Sigma Sports 300-600mm 4.0 DG OS

The Sigma 300-600mm f4 is a remarkable lens in terms of flexibility, price and performance. It starts by giving you a 600mm f4 at roughly half the price of those from Sony, Canon and Nikon, already making it tremendous value. It then gives you the chance to zoom out to 300mm, giving you greater flexibility than a traditional prime, and best of all, in my tests the optical quality was superb, delivering crisp details throughout the range and across the frame wide-open at f4. The build quality and feature-set are also excellent, including a tripod collar that can be clicked or declicked and an Arca dovetail carved into the foot. What’s not to like? Most obviously it’s a heavy lens at roughly 4kg alone, but you are getting a zoom that could replace multiple primes. Secondly, it’s not parfocal, which means the focus needs to be adjusted as you zoom. Third are restrictions Sony enforces on third party lenses, namely a top burst speed of 15fps when using continuous autofocus and incompatibility with their teleconverters. So you need to ask yourself if you’d exploit the flexibility of a zoom, and whether you need f4 at 600mm, and equally if f4 is sufficient at 300. Then you have to factor in if you need a parfocal zoom and in particular if the restrictions on Sony bodies are deal-breakers or not. But regardless Sigma has shaken-up the super-telephoto end of the market by delivering not just a uniquely flexible high-end lens, but one that substantially undercuts traditional big primes on price while still boasting excellent performance.