Nikon 200-500 vs tamron 150-600

tom24

tom24

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Has anyone had both of the above lenses and can give a good opinion whether the Nikon is better?
 
Thanks
 
Tom hard one this, what i see people say the Nikon is better, however i got the Sigma 600 C for these reasons.
As with all DSLRs there can be a back and front focusing issue, and my new D500 does has AF fine tune built in, but when using that its only for 1 focal range so lets say 500mm, you adjust it and it could have an adverse effect on lets say 300 etc., i also didn't want 200mm short end with the 1.5x crop that's 300mm native Full Frame the 225 i have now is just about right... Anyway with the sigma you can buy the dock and when you connect that dock you then get the option to alter 150/250/400 and 600mm focal lengths fine tuning them so they will be all tack sharp.

What i plan to do with mine is use Focal Pro by Reikan and do each focal length so that i can transfer the settings into the sigma dock so in essence fine tine it across the range, a guy on DPreview did it and its very sharp now.

Out of the box i do believe that the Nikon may be your best bet but not by much, but if your into fine tuning so you get the best, and not by just using spyder or lens align id honestly go Sigma and the usb dock, plus you also get an extra 100mm long end so in essence I'm running 225-900mm lens which is great. I find the Sigma C just enough to carry about and I'm quite a well built bloke, i use it mainly for Motorsport to walking round the track i had to factor this in, The sigma S and Nikon i think weigh near the same and they can be quite hefty things, but if your birding then itll be fine...

I doubt any of my babble helped you but i di look long and hard at this and the SIgma got my vote for these reasons
  • Better shortend Better Long end as in MM not sharpness
  • Lighter
  • Very customisable
Good Luck
 
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littleted said:
Tom hard one this, what i see people say the Nikon is better, however i got the Sigma 600 C for these reasons.
As with all DSLRs there can be a back and front focusing issue, and my new D500 does has AF fine tune built in, but when using that its only for 1 focal range so lets say 500mm, you adjust it and it could have an adverse effect on lets say 300 etc., i also didn't want 200mm short end with the 1.5x crop that's 300mm native Full Frame the 225 i have now is just about right... Anyway with the sigma you can buy the dock and when you connect that dock you then get the option to alter 150/250/400 and 600mm focal lengths fine tuning them so they will be all tack sharp.

What i plan to do with mine is use Focal Pro by Reikan and do each focal length so that i can transfer the settings into the sigma dock so in essence fine tine it across the range, a guy on DPreview did it and its very sharp now.

Out of the box i do believe that the Nikon may be your best bet but not by much, but if your into fine tuning so you get the best, and not by just using spyder or lens align id honestly go Sigma and the usb dock, plus you also get an extra 100mm long end so in essence I'm running 225-900mm lens which is great. I find the Sigma C just enough to carry about and I'm quite a well built bloke, i use it mainly for Motorsport to walking round the track i had to factor this in, The sigma S and Nikon i think weigh near the same and they can be quite hefty things, but if your birding then itll be fine...

I doubt any of my babble helped you but i di look long and hard at this and the SIgma got my vote for these reasons
  • Better shortend Better Long end as in MM not sharpness
  • Lighter
  • Very customisable
Good Luck
Click to expand...
TBH if I was looking at getting one of these lenses I would also choose the Sigma C, mainly for the reasons mentioned above. At the time I bought mine though I picked up the Tamron 150-600mm £200 cheaper than the Sigma and £500 cheaper than the Nikon so it was a no brainer for me. The Sigma price now matches the Tamron, in which case being able to use the dock would swing it for me. That being said, I have a really good copy of the Tamron and very happy with it, plus my camera doesn't seem to play nice with Sigma lenses for some reason.

Another thing to consider is a lot of tests will compare differences between the long end, but one thing to consider is that the Tamron (and I think also the Sigma C) is noticeably sharper at 550mm than 600mm, and I think if you compare the Tamron/Sigma at 550mm vs the Nikon at 500mm results may very well be different. The difference in framing between 550mm and 600mm on FF really really tiny (might be more noticeable on crop bodies).

Take this with a pinch of salt as it's two different systems, but at 500mm the Tamron looks noticeably sharper to me. I don't see any drop in sharpness in my Tamron between 500 and 550mm
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/...meraComp=614&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=3&APIComp=0

.
 
Thanks Rob, I have the tamron and i'm very pleased with it.
I was wondering if there was any significant difference in image quality really.
I didn't want to use the sigma and dock as I would end up frustrating myself wondering if I had it set right, lol
 
snerkler said:
The difference in framing between 550mm and 600mm on FF really really tiny (might be more noticeable on crop bodies).
Click to expand...

Am I right in thinking that both the Tamron and Sigma are both just 'rounded up' to 600mm anyway? I've read some reports that at infinity one of them is nearer 550mm in reality.
 
tom24 said:
Thanks Rob, I have the tamron and i'm very pleased with it.
I was wondering if there was any significant difference in image quality really.
I didn't want to use the sigma and dock as I would end up frustrating myself wondering if I had it set right, lol
Click to expand...
to make it easy I'm going to try document the process so that people can try do the same. just need the software to get the D500 and D5 updates and I'm going to start
 
ukaskew said:
Am I right in thinking that both the Tamron and Sigma are both just 'rounded up' to 600mm anyway? I've read some reports that at infinity one of them is nearer 550mm in reality.
Click to expand...
Pass, I've got nothing to compare it to tbh.
 
On the exif info below my flickr images it says 604mm for a fully zoomed pic and 427mm for the 300 f4 with 1.4tc ?
 
ukaskew said:
Am I right in thinking that both the Tamron and Sigma are both just 'rounded up' to 600mm anyway? I've read some reports that at infinity one of them is nearer 550mm in reality.
Click to expand...

Never heard this, though you can easily lose 50mm due to focus breathing with any long lens?
 
odd jim said:
Never heard this, though you can easily lose 50mm due to focus breathing with any long lens?
Click to expand...

Focus breathing takes the Sigma 150-600 down to around 380mm, but I was referring to the actual focal length at infinity.
 
ukaskew said:
Focus breathing takes the Sigma 150-600 down to around 380mm, but I was referring to the actual focal length at infinity.
Click to expand...

True, but where did you read that it's not 600mm? Everything I've done at 600mm shows it to be just that, give or take.
 
ukaskew said:
Focus breathing takes the Sigma 150-600 down to around 380mm, but I was referring to the actual focal length at infinity.
Click to expand...
380mm :eek: are you sure?
 
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snerkler said:
380mm :eek: are you sure?
Click to expand...

That's taking it massively out of focus by a few hundred metres in effect, so it's probably about right. The longer the lens the more effect focus breathing has. Zoom it to 600mm and focus. Then manually move the focus ring right back to its closest setting, you'll see the focal length change pretty significantly. You'd never shoot it like that of course.
 
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