Jared Polin: Right before we jump into this video if you haven't signed up for the froknowsphoto
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Jared Polin froknowsphoto.com and this is a side-by-side comparison of the Nikon 200-500
millimeter versus the sigma 150-600 millimeter sport edition.
Now these are two of the most popular lenses out there in the super zoom range and I wanted
to run them through their paces side by side to help you guys decide which one is for you
if you're looking for a mega zoom.
Now I like to do real world review so that is what I did with this lens or both of these
lenses.
I took him out to a major league baseball game, the Phillies were playing the Marlins
and because I was shooting a major league baseball game I wasn't allowed to do any video
that's why I didn't bring a film crew with me, but I still wanted to get the side by
side comparison in a real world and there is no better place to test these two super
zooms then at a major league baseball park.
Now what camera did I use?
I used two D4S's.
Why did I use the best sports camera out there in the world right now?
Because I wanted to give these lenses the best ability to shine.
I wanted the best the best focusing capability, the best focus tracking capability.
I wanted really good ISO quality because you got to remember that these are slower lenses
in terms of f-stops and I wanted to get that better range.
So basically I wanted to give these lenses a fair shake.
Now keep in mind not everybody is going to have a D4S when they purchase these lenses,
we purchase any of these lenses but I wanted to give it the best ability to get the best
shots possible, so that there was no concern saying well you use the low end camera that's
why maybe it wasn't as sharp as it should have been or that's why the contrast or focus
tracking or OIS or VR wasn't any good.
So, with that said I am going to show you or give you the ability to download all the
full res exports from both lenses as well as give you DNG files to compare side-by-side.
Because my goal was to get images that were similar side by side.
I was switching camera to camera throughout the entire shoot.
So I'm going to tell you a little bit about these lenses at all times, different pictures
are going to pop up just to show you different things but we're going to get into the computer
and show you side-by-side comparisons to give you what I think about it.
So let's go down this list that I have.
Both of these lenses give you a huge zoom range.
Nikon gives you the 200-500, the Sigma goes wider and it goes longer but there's a trade-off
on both sides the Nikon is a fixed 5.6 which is nice especially knowing that at 500 you're
going to have a 5.6 whereas with the Sigma you're going from F5 which is actually wider
to F6.3 all the way out at the longest end, which means you're losing more light using
that lens.
Now price wise the Nikon is 1400 bucks where the Sigma is $2,000 but keep in mind Sigma
makes a $1,000 version that may compare a little better to the Nikon version.
I just wanted to use the best of the best Sigma with what Nikon considers their best
super zoom out there.
In terms – So pricing wise you can see there's a big difference either way you slice it whether
you go with the contemporary or the sport on the Sigma side there's going to be a couple
hundred dollar difference either way.
So let's look at the weight.
The Nikon weighs in at 4.6 pounds whereas the Sigma weighs in at 6.3 pounds so you're
looking at two – almost you know a two pound difference that is a lot of weight that you
have to carry around all day.
That's why when I use the Sigma during the baseball game I used a monopod and with the
Nikon I didn't need the monopod because I could handhold that much easier.
Now the Sigma contemporary is about the same weight as the Nikon version is right there.
Let's talk about size and feel.
The Nikon smaller and lighter, Sigma a little bit more heavy.
Zoom range: The Nikon zoomed much easier.
I don't know if there was a difference between makes of lenses but the Sigma was very tight,
it was harder to turn which makes it harder to shoot, because when you're trying to track
something and you're now concentrating on zooming that's a little more difficult.
Focus speed very good on both sides, both of them track the subjects very well, didn't
miss focus on pretty much any of the shots that I took.
IOS and VR both of those handled very well, give me a nice image stabilization.
And focus tracking both were very good, so they both give you a great zoom range.
What do I like about the range?
Well you have 200-500 or 150-600 that is a massive amount of room.
Normally when you see pros shooting sports, they're using 300 2.8s, 408 2.8s, five and
600mm F4s.
They use those and they're a hell of a lot more expensive.
You're looking at $12,000 for one of those 600mm they use those because of the clarity
and the focus speed, and the sharpness, and just the beautiful Boca that they're going
to get.
But if you're not going to spend that money and you want to spend $2,000 or less you kind
of can't go wrong with one of these mega zooms but one of the main concerns with all of the
mega zooms like this is the 5.6 or the 6.3 apertures.
That means that these are meant for bright day shooting.
I shot on an overcast day which meant I was pushing the ISO to 3200 or 4,000 so you're
not going to use this type of lens indoors.
It's not going to be a great lens for shooting in low light situations because you're going
to have to bump up your ISO so high which is going to in turn hurt the quality of your
images.
But the zoom range that you're getting is something that you're not going to get with
a fixed 300 mm or fixed 600 mm so it's all a trade-off plus you're saving a lot more
money.
We did that trade-offs, so we're talking about who it's for right now.
It’s for somebody that's going to shoot birds, it's somebody that's going to shoot
sports outdoors and you're not worried about blowing out that background as much of what
they call the Boca.
You can still blow out the background, you could still get nice focusing speed and nice
hand holding ability, but I will tell you that I did feel that on both lenses sides
they weren't super, super tack sharp.
Now they're sharp or they're in focus but it doesn't have that super tack sharpness
that you get with a 600 F4 or a 300 2.8 or a 400 2.8.
But again, is it fair to compare a 2,000 or less dollar lens to a 6,000, 7,000 or 13,000,
14,000 dollar lens?
No not really.
Let's turn to the computer, look at the side-by-side comparisons and then we can wrap it up and
you can make a decision for yourself.
So here what I've done is I've tried to ­I'm not going to show you all of them, I’m not
going to show you all of them because I took a lot of pictures.
I took almost a 1,000 pictures between both, yeah a little over a 1,000 pictures as you
can see over here with both lenses but I tried to do side by sides to get similar images.
So something like this, here we go, let's do that.
You can see that they're pretty similar, the ones at 320 millimeters on the Nikon side
and on the Sigma side we’re at 340 millimeters.
So pretty similar and as you zoom in, in this case you get you got to you know, I don't
know.
What's better?
That's why I'm giving you both of these files to pixel peep yourself to decide which is
better.
I think they both handle well and if I'm being completely straightforward with you, I think
the Sigma throughout the shoot feels a little better in terms of clarity and sharpness.
In terms of contrast, I think that the Cannon, sorry, the Cannon, the Sigma is showing a
little bit more contrast with less work than what the Nikon is doing.
And of course I’ve processed all these images because that's how you're going to get the
best determination of how good it all is.
So let's zoom in here, get out of here ICloud preferences.
I noticed this, the foot is much sharper there than it is here.
It’s suddenly out and the dirt, all of this seems to be much more fine detailed than on
the Nikon side.
But in the Boca area, it seems like the Sigma is bringing out a little bit more grain or
noise than smoothness on the Nikon side.
This is nitpicking guys, so I'm not a big fan of nitpicking and pixel peeping.
If I need to zoom in one to one to see minor differences, then there might be a problem
but that's why I'm giving you all the files to play with yourself to determine that on
your own.
So let's keep moving down the list here.
Similar images, you can play with them.
I really just want to show you guys photos here.
So I put both of those side by side, you can do that.
I don't want to look at those side by side, let's look at these side by side because they're
pretty similar.
I hit that, hit the Y, this button right here and zoom in.
So what do we have over here?
This is the Sigma on the left and we've got the Nikon on the right and I guess it's going
to vary from image to image because of course sharpness and movement.
You can see that one four thousands of a second versus 15 thousandth of a second, I tried
to keep everything similar.
In this case, you're at 6.3, this one's at 5.6, they're all very similar.
You got to try to determine.
I can't tell you which Boca is better, I really can't.
I can't tell you which color is better because a lot of that comes down to how I'm editing
it but these are very similar images almost exactly the same.
Of course, not taken at the same time because I'm using two different cameras and I didn't
set them up to shoot at the same time but the Sigma looks a little cleaner to me in
the face.
It just looks like it's not as muddy where the Nikon seems to be a little more muddy.
So we'll go through a couple of these, let me get rid of the side by side comparisons.
Just to show you some of the ones I get.
This is Nikon 200 to 500.
This is what I'm talking about, about sharpness, it looks sharp but it's not super duper as
extremely tack as you would get with one of the higher-end lenses.
Is it bad?
By no stretch of the imagination , no.
It's very good and this is nitpicking what I'm doing right now.
I love the range that it gives you.
Something like this, you know, it looks good but remember you're bumping your ISO up higher
to get these images because I'm shooting sports, I want a faster shutter speed.
You have to keep all of that in mind when you're shooting.
Again, we’ve got the Nikon 200 to 500, you have a nice range.
I found myself shooting these lenses 300 and further except for when I was closer to home
plate where I was sitting and I needed to get that wider shot.
I liked having the Sigma, give me the wider shot because 150 is a nice range compared
to the 200.
And then being able to reach all the way out and grab a 600 millimeter is absolutely insane.
I love the wider 150 to 600 versus 200 to 500 but the trade-offs are one weighs four
pounds, one weighs six pounds, one’s easier to carry around.
They're both big, you're going to have to decide which ones you like so let's keep moving.
This is the Nikon again.
Now this is one of the issues I ran into with the Sigma.
It’s like I couldn't get the focus on the eye and it's not the D-4s problem and it's
not my problem because I know I'm on focus where I want to be . But it just couldn't
hit where I wanted on that tight focus where I wanted it.
But the color and the contrast looked beautiful especially when the sun finally freaking came
out because it was an overcast day, the tones here looked great, the compression looks great.
Yes, the background is a little more distracting than if you were using a 2.8 or an F4 but
that's what's going to happen.
You're just not able to blow the background out as much at six three or five six.
So this is at 300 millimeters you can see that it's a 5.6 but anytime you go after that
­ So like 320 millimeters, then you're starting to look at it going to F6 and climbing up
from there.
But really nice contrast, really nice tones, that's the Nikon again.
This is the Sigma, 550 millimeters.
Again Sigma, 270 millimeters, I'm sitting really close to the field, awesome place.
And those are the sample images, I'm giving you the rest of them to play with.
All of the ones I shot, all of the keepers that I've edited you can download and play
with the JPEGs and I'm giving you a handful of raw files to play with so you can pixel
peep all you want.
So who is it for?
Not who is it for, but which one do I think is better?
I think it's very hard to tell you hands down that one is better than the other.
There are trade-offs, the Nikon is lighter and easier to carry around and you don't need
a monopod.
The sigma, I think is sharper, gives you a better contrast, gives you a better tone with
less work in the editing of the file.
But it's much heavier.
It's built better, it's built extremely well, it is a professional lens at 2,000 bucks but
do I want to carry around the 6.3 pound lens?
But then again on both sides, you have a huge, huge range.
Nowhere in any of the Nikon or the Canter or Sony sides or whatever or Sigmas are you
going to find mega zooms that you're going to reach as far as you can with something
like this.
Cannon has a 100 to 400, I rather buy a Sigma 150 to 600.
Even though the Cannon’s lighter, I think that that's a great lens.
So it's going to come down to you guys deciding, is the weight an issue?
Do you need more reach?
Do you need to be wider?
Can you live with 6.3 versus a 5.6?
There's not a huge difference between the third, roughly a third of a stop right there
between the 5.6 in the 6.3.
Focus speeds are great, clarity is great.
I’ve talked about this at Infinitum already, I don't want this to go too long.
If I had to pick one to use more, I mean, I would be more apt to take the Nikon version
around because it's lighter and it's easier to carry.
And plus if I'm going to shoot a concert and I know which I've done, I've shot Hall and
Oates with the 200 to 500.
That 5.6, I don't want to go to 6.3.
Now I’m bumping my ISO up to 10,000 or higher and I'm starting to run into trouble.
You have to take into consideration the body that you're using, lower end bodies at higher
ISOs those aren't going to compare to what the D4S is going to do so take that into consideration.
But if you need a mega zoom, you can't go wrong with the 200 to 500 Nikon at 1,400 bucks.
And if you can afford the higher end sport edition for the Sigma 150 to 600, it's a great
lens,.
They're both great lenses.
If I needed to give an edge getting rid of weight and everything else and just look at
image quality, I may give an edge to the Sigma professional, the sport I don't think the
contemporary would match.
The contemporary would be a good combination to go with the 200-500 Nikon but if I had
to choose quality wise, I'll go with the 150-600 Sigma by a little bit.
Minuscule amount do I think that the quality of the images are better.
I'll leave it at that, you can download all the raw files and everything for yourself
to try it out and that is it.
Jared Polin, froknowsphoto.com.
See you.