Sigma 60-600mm

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After much toing and froing over massive zoom telephoto lenses, watching Youtube videos, reading reviews and comparisons (usually with the 150-600 Contemporary and Sport), I finally have a Sigma 60-600mm f4.5-6.3 Nikon Fit lens in my sticky mitts.

First impressions: It is heavy, it's massive and it appears very well-built -- which is what I am going to have to be if I want to wield this for any length of time. Can't do much with it at the moment as it is evening, it's overcast and I've had a long day and tomorrow and Saturday apparently are going to be wet and windy so it's probably not going anywhere until Sunday. That said, I poked it out of the window and tested the image stabilisation and I confess to be astounded as to its effectiveness during this little test. It's focussing is certainly pretty nippy and the closest focus (at 60mm) is ridiculously close, well under a metre,

I initially was going to get it from WEX and traded in a couple of lenses towards it, but by the time I got the result of trade-in tests and accepted the amount, they no longer had stock of the lens, I phoned them up and was told that they didn't have any information as to when the lens would be back in stock but that I could be looking at a couple of months -- which is odd, considering the paragraph below. I asked WEX to transfer the money to my bank account, which they have. I traded in with them because they offered me a higher price than LCE.

I looked at the LCE site and they said it would be available in two days so I phoned up my local branch in Plymouth and they said they would phone Sigma to make sure; this was yesterday morning. They said Sigma had it in stock and when the order was confirmed they'd ship it Next Day. I confirmed the order and left a deposit and today, about 27 hours after paying the deposit, I picked the lens up from the store.

Why London Camera Exchange could get the lens within 24 hours and WEX said it might be several weeks, is a question that rather baffles me. But heigh hoe, it's here now and my GAS is assuaged, roll on a sunny day.

Now I have to decide whether or not to spend a hundred and fifty quid on a UV filter for its 105mm thread!
 
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That's some focal range! Looking forward to some photos with it.
 
ShinySideUp said:
Now I have to decide whether or not to spend a hundred and fifty quid on a UV filter for its 105mm thread!
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Just use the hood... I have a CPL for it, but I have never actually used it (I think it came with the lens when I bought it). IMO, the only thing you might want to consider getting is the dock. Then you can customize the behavior when switched to C1/C2 as well as how the OS behaves... but it's really quite good at defaults.
 
sk66 said:
Just use the hood... I have a CPL for it, but I have never actually used it (I think it came with the lens when I bought it). IMO, the only thing you might want to consider getting is the dock. Then you can customize the behavior when switched to C1/C2 as well as how the OS behaves... but it's really quite good at defaults.
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I'll probably end up not buying one as, when you think about it, a good one is ten percent of the price of the lens, which is ludicrous.

I bought the dock with it but have checked the firmware is up to date so far.
 
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Nice.

It's unusual for a super zoom, but at 600mm there's nothing really to be gained by stopping down (at least w/ my copy and most test results I've seen); and that 2/3 stop of light can make a notable difference (ISO 2000 vs 3600). At the wider end it benefits more from stopping down to f/6.3-8; so I generally use it like it's a constant f/6.3; and at the wider end ISO isn't usually quite as problematic.
 
sk66 said:
Nice.

It's unusual for a super zoom, but at 600mm there's nothing really to be gained by stopping down (at least w/ my copy and most test results I've seen); and that 2/3 stop of light can make a notable difference (ISO 2000 vs 3600). At the wider end it benefits more from stopping down to f/6.3-8; so I generally use it like it's a constant f/6.3; and at the wider end ISO isn't usually quite as problematic.
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I took these on, I think, f8, as my camera is usually set to that, out of custom really. It was a very quick excursion to the garden in between torrential rain (at times) just so I could check the lens worked. My camera generally copes with ISOs in excess of 3200, especially with LR's new Denoise feature, in fact , my auto ISO max is set to 6400. I'm really rather pleased with the sharpness, hand-held in dull light, and I'm looking forward to seeing just what it, and I, can do when the weather improves.
 
steve_lyt said:
Just to protect the lens, I found this
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Now, while I don't really want to fork out a hundred and fifty quid for a UV filter, I think I'd be a bit dubious putting a filter that only cost £32 on the front of a lens that cost upwards of £1600, but I thank you for trying to help (y)

Now I've used it a little, I think I would be very unlucky indeed if anything managed to to get down the lens hood, a hood that is big enough to contain my 50mm lens, to damage the front element, so I've decided not to buy one at all
 
I have actually dropped a £700 lens, onto concrete, and the only thing that saved it was a uv filter, although the filter itself does very little to effect the image, it keeps the lens clean and free from scratches, I always put one on all my lens, but I would not pay £150
 
On a further filter note, I also have a Sigma 14-24mm lens and it is not possible to attach a filter to this as the lens is dome-shaped, iindeed at the 14mm end, the glass actually protrudes beyond the smaller petals on the lens hood, so my thinking is that since I have to be careful with that one, it's a small, and less arduous, task to be careful with the big zoom with its giant lens hood.
 
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