Which lens?

[Tony Chatham]

I would really welcome the opinions and advice of the 'hot-shots'! Of the three, which would be the most suitable for avian and aviation photography?

- Nikon 200-500mm
- Tamron 150-600mm, or
- Sigma 150-600mm.

I use a Nikon SLR in the 7xxx series.

[Adrian B]

Hi Tony,

I am going through a similar scenario and have found a few things. I hired a Sigma 150-500 and found it was losing sharpness after about 400 mm. That said the newer versions seem to be much much better from the reports i have read. I follow a guy called Tony Northrup on YouTube and he did a side by side with the Canon, the Tamron and the Sigma. he agreed with the Sigma on the drop off on the 150-500.

That Said,

I played with the new 600 Contemporary model and found it a big improvement. Do note that there are 2 models of the 150-600, namely the contemporary and the sport model. The sport model is a little under twice the price of the contemporary model.

A lot of reviews are tipping the Sigma over the Tamron, the only exception being the weight if you are going out bush or up for a long walk (It comes in at about 2.6kgs for ther sports compared to 1.95kg for the contemporary I think ) It does have some real cool features such as customisation, via the USB dock, lens zoom creep button plus 3 auto focus modes including 2 lockout.

Have a look on this site here for some images taken with Sigma, Tamron and Canon lenses.

Big Zoom Review

A more recent review of the Tamron v the Contemporary.
Tamron v Contemporary

Some of the earlier Nikon also had a focus issue but this seems to have been fixed.

Interested to see what you think. I am leaning towards the Sigma.

[Nigel C]

I'm not a Nikon guy, nor do i consider myself a 'hot-shot', but here are a few things to consider....

Do any of those lenses have image stabilisation?
Will you be hand holding or using a monopod or tripod? Will weight of the lens be a factor for you? If you're planning on spending a few hours wandering through scrub/on a beach/on a pelagic trip chasing albatross etc, you'll want to be comfortable handholding a big lens!
Will a minimum focal length of either 150 or 200mm be too much for aviation photography from the locations you'd typically shoot from?
Will you be adding extenders, and if so, will they work on autofocus with the camera body you have?

Read some reviews on each of the lenses too. Find out which ones are softest at the each end of the zoom. If you're picky like me when it comes to acceptable quality on your avian shots, then you'll probably want the lens that's sharpest at full zoom.
No doubt there are some direct comparisons between those lenses.

Good luck!

[Grahame Hutchison]

Digital Photography Review has plenty of DSLR and Lens reviews with plenty of detail and sample images. There is generally something of interest in their email newsletters.

I have just been reading the reviews on the new Nikon D5 and D500.