First time post. Expectations for this lens too high?

[Wildsteelhead]

Hi folks,

First time post here. Love the site and, of course, Steve's material and work! My wife and I love birds, have lots of feeders around the house, so wanted to start taking bird photos with my Nikon D750. I realize there is quite a price vs performance scale in lenses, so thought I would look at the lower priced end of the scale. I was debating between the Sigma 150-600 Contemporary and Sport and after reading some reviews, and thinking of my wife being able to maneuver the rig handheld, I pulled the trigger on the Contemporary. While I have not done a lot of shooting with it, I was shooting the other day about 15-25 feet from the subjects. I did both handheld leaning against a door, and also shot on my very sturdy Induro tripod with gimbal head. When I pixel peeped and pushed the button that zooms in 100% on the camera, I was kind of disappointed. I really thought the beaks and some feathers would have been sharper, but I am new to this, so not really sure. Clearly, I'm not shooting to blow them up like that and print them. I'm just trying to use the zoom in feature to determine a) do I have a back or front focus issue with the AF, and b) is this the sharpness I should expect from this lens.

I am totally new to shooting at these long focal lengths, but these are relatively stationary subjects at what I thought were good shutter speeds. I am posting a few below (two of which were shot through windows) and was hoping you might be able to share insights, judgement, experience, etc. to help me gauge what I should expect from this lens. Also, would be interesting to hear thoughts on what lenses to look at if I do want to step up. For example, is there a real noticeable improvement by going to the Sigma Sport version? If not, what's next? Thanks in advance!!

Dark Eyed Junco from tripod w/gimbal head. 1/1000, F6 500mm, ISO 1130

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Cardinal from tripod w/gimbal head. 1/1600, F6 500mm, ISO 1600.

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Coopers hawk handheld leaned against and shooting through double paned glass door. 1/2000, F6 500mm, ISO800

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Mockingbird tripod w/gimbal head shooting through double pane glass window. 1/4000, f6.3 600mm ISO 400

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[DRwyoming]

It's hard to evaluate critical sharpness in these web sized images but the first thing that jumps out at me is the lighting is very tough in all but the Cooper's hawk image. I wouldn't try to evaluate critical sharpness on the heavily backlit images with under exposed subjects. Also, are these the full sized images out of the camera or have they been cropped down to these shots? Heavy cropping can also rob apparent sharpness.

The other thing that I'd add is that shooting sharp images with a long lens, whether hand held or on a good tripod requires additional technique compared to shooting shorter lenses which includes dampening vibrations and minimizing any shake related to the shutter release. Steve has a good video here on long lens technique but it takes practice to reliably get sharp images out of longer lenses. https://backcountrygallery.com/long-lens-tripod-technique/

[Edit] FWIW, I know several local photographers capturing great and very sharp images with the Sigma Contemporary lens and though it's always possible to have sample variation or to have a front/back focus issue the lens itself is well designed and typically quite sharp.

 

[Steve]

First, welcome aboard

You mentioned you were leaning against the door. Are we talking the door to your house - if so, the heat escaping and mixing with the cold air will absolutely cause a drop in sharpness. I have a video that talks about it:

 

[Nikondale]

Wildsteelhead, I would like to suggest Steve's eBooks as great reading for photography. They are great teaching tools for techniques and tips in digital photography. I have found myself rereading with my DSLR in my hands to practice what he suggests. Good luck with your shooting, Dale

 

[Rassie]

I , and I'm sure many others on this forum have experienced the same thing as you. It's likely that atmospheric conditions are to blame for your image quality issues. I had this discussion a couple of days ago with a photographer friend who was struggling to get sharp images with his Tamron 150-600mm lens.
1) As Dave said, underexposure robs the image of sharpness. All these images are underexposed to some extent, so going forward, dial in some positive exposure compensation when the bird is in snow, or as with the mockingbird, when it's backlit.
2) When you shoot through windows or doors, make sure the lens is perpendicular to the glass. If you shoot through glass at an angle it's likely to distort the image and rob you of IQ,
3) You are shooting from a warm house into the cold outside. Often there are warm air currents rising from the warmer ground (or conceivably from a sun-warmed house outside wall) into the cold air above. This often causes a loss of sharpness because of warm air currents causing problems due to the temperature differential. This also sometimes plays a role when you shoot from a warm house or car into the cold outside. Someone on this forum wrote about covering up the heater vent in the kitchen and opening the back door to equalize the temperature inside and out. He then puts on winter clothes and shoots out through the open back door. Same problem happens when I shoot into the cold snowy landscape outside from a nice warm car. I've now started to open the car windows beforehand and turning off the heater before shooting out of the car. Steve has a video on Backcountry Gallery that deals with the issue of heat distortions when using a long lens on a hot day. This issue also crops up when shooting into the cold from a warm spot, so it's not just a problem for hot days. I have found that no amount of experimentation with shutter speed, focus mode, VR on or off, or aperture settings can give you a sharp image if these air currents play a role. I have concluded that if these currents cannot be managed, then I pack the camera away.
4) As for technique, you were using fast enough shutter speeds so that motion blur should not be a factor, especially on a tripod. Remember though that some lenses don't play well with VR turned on at higher shutter speed. The conventional wisdom says turn VR on for shutter speeds up to 1/500 sec, and turn it off at higher speeds. Some lenses' VR systems cause unsharpness at higher shutter speeds. This differs from lens to lens, so they don't all behave the same way. Some lens manufacturers also advise to turn VR off on a tripod, so check your lens operator's manual.
4) Focus mode. I don't know which focus mode you were using, but you may try swapping between single point AF-S, single point AF-C, or 9-point dynamic AF-C, or even Group AF. perhaps one works better than the other.

It's early days, so right now there's no reason to suspect faulty equipment. Keep experimenting and let's see.

 

[EricBowles]

Always blame sharpness issues on your technique - not the lens. While you're thinking about it - it's not an AF fine tuning issue either.

Gear issues rank very low in the list of actual causes of soft images. Based on the images and settings, your shutter speed is a little slow and you appear to be missing focus a little. Better lighting would help a lot.

Be sure you do a little research on Long Lens Technique - it's very important with a long telephoto that extends like your lens.

Practice, practice, practice. It's amazing how much better your gear becomes with 5000 images from practicing on small birds.

Steve put together good book on the Nikon AF system. Just get his book and it will save a lot of frustration.

You may not be able to have perfectly sharp images at 100% - but keep in mind 100% is like looking at a 6 foot wide print from a distance of 18 inches. Your images probably look pretty good at 50% with some sharpening.

 

[AlexY]

First time post here. Love the site and, of course, Steve's material and work! My wife and I love birds, have lots of feeders around the house, so wanted to start taking bird photos with my Nikon D750. I realize there is quite a price vs performance scale in lenses, so thought I would look at the lower priced end of the scale. I was debating between the Sigma 150-600 Contemporary and Sport and after reading some reviews, and thinking of my wife being able to maneuver the rig handheld, I pulled the trigger on the Contemporary. While I have not done a lot of shooting with it, I was shooting the other day about 15-25 feet from the subjects. I did both handheld leaning against a door, and also shot on my very sturdy Induro tripod with gimbal head. When I pixel peeped and pushed the button that zooms in 100% on the camera, I was kind of disappointed. I really thought the beaks and some feathers would have been sharper, but I am new to this, so not really sure. Clearly, I'm not shooting to blow them up like that and print them. I'm just trying to use the zoom in feature to determine a) do I have a back or front focus issue with the AF, and b) is this the sharpness I should expect from this lens.

Welcome!
I just purchased a Tamron 150-600mm telephoto and was initially a bit disappointed with the images at long telephoto lengths also. Like you, I was shooting birds, at my backyard birdfeeder at a distance of 27 feet, handheld. The images were sharp in some areas, not so much in others. I then thought about the depth of field of a subject 27 feet away at 500mm. From photopills, the DOF at f6 at 500mm for an object 25 feet away is 2.2", same camera/lens settings, but 20 feet away the DOF is 1.3 inches and at 15 feet, the DOF is a paltry 0.7 inches. This means that only a thin "slice" of your bird will be sharply in focus. When I went out into a nearby park and took shots at longer distances, handheld, the DOF was greater and the pictures were sharper overall as well they should be if the lens is good. So, I'm pleased with my purchase, but still wish it was lighter. I'm thinking about attaching some helium filled balloons to it!!!
cheers,
Alex

 

[Wildsteelhead]

Hi,

Thanks everyone for your quick, insightful responses. This was very helpful. Responding to some of the questions/items raised, the only thing done to the pictures was to save them at 1200 pixel width, per the Steve's video on how to post pictures. Yes, exposures need work and will definitely work on that, and will watch Steve's video on the heat distortion because that definitely was the case where my camera lens was pretty close to the house hot air/outside boundary! I definitely hear you all about how many things can impact IQ on a tripod even. In fact, I was surprised that even balanced on the tripod you could see slight vibrations come through. I will hang a weight on the hook of the tripod and watch Steve's video for other good ideas. I'm glad VR was raised as an issue. I will check the owners manual and try what they recommend, as I had VR on for all of the pictures, handheld or not. I'm also going to get Steve's book on Nikon AF System. There is so much capability there, I want to make sure I know which to try/use, and more importantly, know how to navigate through the menu and buttons/dials more fluently.

Good timing to jump on these things and practice ahead of Spring Migration and new birds coming through!

Thanks everyone!
Todd

 

[DRwyoming]

I was surprised that even balanced on the tripod you could see slight vibrations come through. I will hang a weight on the hook of the tripod and watch Steve's video for other good ideas.

The weight on the tripod probably won't do much unless it's a very light weight tripod. But watch Steve's video and concentrate on the way your left hand applying gentle down pressure to the lens can dampen vibrations and how rolling your finger to release the shutter is better than jabbing at the shutter release with your finger tip. You could have a rock solid tripod and burly gimbal or ball head but shutter slap vibrations will still go out to the end of the lens and reflect back along the lens body and those are what generally need to be damped to get sharp images out of long glass. Those same kinds of vibrations aren't really much of an issue with shorter focal length lenses but at 500mm or 600mm the angular field of view is so narrow that even small vibrations can really soften images.

 

[Mdf123]

I also own the Sigma 150-600. In my experience, in addition to the heat distortion issue, the VR must be turned off when attached to a tripod. The VR works fine when handheld. However, if the VR is on while attached to a tripod the lens will "walk" all over the place. To experiment to see if this is true with your copy of the lens, attach to a tripod and focus on the Moon. If it is like mine you will be able to see the movement..

 

[Hermann]

Always blame sharpness issues on your technique - not the lens. While you're thinking about it - it's not an AF fine tuning issue either.

I agree technique (and conditions) are the main reasons that shots aren't quite sharp. However, I'm not so sure about fine tuning. It may play a role as well.

I've got two lenses I had to fine tune, a Tamron 100-400 that needs a +7 on my main body, and an old screwdriver Nikkor 300mm that needs a +10. Of course I only fine tuned them after I was absolutely sure it was a fine tuning issue.

All my other lenses don't need fine tuning on that body, so it's the lenses, not the body.

 

[Don McCracken]

This is a powerful lens and the learning curve with this much focal length is steep. Be patient and study your subjects carefully. Let them approach you and focus on the eye whenever possible. Boost your exposures, increase your shutter speeds and manage your backgrounds carefully. Give the lens a few months as you refine your technique and then decide if it's meeting your needs.

 

[Hermann]

Let them approach you and focus on the eye whenever possible.

BTW, in Nikon NXD you can actually check the position of the active focus point. That can be surprisingly useful when you "learn" a new lens.

 

[bleirer]

BTW, in Nikon NXD you can actually check the position of the active focus point. That can be surprisingly useful when you "learn" a new lens.

Something I find in my canon software, that I assume is the same in Nikon, is if you do any kind of recomposing with the focus locked, for example releasing the back button in a bbf setup and recomposing, the focus point indicated is no longer positioned over the focus point.

 

[Pistnbroke]

Wrong camera .Not enough MP to give enough POI . Unless the lens has been on a dock and Fine focus adjusted at a variety of distances ( as opposed to at just 600mm) it may not be sharp at 15ft. You don't say if you are shooting raw or jpeg .If raw the sharpness is in post-processing if in jpeg the sharpness is in "picture control" and should be at +9

 

[soundbyte]

I would say if you are still having focus problems with any camera/lens combination after trying all(?) of ideas mentioned above, then do not discount doing an auto fine tune of the camera/lens combination.
Every Nikon DSLR camera/lens combinations I have owned has needed at least some auto fine tuning, sometimes only small adjustments are needed but they do matter.
I check my camera/lens combinations using the DOT Tune method mentioned here https://bcgforums.com/index.php?threads/how-to-get-critical-sharpness-nikon-500-pf.829/post-5477.
Page 389 of the D750 manual for some AF Fine Tune details needed for DOT Tuning.

 

[Warren D]

I think the biggest issue is you are shooting through glass (and not optical glass used in lenses!) Window glass isn't very well made in optical terms and it seems the more energy efficient, the worst it is. The windows in my house aren't all that old but when I shoot through them with longer lenses, I get results similar to yours even with a 600mm EFL. If you are slightly off of 90 degrees, it only makes matters worse. I'd suggest running some tests under controlled conditions. I have a Sigma 150-600 Sport and while it doesn't compare well to the 600 EFL, it is capable of decent images. I know people with the contemporary version and they get decent images as well.

 

[Yellowboard]

My first big glass was the Sigma 150-600 Contemporary and boy was I ever excited to get out and use it. My excitement was dampened somewhat by some less than "sharp" images. And I had such high hopes! However, not all of my initial images were lacking Steve Perry IQ, in fact some of them were (in my eyes) brought a smile to my face. But, then I sat down at the computer with my initial batch of images and began to see what was wrong with the ones with fuzzy IQ. What was wrong was... me, not my equipment. It takes a lot of work to understand how to get big glass working for you and even more work to understand how one's technique impacts IQ. Everyone here has given you some excellent advice and direction on how to train yourself to get the best out of your gear, be it super zooms or big primes.

Keep at it; it only gets better.

 

[Woodpecker]

Although he was not the classic wildlife photogreapher, but more a "wild life photographer" I always remember something that I heard when watching a documentary film about Helmut Newton. It was one of his most famous bon mots: "The first 10.000 photos are the worst".

What's the logic behind it ?

First we have to remember that this guy was working at a time where 10.000 images really were A LOT, especially if you consider that he is talking about the keepers which found their way on paper in times were we talked about real film. Considering that these days we have cameras being able to shoot with higher frame rate than film cameras in his days and that one raw file of a D850 needs abut 2/3 of the memory that Apollo 11 flew to the moon with, you can easily put a factor of 10 - if not far more - on top of his figure.

Second it seem obvious that there will be no switch to turn meaning that after x times 10.000 the photos are suddenly good. It will - again and like always - take time for contiinuous improvement of yourself, your capabilities - and to a certain extent also your gear including the knowledge to use it.

So I think it is a good idea to be patient - with yourself and with your gear .

There are a lots of good input up there and I can remember having fallen in at least 50% of the trraps mentioned above myself - and sometimes I still do .

I have never used the particular lens you mention, but I made exactly the same experience when starting to shoot a 200-400 f4 yeras ago. Holding one of these Nikon guns in my hand meant for me that now the pictures had to be great - and they were not. Apart from the fact that later it turned out that this lens indeed had its issues, the primary problem was me and my knowledge of how to use it properly. As a hobbyist with not very much time for shooting it took me about a year reaching a level of working with it, that I was able to get the results Iexpected and it involved quite ab it of learning and some harsh words from my friend being a pro - sometimes the honesty of friends can become a real challenge .

I think for getting into it you did the right thing, because getting this kind of results would worry you even more if you payed three times or more the money you probably have payed for the Tamron.

Looking at your pictures I agree with the other community members and don't think that these pictures were soft only because of AF adjustment. There were other reasons dominating. However, you could run into it after you have eliminated other factors mentioned above.

Although you are shooting f6.3 at the long end and thus your combo would be less sensitive for deadjustment than shooting a f2.8 or a f4 lens wide open, it can still make a difference. So, among all the things mentioned above I would still recommend trying AF fine tuning at some stage. In case of Sigma and Tamron you have the advantage to be able to do that for not just one focal length and store the setting in the camera (like for Nikon lenses), but do it for several focal lengths and store it in the lens (--> USB dock).

Reading reviews from different sources there are two things that pop up repeatingly. Also Nikon has its quality issues from time to time, but it is known that the sample variations for lenses from companies like Tamron, Tokina, Sigma etc. tend to be bigger. That doesn't mean that your lens wouldn't work correctly. It just means that tolerances of lenses might be slighlty bigger and they can add up with those of the camera, either accumulating or partially or ceompletely compensating each other. To give you an idea:

Until a while ago I was shooting two D750 bodies. Both were bought second hand and one of them came from a photographer in Munich using it for event photography focussing on people with really fast glass doing what he called "dynamic" portraiture. For this reason he was really picky about the focus adjustment and I got the camera after he had it sent to Nikon especially for checking and adjusting the AF system of the camera itself, becaue he couldn't solve the problem just by fine tuning with the lens(es). After this excercise the AF was on spot for him even when shooting f1.8 or 2.8 with the AF tine tuning settings on zero or very nearby in the camera.
Whenvever I get a new camera I do AF fine tuning for my long lenses as a standard and so I did with this second D750 assuming that AF fine tuning would show smaller values for the tuning settings. Generally this was true, but in the range of -20 to +20 that the cameras provides for AF fine tuning settings of a lens, I had differences between the two bodies between 6 and 12 with no obvious systematic orientation between the two cameras. Depending on the focal length of the lens a change in the setting of 2 to 4 in either direction can already make a visible difference.

Some time ago I happened to talk to somebody using the 24-70 f2.8 and the 70-200 f2.8 duo from Tamron and asked him about his experience. He told me straight away that doing the AF fine tuning excercise has changed his output quality significantly to the better for both lenses - even for the standard zoom, which I found pretty amazing.

 

[R.Philip]

I , and I'm sure many others on this forum have experienced the same thing as you. It's likely that atmospheric conditions are to blame for your image quality issues. I had this discussion a couple of days ago with a photographer friend who was struggling to get sharp images with his Tamron 150-600mm lens.
1) As Dave said, underexposure robs the image of sharpness. All these images are underexposed to some extent, so going forward, dial in some positive exposure compensation when the bird is in snow, or as with the mockingbird, when it's backlit.
2) When you shoot through windows or doors, make sure the lens is perpendicular to the glass. If you shoot through glass at an angle it's likely to distort the image and rob you of IQ,
3) You are shooting from a warm house into the cold outside. Often there are warm air currents rising from the warmer ground (or conceivably from a sun-warmed house outside wall) into the cold air above. This often causes a loss of sharpness because of warm air currents causing problems due to the temperature differential. This also sometimes plays a role when you shoot from a warm house or car into the cold outside. Someone on this forum wrote about covering up the heater vent in the kitchen and opening the back door to equalize the temperature inside and out. He then puts on winter clothes and shoots out through the open back door. Same problem happens when I shoot into the cold snowy landscape outside from a nice warm car. I've now started to open the car windows beforehand and turning off the heater before shooting out of the car. Steve has a video on Backcountry Gallery that deals with the issue of heat distortions when using a long lens on a hot day. This issue also crops up when shooting into the cold from a warm spot, so it's not just a problem for hot days. I have found that no amount of experimentation with shutter speed, focus mode, VR on or off, or aperture settings can give you a sharp image if these air currents play a role. I have concluded that if these currents cannot be managed, then I pack the camera away.
4) As for technique, you were using fast enough shutter speeds so that motion blur should not be a factor, especially on a tripod. Remember though that some lenses don't play well with VR turned on at higher shutter speed. The conventional wisdom says turn VR on for shutter speeds up to 1/500 sec, and turn it off at higher speeds. Some lenses' VR systems cause unsharpness at higher shutter speeds. This differs from lens to lens, so they don't all behave the same way. Some lens manufacturers also advise to turn VR off on a tripod, so check your lens operator's manual.
4) Focus mode. I don't know which focus mode you were using, but you may try swapping between single point AF-S, single point AF-C, or 9-point dynamic AF-C, or even Group AF. perhaps one works better than the other.

It's early days, so right now there's no reason to suspect faulty equipment. Keep experimenting and let's see.

Rassie, this is a great post...

I think we all underestimate refraction. I never thought about it until reading Steve's ebooks. It was below zero the other day and my dog will not go out without me. I put on a hooded parka and was standing outside with him. I turned my head to the side and the hood covered a portion of my face. I could actually see the refraction waves emanating from my body temperature inside my hood to the outside air. Wow!

 

[Woodpecker]

Rassie, this is a great post...

I think we all underestimate refraction. I never thought about it until reading Steve's ebooks. It was below zero the other day and my dog will not go out without me. I put on a hooded parka and was standing outside with him. I turned my head to the side and the hood covered a portion of my face. I could actually see the refraction waves emanating from my body temperature inside my hood to the outside air. Wow!

Yup, perfectly agree and @Rassie 's post item 2 and 3 implicitely include something. If shooting through a windows from the inside and there is a heater undereath the window, then make sure you turn it off. Not only that the heated air can cause thermal distortion like known from outside, but even with fairly modern windows there is a considerable temperature difference between the warm air going up and the window glass. This cause two layers of air flowing in opposite direction. The warm air is going up and the air touching the window will be cooled pretty rapidlay and starts falling down. This can easily create thermal effects that are sometimes even more severe than outside. It becomes particularly problematic if it is very cold outside or/and you have older windows. I realized that at my girl friend's place. After I got the windows changed in her house for improved insulation the effect was much less noticeable, but at least instead of keeping the window open it was enough to tutn the heating off .

 

[Capturingtheunseen.com]

Shooting through a window? That will kill sharpness every time. Take it outside and try some shots.

 

[GG1]

Keep practicing. I also have the Sigma 150-600 C . I have used it on a Nikon D7200 and a D810 and have gotten a lot of tack sharp imagines and some not so good. In have seen some saying this lens is better than the Tamron G2 version

 

[jeffnles1]

I don't really have anything to add to the critique of the images that hasn't already been said. I, too, have the 150-600C and, before it fell off my kitchen counter onto a hard tile floor, it produced tack sharp images when I did my part. I replaced it with the Nikon 200-500 and it, too, produces tack sharp images. Not much difference in photo quality at realistic crop/zoom in sizes.

My main reason for writing is simply to say welcome to the forum. I haven't been here that long but have found the conversations here helpful, friendly and refreshingly polite.

Jeff

 

[Andrew Lamberson]

Isn't it great all the fantastic help you can get on this site! I have learned more from this site and its members, Steve's books, video courses, and videos than all other sites combined.

One more tip: I use a remote shutter control to help minimize any "motion blur" on my part. You can't make the bird sit perfectly still, but you can fix your side of the problem! The tip on using the faster shutter speed is also key.

I have a Nikon D500, and I use it on a very heavy duty spotting scope tripod when shooting long lens, and always with a remote shutter control. I have a very inexpensive wired control ($20) that works great and a much more expensive wireless one that I use when I set up the camera a long distance from me and trigger the shutter from my car, blind or camp chair well away from the target (normally bluebirds or hummingbirds).

The Nikon D500 also allows you to focus and trigger the shutter via the back display set with a 3 sec. delay and that can give the system a chance to settle before shooting.

As everyone said: "Practice, Practice....Practice! I bet I had 100 hours sitting on the back porch (normally with a scotch!) practicing what I read on this site.

When you are ready, get Steve's Noise Reduction Workshop. His explanation of how to minimize background Noise AND Sharpen your bird using Lightroom and then finishing on Photoshop is fantastic! It was a "Holy Cow!" moment for me!