I’m glad you borrowed this lens from sigma. I’ve seen quite a few reviews of this lens and the only negative things I’ve seen were the zoom throw and weight. The reasons you mentioned in regard to what you like to photograph is the same reason why I have been interested in this lens too. I currently have the sigma 100-400 and I ended up getting the 1.4x teleconverter paired with the Lumix S5ii and it’s incredibly slow for focus acquisition….it’s essentially rendered useless if you’re trying to photograph any bird unless it’s completely stationary. It is quite a frustrating experience, I would say the camera does adequate when not using a teleconverter and acquiring focus on a bird….but still I hoped for more.
Oh that's a good bit of info - I was a little worried it was just me or that my usual tech curse was affecting it, so it's good to know it's a more general issue 😅 It's an annoying problem, though, and I don't really understand why it's as bad as it is, especially considering that the S5II is one of the best low-light cameras I've used; you'd kinda expect its focusing to work well with smaller apertures. The 100-400 is a really nice lens, but yeah if you want that extra reach on the S5II, a longer lens will be better than the teleconverter setup just because of how borked the autofocus is. I'm curious to know at exactly which aperture it starts failing - maybe the Sigma 500mm f/5.6 with the 1.4x TC, with a maximum aperture of f/8, will work? I'll see if I can test that out at some point 🤔
@@robert_mayThank you for this great review. I use this lens and the 1.4 t/c on Lumix S5II with latest firmware, and can confirm the focusing troubles when trying to capture birds in flights. I hope Lumix will come out with an improved firmware for their PDAF a/f system.
Great video, love the slow jazz, and relaxing pace of the edit. I really did not like the 150-600 for EF, but maybe I had a bad copy. This looks great but hot damn… 2.7kg?! My back will have to pass 😂
Haha I had an EF copy of the 150-600 and mine was good, but yes the weight of that was just on the edge of too much 😆 It was fine as long as I didn’t need to stand still waiting for something to happen haha
The 150-600 is a great lens too! I had two copies of the DSLR version at different times and loved everything but the weight, and they fixed that aspect for the mirrorless version 😀
I have this lens for my Canon R5 ( with the adapter) and it is great. I can go out now and usually don't need to carry extra lenses although you can pop a small wide angle in your pocket, just in case a wide angle is needed. I like it a lot.
Another great video, thanks Robert. The sand martin that you shot at 7:16, was that in burst mode with AFC or just a lucky shot. Either way the AF seemed to work quite well 👍🏻
Yeah that was mechanical burst with AFC, but also a lucky shot 😅 I've found with the S5II that it can keep up with movement until you start shooting, so the first two/three shots in a burst are the most likely to be in focus. Once you start shooting it either loses track of the bird with mechanical shutter, or lags from reading too much data with electronic shutter, and then falls behind the movement. Though to be fair, those sand martins were a nightmare! For that sand martin it was just taking off and hadn't moved towards me much yet so it picked it up ok - I have a few hundred other photos from that spot that were much less successful.
@@robert_may yeah, sand martins don't hang around, they move so flipping quick! 🤣 Do you think you might invest in the 60-600 going forward? I've got the 150-600 DG DN, but as you say in the video, you often miss something that would be around the 70mm range. I'm tempted to swap it.
@@007silverwings Doh sorry, this comment got stuck in the mod queue for some reason (it doesn't work very well) 🙈 If it was on the Z mount I'd probably invest in it as that's my primary wildlife setup. But it is quite a bit more expensive than the 150-600 and that is a really good lens, so it'd be a tough choice if that's what I already owned on L mount 🤔 My current Z mount setup is to carry the 180-600 and then something like an 85mm prime for something lighter and shorter, but that doesn't really solve the lens swapping issue 😅
@@robert_maythanks for the reply and your thoughts. Talking of z mount, I've just seen your Z6iii video come up. You are lucky to get your hands on that so quickly! 👍🏻 Just about to watch it.
Hi Robert, thanks for the video. I think perhaps there's something wrong with either your 180-600mm or your nikon Z TC. I remember your video and our chat, I tested my setup of 180-600mm plus TC on my Z 8 and yes, I could prevoke some CA but not easily. I remember you had this strong yellow finging I think. Perhaps get Nikon to checkout your individual combo of lens and TC. To answer your question, I wouldn't swap this Sigma for my Nikon 180-600. Even if the the optical quality is the same, I love the internal focusing, lighter weight, weather - proofing of my Nikon. Actually I'm always surprised at the results re the cost when I break it out. I'm sure these modern Sigma are all optically great, just not a lens for me. I hope you find the right combo for yourself. Cheers, Robert. 😊
I actually traded in the TC in the end, which is probably a mistake as I'll inevitably end up buying one again in the future someday 😅 But it made sense to put the money towards something I'll use more often in the near future for now. I don't think the problem was with the TC itself but rather that it's exacerbating problems in the 180-600, namely the CA. I would be interested to see if it's something that can be tweaked by Nikon - I should actually have a chance to test another copy of it at a trade show next month so maybe I'll take mine along and see how they compare 🤔 I've tried one other copy before and that seemed less sharp than mine, but perhaps it was more consistent across the spectrum instead. But yeah the 180-600 is still a great lens! I like it for the same reasons you do, and in this price range for telephoto zooms I think the margins between the lenses are very fine, and ultimately down to whichever fits your use-case best. Not that there are many options on each mount though, at the moment 😅
Could you confirm if the S5ii struggles as badly when you stop down the lens without the teleconverter? It could be a teleconverter communication issue, which is pretty common when you mix and match brands. There is also a similar problem with MFT cameras when you mix and match teleconverters across Panasonic and Olympus.
Not that I noticed. AF is performed with the largest available aperture, so it only starts acting up when it’s forced to autofocus with a smaller maximum aperture. It would in theory be possible to test it with a lens with a proper manual aperture ring with auto aperture control disabled (can do that on Mamiya 645 lenses) but I don’t know if any exist that also have AF, and would work on the L-mount 🤔
Sony is most probably never going to remove the FPS and teleconverter restrictions on third-party lenses, but Panasonic is definitely going to come out with newer, better bodies, that will be much better matches for this lens. The S5 series is Panasonic's low end FF (not counting the S9), so you can't really expect the S5 IIX to handle telephoto shooting like the A1 / A9 III / Z8 / Z9's of the world. I'm sure there's a beastly S1 series body coming pretty soon, and it's going to answer for all the shortcomings of the S5 II(X).
Yeah I'm still really hopeful for a top-spec S1 in the near future. Panasonic do seem to have been a bit slow at releasing it, but perhaps it just feels like a long time because they spent many years refusing to add phase detect 😅
Panasonic reverts to contrast focus in single point focus all the time or if light is low continuous focus. In fact, most cameras do that. This lens is great for a two-lens setup.
Weird thing is that I’ve not experienced this strong a difference on other cameras I’ve shot in recent years. The Z9 makes sense as it’s a very different price range, but the X-H2S and OM-1 didn’t struggle this badly either 🤔 I guess their sensors punch above their weight due to not being full frame. I’d be interested to see how the Sony A7IV performs in similar circumstances.
You're dead right about the lens swapping and missing moment stuff. It doesn't matter if you're on a hill, down the street or at an event, its incredibly annoying and seems to happen EVERY FRIGGIN TIME! It's why I have mostly moved to dual wielding with zooms at work and leaving the primes alone. Perhaps 3 bodies and 3 primes is somewhat an equivalent to 2 bodies and 2 zooms... I'm not sure which is more of a PIA to run an event with however... So yeh, I geddit, 60-600, sounds like a nice workhorse lens for the adventures.
I have the Sigma 100-400mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter on my Lumix S5II, and I've run into a weird problem. When I use the teleconverter, the autofocus switches from phase detection to contrast detection after 305mm. This is particularly troublesome at smaller apertures, like f/9 and beyond, where the CDAF really struggles to lock onto the focus. It's slow, and by the time it does focus, the subject has often already moved, resulting in many out-of-focus shots, especially with fast-moving subjects.. So it's not the f-stop, it's the longer focal length that has issues.
As it's a variable aperture lens I think that's the crossover point in the zoom range where the maximum aperture becomes something like f/9 and thus the camera drops back to contrast detect. I've not actually verified at what exact aperture it does that yet, but it definitely does it at f/9 which I think you'd be crossing over to around that focal length, with the 1.4 TC attached. And yeah the AF is basically useless once it does that, unfortunately. A 150-600 or 60-600 lens without a teleconverter would give you some additional reach without nobbling the AF, though both are somewhat bigger and heavier than the 100-400.
@@robert_may Yes, I came across similar information online as well, and I would believe you if I didn't have the camera and lens combination myself. I've just double checked that the AFC functions smoothly at f/22 without any pulsing or hunting when the teleconverter isn't attached. However, as soon as I attach the TC and zoom in to 305mm, the pulsing begins, and the AFC switches to a slower contrast detection mode, which frequently hunts back and forth and can't keep up with moving subjects. Additionally, the difference in autofocus systems is visible in the focus indicators: PDAF displays smaller focus boxes, whereas contrast detection autofocus CDAF shows larger ones. The boxes change when zoomed to 305mm with the Sigma 100-400mm + TC regardless of f-stop.
@@tuuchen2990 Aah yes this is where it gets a bit confusing. The camera performs AF with the maximum available aperture, not the currently selected aperture. So if you're set to f/22 at 400mm without the teleconverter, it uses f/6.3 for AF, and if you have the TC attached it can only use a maximum of f/9. It only stops down the aperture to the chosen one when the shutter fires. This is one of the reasons why bright aperture primes are so much faster to autofocus - if you shoot a 400mm f/2.8 prime and a 100-400 f/4-6.3 zoom, both at f/8, the prime will be significantly faster mostly because it performs its AF at f/2.8 and has much more light to work with, even though they're both set to the same aperture. Depending on how quiet the lens/camera are, you might be able to hear it contracting the shutter as it shoots and reopening for AF again.
@@tuuchen2990 No problem! 😄 Interestingly it varies from camera to camera and I'm not really sure which aspects of the camera design affect the minimum aperture required for PDAF 🤔 For example, Canon RF cameras seem to be able to do it at f/11, and my Nikon Z9 works at at least f/9. Maybe I'll have to ask a camera designer at some point!
I happen to own this lens and use it with a Leica SL3. Birds in flight? Don't even think about it... Any kind of burst on a moving subject (slower than a bird)? First couple of pictures might be OK, the rest will definitely be out of focus (and this is with the most aggressive AF settings). Heck, sometimes even just a static subject it might go out of focus, or be a little soft, even in theoretically good lighting conditions. I did read somewhere, however, that if you want to use this lens on the longer end, you must switch to electronic shutter otherwise you're going to degrade image quality... All of that being said, do I regret my purchase? Nope, super versatile lens!
Ooh interesting combination! I've still not had a chance to try out an SL3. It's a shame there's still not a modern wildlife-photography-targeted L-mount camera - Panasonic seem to be very slow in bringing out a new S1. With the burst speed I imagine it's the same problem the S5II has: the sensor is slow (hence AF acquisition is slow), so with moving subjects and a mechanical shutter it loses the subject after the first couple of frames as it can't read out fast enough in between the shutter coming down. I wonder if we'll see an SL3-S sometime next year 🤔
I agree with you on the flexibility. I bought the new Nikon 28-400mm for that reason. Slow on the end side but better to get the shot than trying to switch lenses.
Ooh... I would also be interested to know how you get on with the 28-400. I'm thinking of getting one as a light telephoto for taking on hikes in the mountains. I would use it as a 200-400 f8 lens on a tripod for detail shots. It's half the price and half the weight of the 100-400 S but the image quality needs to be at least good, don't think it'll be excellent. This would be to replace my F-Mount AF-P 70-300mm E VR which still does quite well and weighs little.
@@robert_may I do like it very much. A bit soft at 400mm but I stop it at 380 if possible. I would’ve lent it to you for testing if you lived closer 😀. I live in NYC.
"who cares about sport... I care about birds.." Bahahahhaa spoken like a true bird nerd! I love it! 😆🥰
Very well Presented. Informative and helpful. Many thanks for sharing.
I’m glad you borrowed this lens from sigma. I’ve seen quite a few reviews of this lens and the only negative things I’ve seen were the zoom throw and weight. The reasons you mentioned in regard to what you like to photograph is the same reason why I have been interested in this lens too. I currently have the sigma 100-400 and I ended up getting the 1.4x teleconverter paired with the Lumix S5ii and it’s incredibly slow for focus acquisition….it’s essentially rendered useless if you’re trying to photograph any bird unless it’s completely stationary. It is quite a frustrating experience, I would say the camera does adequate when not using a teleconverter and acquiring focus on a bird….but still I hoped for more.
Oh that's a good bit of info - I was a little worried it was just me or that my usual tech curse was affecting it, so it's good to know it's a more general issue 😅 It's an annoying problem, though, and I don't really understand why it's as bad as it is, especially considering that the S5II is one of the best low-light cameras I've used; you'd kinda expect its focusing to work well with smaller apertures. The 100-400 is a really nice lens, but yeah if you want that extra reach on the S5II, a longer lens will be better than the teleconverter setup just because of how borked the autofocus is. I'm curious to know at exactly which aperture it starts failing - maybe the Sigma 500mm f/5.6 with the 1.4x TC, with a maximum aperture of f/8, will work? I'll see if I can test that out at some point 🤔
@@robert_mayThank you for this great review. I use this lens and the 1.4 t/c on Lumix S5II with latest firmware, and can confirm the focusing troubles when trying to capture birds in flights. I hope Lumix will come out with an improved firmware for their PDAF a/f system.
Been waiting for this many thanks Rob. Great video as always Dave ( the emailer!!😊)
Haha thanks! It ended up taking way longer to edit together than I expected! 🙈
Great video, love the slow jazz, and relaxing pace of the edit. I really did not like the 150-600 for EF, but maybe I had a bad copy. This looks great but hot damn… 2.7kg?! My back will have to pass 😂
Haha I had an EF copy of the 150-600 and mine was good, but yes the weight of that was just on the edge of too much 😆 It was fine as long as I didn’t need to stand still waiting for something to happen haha
Great video Robert. Looks like a really interesting lens. Some great shots too!
I would buy this one had I not already purchased the Sigma 150-600 which is also a very nice lens. Great review Robert!
The 150-600 is a great lens too! I had two copies of the DSLR version at different times and loved everything but the weight, and they fixed that aspect for the mirrorless version 😀
I have this lens for my Canon R5 ( with the adapter) and it is great.
I can go out now and usually don't need to carry extra lenses although you can pop a small wide angle in your pocket, just in case a wide angle is needed.
I like it a lot.
Another great video, thanks Robert. The sand martin that you shot at 7:16, was that in burst mode with AFC or just a lucky shot. Either way the AF seemed to work quite well 👍🏻
Yeah that was mechanical burst with AFC, but also a lucky shot 😅 I've found with the S5II that it can keep up with movement until you start shooting, so the first two/three shots in a burst are the most likely to be in focus. Once you start shooting it either loses track of the bird with mechanical shutter, or lags from reading too much data with electronic shutter, and then falls behind the movement. Though to be fair, those sand martins were a nightmare! For that sand martin it was just taking off and hadn't moved towards me much yet so it picked it up ok - I have a few hundred other photos from that spot that were much less successful.
@@robert_may yeah, sand martins don't hang around, they move so flipping quick! 🤣
Do you think you might invest in the 60-600 going forward? I've got the 150-600 DG DN, but as you say in the video, you often miss something that would be around the 70mm range. I'm tempted to swap it.
@@robert_may I'm also inclined to save my money towards the rumoured S1II. Decisions! 🤔😅
@@007silverwings Doh sorry, this comment got stuck in the mod queue for some reason (it doesn't work very well) 🙈 If it was on the Z mount I'd probably invest in it as that's my primary wildlife setup. But it is quite a bit more expensive than the 150-600 and that is a really good lens, so it'd be a tough choice if that's what I already owned on L mount 🤔 My current Z mount setup is to carry the 180-600 and then something like an 85mm prime for something lighter and shorter, but that doesn't really solve the lens swapping issue 😅
@@robert_maythanks for the reply and your thoughts. Talking of z mount, I've just seen your Z6iii video come up. You are lucky to get your hands on that so quickly! 👍🏻 Just about to watch it.
Hi Robert, thanks for the video. I think perhaps there's something wrong with either your 180-600mm or your nikon Z TC. I remember your video and our chat, I tested my setup of 180-600mm plus TC on my Z 8 and yes, I could prevoke some CA but not easily. I remember you had this strong yellow finging I think. Perhaps get Nikon to checkout your individual combo of lens and TC. To answer your question, I wouldn't swap this Sigma for my Nikon 180-600. Even if the the optical quality is the same, I love the internal focusing, lighter weight, weather - proofing of my Nikon. Actually I'm always surprised at the results re the cost when I break it out. I'm sure these modern Sigma are all optically great, just not a lens for me. I hope you find the right combo for yourself. Cheers, Robert. 😊
I actually traded in the TC in the end, which is probably a mistake as I'll inevitably end up buying one again in the future someday 😅 But it made sense to put the money towards something I'll use more often in the near future for now. I don't think the problem was with the TC itself but rather that it's exacerbating problems in the 180-600, namely the CA. I would be interested to see if it's something that can be tweaked by Nikon - I should actually have a chance to test another copy of it at a trade show next month so maybe I'll take mine along and see how they compare 🤔 I've tried one other copy before and that seemed less sharp than mine, but perhaps it was more consistent across the spectrum instead.
But yeah the 180-600 is still a great lens! I like it for the same reasons you do, and in this price range for telephoto zooms I think the margins between the lenses are very fine, and ultimately down to whichever fits your use-case best. Not that there are many options on each mount though, at the moment 😅
Could you confirm if the S5ii struggles as badly when you stop down the lens without the teleconverter? It could be a teleconverter communication issue, which is pretty common when you mix and match brands.
There is also a similar problem with MFT cameras when you mix and match teleconverters across Panasonic and Olympus.
Not that I noticed. AF is performed with the largest available aperture, so it only starts acting up when it’s forced to autofocus with a smaller maximum aperture. It would in theory be possible to test it with a lens with a proper manual aperture ring with auto aperture control disabled (can do that on Mamiya 645 lenses) but I don’t know if any exist that also have AF, and would work on the L-mount 🤔
Sony is most probably never going to remove the FPS and teleconverter restrictions on third-party lenses, but Panasonic is definitely going to come out with newer, better bodies, that will be much better matches for this lens. The S5 series is Panasonic's low end FF (not counting the S9), so you can't really expect the S5 IIX to handle telephoto shooting like the A1 / A9 III / Z8 / Z9's of the world. I'm sure there's a beastly S1 series body coming pretty soon, and it's going to answer for all the shortcomings of the S5 II(X).
Yeah I'm still really hopeful for a top-spec S1 in the near future. Panasonic do seem to have been a bit slow at releasing it, but perhaps it just feels like a long time because they spent many years refusing to add phase detect 😅
Panasonic reverts to contrast focus in single point focus all the time or if light is low continuous focus. In fact, most cameras do that. This lens is great for a two-lens setup.
Weird thing is that I’ve not experienced this strong a difference on other cameras I’ve shot in recent years. The Z9 makes sense as it’s a very different price range, but the X-H2S and OM-1 didn’t struggle this badly either 🤔 I guess their sensors punch above their weight due to not being full frame. I’d be interested to see how the Sony A7IV performs in similar circumstances.
You're dead right about the lens swapping and missing moment stuff. It doesn't matter if you're on a hill, down the street or at an event, its incredibly annoying and seems to happen EVERY FRIGGIN TIME! It's why I have mostly moved to dual wielding with zooms at work and leaving the primes alone. Perhaps 3 bodies and 3 primes is somewhat an equivalent to 2 bodies and 2 zooms... I'm not sure which is more of a PIA to run an event with however...
So yeh, I geddit, 60-600, sounds like a nice workhorse lens for the adventures.
Weirdly I’m finding myself sporting more primes at the short end now, but at the long end that starts to get relatively difficult 😆
@@robert_may I'm still on a journey, trying different combos to manage my on person tools at work, it's a nightmare 😆🥲
I have the Sigma 100-400mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter on my Lumix S5II, and I've run into a weird problem. When I use the teleconverter, the autofocus switches from phase detection to contrast detection after 305mm. This is particularly troublesome at smaller apertures, like f/9 and beyond, where the CDAF really struggles to lock onto the focus. It's slow, and by the time it does focus, the subject has often already moved, resulting in many out-of-focus shots, especially with fast-moving subjects.. So it's not the f-stop, it's the longer focal length that has issues.
As it's a variable aperture lens I think that's the crossover point in the zoom range where the maximum aperture becomes something like f/9 and thus the camera drops back to contrast detect. I've not actually verified at what exact aperture it does that yet, but it definitely does it at f/9 which I think you'd be crossing over to around that focal length, with the 1.4 TC attached. And yeah the AF is basically useless once it does that, unfortunately. A 150-600 or 60-600 lens without a teleconverter would give you some additional reach without nobbling the AF, though both are somewhat bigger and heavier than the 100-400.
@@robert_may Yes, I came across similar information online as well, and I would believe you if I didn't have the camera and lens combination myself. I've just double checked that the AFC functions smoothly at f/22 without any pulsing or hunting when the teleconverter isn't attached. However, as soon as I attach the TC and zoom in to 305mm, the pulsing begins, and the AFC switches to a slower contrast detection mode, which frequently hunts back and forth and can't keep up with moving subjects. Additionally, the difference in autofocus systems is visible in the focus indicators: PDAF displays smaller focus boxes, whereas contrast detection autofocus CDAF shows larger ones. The boxes change when zoomed to 305mm with the Sigma 100-400mm + TC regardless of f-stop.
@@tuuchen2990 Aah yes this is where it gets a bit confusing. The camera performs AF with the maximum available aperture, not the currently selected aperture. So if you're set to f/22 at 400mm without the teleconverter, it uses f/6.3 for AF, and if you have the TC attached it can only use a maximum of f/9. It only stops down the aperture to the chosen one when the shutter fires. This is one of the reasons why bright aperture primes are so much faster to autofocus - if you shoot a 400mm f/2.8 prime and a 100-400 f/4-6.3 zoom, both at f/8, the prime will be significantly faster mostly because it performs its AF at f/2.8 and has much more light to work with, even though they're both set to the same aperture. Depending on how quiet the lens/camera are, you might be able to hear it contracting the shutter as it shoots and reopening for AF again.
@@robert_may Thank you! That explains everything perfectly! So there will be no PDAF with S5II + slow lens + TC because of the camera design.
@@tuuchen2990 No problem! 😄 Interestingly it varies from camera to camera and I'm not really sure which aspects of the camera design affect the minimum aperture required for PDAF 🤔 For example, Canon RF cameras seem to be able to do it at f/11, and my Nikon Z9 works at at least f/9. Maybe I'll have to ask a camera designer at some point!
I happen to own this lens and use it with a Leica SL3. Birds in flight? Don't even think about it... Any kind of burst on a moving subject (slower than a bird)? First couple of pictures might be OK, the rest will definitely be out of focus (and this is with the most aggressive AF settings). Heck, sometimes even just a static subject it might go out of focus, or be a little soft, even in theoretically good lighting conditions. I did read somewhere, however, that if you want to use this lens on the longer end, you must switch to electronic shutter otherwise you're going to degrade image quality... All of that being said, do I regret my purchase? Nope, super versatile lens!
Ooh interesting combination! I've still not had a chance to try out an SL3. It's a shame there's still not a modern wildlife-photography-targeted L-mount camera - Panasonic seem to be very slow in bringing out a new S1.
With the burst speed I imagine it's the same problem the S5II has: the sensor is slow (hence AF acquisition is slow), so with moving subjects and a mechanical shutter it loses the subject after the first couple of frames as it can't read out fast enough in between the shutter coming down. I wonder if we'll see an SL3-S sometime next year 🤔
I agree with you on the flexibility. I bought the new Nikon 28-400mm for that reason. Slow on the end side but better to get the shot than trying to switch lenses.
Ooh good choice - how are you finding that lens so far? I haven't had a chance to play with one yet.
Ooh... I would also be interested to know how you get on with the 28-400. I'm thinking of getting one as a light telephoto for taking on hikes in the mountains. I would use it as a 200-400 f8 lens on a tripod for detail shots. It's half the price and half the weight of the 100-400 S but the image quality needs to be at least good, don't think it'll be excellent. This would be to replace my F-Mount AF-P 70-300mm E VR which still does quite well and weighs little.
@@robert_may I do like it very much. A bit soft at 400mm but I stop it at 380 if possible. I would’ve lent it to you for testing if you lived closer 😀. I live in NYC.
@@musiqueetmontagne yeah totally. I haven’t used my 100-400 since I got this one. The small size and flexibility is unmatched.
@@RadAlzyoud thanks for the reply. 😊