Great review! Still patiently waiting for the lens review of the Sony 600 F4 😊
Marceli
April 15, 2025 8:14 am
Great review as always! I have a question. On which cameras’ matrices does PL measure the optical resolution of lenses? I’m asking about Nikon and Sony lenses.
Are articles like this one linked somewhere on the page? I think a collection of this type of technical/process descriptions would be useful, but I did not find it anywhere on here (apologies if I just missed it).
Marino
April 14, 2025 6:28 am
Creo que la velocidad de enfoque es mejorable, a veces da la impresión de que le falta batería a la cámara, como si fuera muy duro enfocar. Lo uso también con la 6700, y noto más la falta de velocidad de enfoque.
Mark N
April 13, 2025 7:03 pm
Having owned both the Sony 200-600 on the A9 and Nikon 180-600 on the Z8, I agree with all of your conclusions – the two lenses are extremely close, notwithstanding the focus breathing on the Sony. I like the smoother zoom and better manual focus ring of the Sony, but there was no full-time DMF option, which is the biggest ergonomic difference. Both are great for relatively affordable price and get you 80-90% of the practical sharpness of a big 600 f4. Never had any AF issue with the 200-600, like most users.
Maxxus
April 12, 2025 11:59 am
Owned the 200-600G Sony for several years , and used with several bodies (A9ii, A7RIV and A1). This lens was never great on any of those bodies. It’s well known in the Sony community that this lens is maligned. It’s AF is slow and inconsistent. Sony has never resolved its issue. This is where the Nikon 180-600 easily beats it, in AF consistency. And that’s a big deal
Maligned? That’s not what I’m seeing from most Sony users, aside from a couple who seem to have a malfunctioning copy. I certainly didn’t experience slow or inconsistent AF with this lens, and neither did Libor.
Doesn’t seem right. Plenty of great photographers use the 200-600 and say it’s prettty good. It’s not prime-level good, but it’s quite nice. And lots of shots I’ve seen of it were often tricky BIF shots…
bjorn
April 11, 2025 9:42 am
Nice review as usual. Kuddos for that. Did you have a look at the focus breathing? after shooting the same subject with a good friend of me from the same position, we saw that the Sony 200-600 showed quite a bit more focus breathing at 600mm. So basically loosing details that should be cropped back. What is your experience? It’s difficult to compare results cross-sensors . kind regards, Bjorn
Yes, the lens does have some noticeable focus breathing. You can see in the bokeh comparison that there’s a difference at close distances between this lens and the Nikon 180-600mm (which has minimal focus breathing).
Jason Polak
April 10, 2025 11:00 am
This review is a great addition to the birding lens lore, as I don’t think these two lenses have ever been compared in a rigorous way. But anyway, what I found really interesting was your bokeh comparison with the Nikon 180-600. The out of focus BG areas look smoother on the Nikon, but the OOF FG part looks smoother on the Sony. Zooming in to the bottom right corner shows that, where the Nikon looks positively “wormy”. I think more tests might be required to confirm it but it does seem to me that the Sony is a bit better in the OOF FG (or could that be due to the slightly different framing?) But if that’s true, that would be important as well because often in bird photography, the close BG is less important than the close FG because it’s easier to make the close BG farther away with the right angle, but harder to do that with the close FG.
Very often – I’d even say inherent in lens design as a whole – an improvement in out-of-focus background rendering comes at the expense of out-of-focus foreground rendering, and vice versa. Looks like Nikon optimized for the background bokeh, and Sony optimized for the foreground.
Lars
April 10, 2025 9:25 am
I think do not think it is made of plastic only the hood
Hey Lars, I can’t find any confirmation from Sony one way or another. But I’m currently inclined to believe that it’s a thin aluminum covered by white paint, based on the materials used in other Sony G lenses.
For now, I’ve eliminated references to the build materials from this review. The lens is very well-built regardless of whether it’s made from painted aluminum or high-quality polycarbonates. But I’ll update the review again if I find a confirmation of the materials.
Kurt somesome
April 10, 2025 9:15 am
The comment about that nobody should switch mount because of these lenses is very true. Sony has a great advantage because of third party lenses, but other than that it’s almost down to gut feeling. I went early with Nikon, when it didn’t really make sense, because I liked the 50mm 1.8. It felt special, and I’m currently very happy with my decision (but my wallet isn’t).
When it comes to lenses like the 200-600 vs 180-600, that is absolutely true. But if it comes down to the primes, I think there’s a strong case for switching mounts, for some when it comes to the mid-range lenses like the Nikon 600mm f/6.3, for example. The weight difference between the PF lenses and regular lenses can make shooting a much greater joy due to the weight difference. The 1.47kg of the 600 PF versus the 2.1kg of the 200-600 is huge. Not saying that these lenses are typically compared, but if you’re just aiming *in general* for something that reaches 600mm that you can carry all day, then there’s a strong case for Nikon.
The Sony lens isn’t near as good as this review makes it appear. Owned this lens for nearly 4 years. The AF with the 200-600G is maligned, very very inconsistent. I have personally tested multiple copies of. This lens with several Sony bodies including the A9ii, A7Riv, A1 and all suffered poor auto focus consistency. That’s the biggest flaw with this Sony lens. I have recently tested the Nikkor 180-600 and the Nikon AF is far more consistent. That’s a pretty big deal. That said , wonder why my previous post was deleted ??
It definitely sounds like something about this lens in combination with Sony’s AF system wasn’t meshing right for you, and that it wasn’t user error. I honestly didn’t experience that myself, but sometimes, a particular piece of equipment just doesn’t seem to function with someone’s approach properly, while working normally for others – and when that happens, best not to fight it! Sounds like the Nikon 180-600mm has been a better fit for you, so I’m glad you got a solution sorted in the end.
Great review! Still patiently waiting for the lens review of the Sony 600 F4 😊
Great review as always!
I have a question. On which cameras’ matrices does PL measure the optical resolution of lenses?
I’m asking about Nikon and Sony lenses.
Hi Marceli, all your questions about that are answered on this page: photographylife.com/our-c…e-to-nikon
Are articles like this one linked somewhere on the page? I think a collection of this type of technical/process descriptions would be useful, but I did not find it anywhere on here (apologies if I just missed it).
Creo que la velocidad de enfoque es mejorable, a veces da la impresión de que le falta batería a la cámara, como si fuera muy duro enfocar. Lo uso también con la 6700, y noto más la falta de velocidad de enfoque.
Having owned both the Sony 200-600 on the A9 and Nikon 180-600 on the Z8, I agree with all of your conclusions – the two lenses are extremely close, notwithstanding the focus breathing on the Sony. I like the smoother zoom and better manual focus ring of the Sony, but there was no full-time DMF option, which is the biggest ergonomic difference. Both are great for relatively affordable price and get you 80-90% of the practical sharpness of a big 600 f4. Never had any AF issue with the 200-600, like most users.
Owned the 200-600G Sony for several years , and used with several bodies (A9ii, A7RIV and A1). This lens was never great on any of those bodies. It’s well known in the Sony community that this lens is maligned. It’s AF is slow and inconsistent. Sony has never resolved its issue. This is where the Nikon 180-600 easily beats it, in AF consistency. And that’s a big deal
Maligned? That’s not what I’m seeing from most Sony users, aside from a couple who seem to have a malfunctioning copy. I certainly didn’t experience slow or inconsistent AF with this lens, and neither did Libor.
Doesn’t seem right. Plenty of great photographers use the 200-600 and say it’s prettty good. It’s not prime-level good, but it’s quite nice. And lots of shots I’ve seen of it were often tricky BIF shots…
Nice review as usual. Kuddos for that.
Did you have a look at the focus breathing? after shooting the same subject with a good friend of me from the same position, we saw that the Sony 200-600 showed quite a bit more focus breathing at 600mm. So basically loosing details that should be cropped back. What is your experience? It’s difficult to compare results cross-sensors . kind regards, Bjorn
Yes, the lens does have some noticeable focus breathing. You can see in the bokeh comparison that there’s a difference at close distances between this lens and the Nikon 180-600mm (which has minimal focus breathing).
This review is a great addition to the birding lens lore, as I don’t think these two lenses have ever been compared in a rigorous way. But anyway, what I found really interesting was your bokeh comparison with the Nikon 180-600. The out of focus BG areas look smoother on the Nikon, but the OOF FG part looks smoother on the Sony. Zooming in to the bottom right corner shows that, where the Nikon looks positively “wormy”. I think more tests might be required to confirm it but it does seem to me that the Sony is a bit better in the OOF FG (or could that be due to the slightly different framing?) But if that’s true, that would be important as well because often in bird photography, the close BG is less important than the close FG because it’s easier to make the close BG farther away with the right angle, but harder to do that with the close FG.
I see what you’re referring to, and I agree!
Very often – I’d even say inherent in lens design as a whole – an improvement in out-of-focus background rendering comes at the expense of out-of-focus foreground rendering, and vice versa. Looks like Nikon optimized for the background bokeh, and Sony optimized for the foreground.
I think do not think it is made of plastic only the hood
Hey Lars, I can’t find any confirmation from Sony one way or another. But I’m currently inclined to believe that it’s a thin aluminum covered by white paint, based on the materials used in other Sony G lenses.
For now, I’ve eliminated references to the build materials from this review. The lens is very well-built regardless of whether it’s made from painted aluminum or high-quality polycarbonates. But I’ll update the review again if I find a confirmation of the materials.
The comment about that nobody should switch mount because of these lenses is very true. Sony has a great advantage because of third party lenses, but other than that it’s almost down to gut feeling. I went early with Nikon, when it didn’t really make sense, because I liked the 50mm 1.8. It felt special, and I’m currently very happy with my decision (but my wallet isn’t).
When it comes to lenses like the 200-600 vs 180-600, that is absolutely true. But if it comes down to the primes, I think there’s a strong case for switching mounts, for some when it comes to the mid-range lenses like the Nikon 600mm f/6.3, for example. The weight difference between the PF lenses and regular lenses can make shooting a much greater joy due to the weight difference. The 1.47kg of the 600 PF versus the 2.1kg of the 200-600 is huge. Not saying that these lenses are typically compared, but if you’re just aiming *in general* for something that reaches 600mm that you can carry all day, then there’s a strong case for Nikon.
The Sony lens isn’t near as good as this review makes it appear. Owned this lens for nearly 4 years. The AF with the 200-600G is maligned, very very inconsistent. I have personally tested multiple copies of. This lens with several Sony bodies including the A9ii, A7Riv, A1 and all suffered poor auto focus consistency. That’s the biggest flaw with this Sony lens. I have recently tested the Nikkor 180-600 and the Nikon AF is far more consistent. That’s a pretty big deal. That said , wonder why my previous post was deleted ??
Your post was not deleted. It’s just that the page has to be network-refreshed sometimes for them to appear because the older page is in your cache.
Understood, that Make sense. Thanks for explaining. Take care
It definitely sounds like something about this lens in combination with Sony’s AF system wasn’t meshing right for you, and that it wasn’t user error. I honestly didn’t experience that myself, but sometimes, a particular piece of equipment just doesn’t seem to function with someone’s approach properly, while working normally for others – and when that happens, best not to fight it! Sounds like the Nikon 180-600mm has been a better fit for you, so I’m glad you got a solution sorted in the end.