through the zoom range revealed that f/4.5 is available between focal lengths of 60mm and 90mm, with the variable aperture closing to f/5 between 90mm and 145mm. The aperture closes to f/5.6 between 145mm and 330mm, with a maximum aperture of f/6.3 beyond this point all the way up to 600mm. To avoid the safety fencing being traced in my motorsport shots, the lens was mostly used at its maximum focal length at f/6.3, which presented fast shutter speeds of around 1/1600sec at ISO 400 in bright conditions. With the lens this time supported on a monopod, I loosened the knurled collar screw to quickly shift the camera into the portrait orientation. To my delight, I found it notches with a satisfying click every 90°, saving the hassle of having to glance at the barrel to line up white lines or worry that it’s misaligned. To effectively compensate for the vertical movement of the camera, while panning I set the optical stabilisation (OS) to Mode 2, but this meant I had to remember to switch it back to Mode 1 to compensate for vertical and horizontal movement for general shots. As I patiently waited for activity outside a bird hide at the nature reserve, I used my time wisely to experiment with the OS some more. Engaging it and disabling it a few times while peering through the viewfinder at 600mm shows how remarkably effective it is. You can forget trying to capture shake-free shots at the long end of the zoom under 1/100sec without OS and any additional support, but with it activated, I recorded several sharp handheld shots at 1/40sec at 600mm.
Image quality
It’s one thing for a telephoto zoom to have high- end, robust build quality, but ultimately a lens is only as good as its optical performance. Shooting the same scene at all the marked focal-length settings right across the aperture range told me that it exhibits noticeable barrel distortion at 60mm, but sharpness wide open at f/4.5 is excellent, both at the centre and the edge. Edge-to- edge sharpness at 60mm peaks around f/8, with the influence of diffraction yielding softer results at f/16 and f/22. Barrel distortion becomes less obvious as you start to zoom in and the lens does an admirable job of controlling pincushion distortion at long focal lengths right up to 600mm. At full telephoto users can expect to see an improvement in sharpness (most noticeable towards the edge) by stopping down from f/6.3 to f/8 and f/11, but as the images that support this article illustrate, a high level of sharpness is obtained wide- open in the centre at 600mm. However, corner shading is prominent right through the zoom range when it’s used at its maximum aperture. Stopping the lens down a couple of stops does alleviate it, but this then forces you to lower the shutter speed or increase the sensitivity to compensate. Until Adobe releases a new profile specifically for this lens, some may wish to apply the Sigma 150- 600mm f/5- 6.3 DG OS HSM S014 lens profile just as I did, which I discovered is a temporary, but effective, solution to correcting vignetting towards the long end of the zoom at wide aperture settings. Some mild traces of purple fringes of colour were also observed along high- contrast edges, but on the whole I found chromatic aberration
to be very well controlled in my wide selection of test images.
Final thoughts
The introduction of this lens has seen the number of telephoto zooms in Sigma’s Sports/ Contemporary range capable of reaching 600mm increase to three. Where this zoom has an advantage over Sigma’s 150- 600mm f/5- 6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary and 150- 600mm f/5- 6.3 DG OS HSM Sports lenses is its ability to shoot wider and rule out missed opportunities that occur closer than 150mm. It hits the sweet spot between the old 50-500mm f/4.5- 6.3 DG OS HSM not being long enough and the company’s 150- 600mm zooms not being wide enough. There are lots of situations where having a shorter range might be useful, for example, touchline sports, airshows, and wildlife/safari. Like all of Sigma’s Sports series lenses it comes at a premium, in return for which you get a robust, weathersealed construction that’s crucial for those who spend a majority of their time shooting outdoors and don’t want to be let down by dust or moisture creeping in. Whether you choose this lens or not comes down to how important you view being able to shoot between 60 and 150mm on the same lens that's used between 150 and 600mm. If you feel you’d reap the reward of being able to shoot wider without changing your lens or travel lighter by carrying one lens as opposed to two, this zoom is your answer. At £1,899 it is expensive, and if you don't feel you'll use it enough between 60150mm to justify spending £570 more on it than Sigma’s 150- 600mm f/5- 6.3 DG OS HSM Sport (£1,329), the latter is the more viable from a cost perspective. Should you still be undecided or fancy comparing it side-byside with your current tele zoom, hiring the lens for a weekend (approx £53 inc VAT from Hireacamera.com) at a fraction of the cost of buying it outright might help sway your decision. If I had to choose one lens from Sigma’s line-up that shoots up to 600mm and my decision wasn’t influenced by price, this lens would be my first choice.