$600-$2,000: 10 Wildlife Photography Lenses Reviewed!

this is so heavy we're tony and chelsea northrop and this is our biggest wildlife lens comparison ever we have 10 lenses every lens for canon nikon and sony priced under 2 dollars mosquitoes it's so bad out here oh my gosh it's not good we're gonna rank them in order from 10th place to first place along with specific recommendations for your camera hold on one second i want to thank our sponsor keh if you see one of these lenses and they look good to you head over to keh first and see if they have it for sale use our coupon code and get five percent off that comes with a 21 day return policy and 180 day warranty if one of these lenses inspires you to upgrade don't worry keh will buy your old gear turn it into cash and find a new home for it now on to 10th place this is the sigma 150 to 600 sport and it's 1 850 making it the second most expensive lens in this review now it is durable it but along with its durability comes the fact that it's very very heavy uh the autofocus is slow and it's not as sharp as the 150 to 600 sigma contemporary version of this lens you can still get good wildlife pictures with this lens but it's number 10 on our list it's one of the most expensive and it's not the sharpest in ninth place is the tamron 150-600 g1 it's the one with this little angle here it's incredibly inexpensive and that's a great way to get started in wildlife photography and it's extremely versatile with a nice zoom and it's available for canon and nikon dslr so you can attach to just about anything but it has some serious drawbacks the image quality was basically the worst in the group especially at 600 millimeters especially cropped but for a real wildlife photographer you know you can overcome that by just getting very close to your subject it's just that that tends to be really challenging the autofocus is sometimes painfully slow especially if you have a flying bird that gets closer to you it just won't keep up and so everything will be focused a little bit behind the subject a couple of tips for getting the most out of it use those focus limiters whenever you can so it doesn't have to hunt all the way in and out and you'll get better image quality if you can shut the aperture down to f8 that sounds like a really upset osprey in the background coming in at number eight is the canon 600 millimeter f-11 lens it's 700 new and there's some great advantages to this lens it's very lightweight so it's easy to walk around with it's compact when you're not using it so it travels easily it's also very sharp it's got great auto focus and good stabilization the drawbacks to this lens is that it's not as sharp as the 800 millimeter f11 once you crop it and get them at the same focal length another drawback is that it only connects to the canon rf cameras and it only works really well on the canon r5 and r6 and those are both expensive it's not that it's bad it's just that canon also makes the 800 millimeter f11 and i think it's sharper and it works better so still a good lens but there are better options number seven is the canon 400 millimeter f56 this lens was made in 1993 but the reason that it's on our list is because it's still sharper than a lot of the other lenses on this list even when you crop it to six or 800 millimeters it really would stood the test of time it's light it's compact it's easy to travel with it's sharp some drawbacks to this lens is that it's the only one on the list that is not stabilized the autofocus is pretty slow it's also discontinued but you might be able to find one used on keh here are some tips for this one you can use a tele converter and get way closer to your subject if you're shooting with a canon rf camera you're going to want to get the 800 f11 instead but if you're shooting with a canon dslr this is a great option it's a good light compact easy to travel with camera lens if your subject is close up the focusing won't be as good so if you're shooting a small subject close up you might want to bring some extension tubes by the way now that you have the gear it's time to develop your skills a little bit check out this video on wildlife tips and of course check out stunning digital photography which has taught hundreds of thousands of people how to get the very best wildlife photos the e-book under 10 bucks in sixth place the tamron 150-600 g2 this is the successor to that other tamron and they made a lot of improvements at 1200 it's also more expensive but in my opinion it's worth it it is so much sharper the focusing still slower than the native lenses is quite a bit faster the stabilization is good on it but it does have some drawbacks the chromatic aberration when shooting backlit subjects such as any flying bird against a bright sky is terrible you'll see this sort of awful bridging you can edit it out but you're going to have to put a lot of time into that if you're working up close for example photographing small birds it's one of the best lenses we've reviewed with very good close-up magnification and limited focus breathing at 600 millimeters it shrinks to about 450 millimeters which isn't as bad as some of the lenses we'll talk about later number two the recommended part of our list all the lenses from this point forward we recommend for specific types of shooters including number five here the brand new tamron 150 to 500 you can think of it like a third generation of their 150 to 600 but they made it a little bit shorter at 500 millimeters and a little bit more compact they also made it mirrorless only and for now it's only for the sony e-mount cameras but finally sony shooters have a really great inexpensive wildlife lens and it's wonderful the autofocus is actually amazing on especially on the higher end bodies like the sony alpha one the lower end bodies are going to be limited mostly by the camera body's autofocus so that will kind of vary but we got absolutely great results with it it wasn't as sharp as some of the other lenses including the tamron 150 to 600 g2 when you zoom in all the way and when you have to crop that's because it's only 500 millimeters and that extra 100 millimeters of range actually makes a pretty big difference in wildlife photography where you're frequently zoomed in all of the way while the autofocus was great with really fast moving subjects coming straight at the camera it sometimes couldn't keep up especially compared to the sony 200 to 600 which is a little bit higher up on the list with backlit subjects i also had serious problems with chromatic aberration so if you're shooting a lot of flying birds keep that in mind so if you are a sony shooter and you want something light that you can hike with and travel with this is absolutely the lens to get but if you're looking for the sharpest possible results just hold on one second fourth place is actually number one for all you canon dslr shooters this is an amazing lens the sigma 150 to 600 f5 to 6.3 this is the sigma contemporary lens earlier we talked about the sport lens and that's big and heavy and though they're similar optically we got better results from this copy of it at only 900 small size lightweight it is a powerful wildlife lens especially for you beginners out there but that doesn't need to hold you back we get incredibly sharp results consistently it is simply an all-around great performer so head over to keh now and hope that you can get one before they all sell out it handles well with a lock that can stop the lens at 600 millimeters so you don't accidentally zoom back while the focusing is a little slow for flying birds if you're shooting small animals up close the magnification at close range is great coming in at number three is the canon 800 millimeter f11 it's 900. there are so many things to love about this lens it's extremely light it's 800 millimeters and it's very very sharp in fact it's almost as sharp as the nikon 600 millimeter f4 that's a 13 000 lens the auto focusing is fast and the image stabilization is also great but it does come with some drawbacks it's 800 millimeters so it's the least versatile lens in the lineup if you need to zoom back it's really difficult to do also the minimum focusing distance is about 20 feet so if anything gets close to you you won't be able to focus on it it's an f11 lens so it doesn't let in a lot of light if you're not shooting in full sunlight you're bound to get a lot of noise if you're using a fast shutter speed another thing is that you can only use it with the canon r bodies and we would recommend putting this lens only on the r5 or the r6 and that means you have to invest a lot of money in the body for an affordable lens still i think this is an amazing setup it's my go-to for wildlife and i like it a lot coming in at number two is the sony 200 to 600 f56263 this lens is two thousand dollars so it's the most expensive ones that we're showing today and it works great on the sony a1 but that's also a six thousand five hundred dollar camera so keep that in mind the auto focusing works really quickly and accurately also it's a very sharp lens another feature that i appreciate is it has an internal zoom which i like when i'm trying to track my subject while zooming it's not moving it's not changing the balance of the lens and it's not really changing how i handle the camera that makes the process smoother when tracking wildlife some downsides it's actually pretty heavy it's one of the bulkier lenses as you can see and i can tell you from holding it it's one of the heavier lenses as well there's another bigger issue that we notice with this lens and that's when you have a subject that's up close and you get close to that subject suddenly your 600 millimeters turns into about 350 and that's because of focus breathing so imagine the scenario you see a small animal you work to get closer to it you want a 600 millimeter shot very close well that's not going to happen it's actually going to be 350 millimeters there is a way around that you can use extension tubes and that'll take away the focus breathing but then think about that scenario you have an extra piece of gear that you have to bring that you have to stick on your lens if you think that would be an issue for you you might want to rule out this lens watching this video back i realize focus breathing requires a little more explanation especially because it's an important trait of the 200 to 600 so let me introduce you to my little friend now i'm setting the sony 200 to 600 all the way to 600 millimeters and i'm going to switch the focusing to manual focus i'm moving the focusing ring until it's focused as close as possible and now i'm going to walk towards my subject until i am as close as i can possibly get that's how big the subject is now how do i know that this is not a true 600 millimeters well i'm going to put on extension tubes i'm being careful not to move from my spot i'm standing in exactly the same spot these extension tubes are hollow they simply move the lens away from the camera by the way it's extremely hot today is that how where you are that's why i'm sweating so much and again lens is still at 600 millimeters and i'm simply going to refocus on my subject look how much bigger it is in the frame even though i did not move closer nor did i zoom in they're both at the exact same settings this happens because as you move close to a subject the optics of the lens have to move away from the body inexpensive extension tubes they can be third party as long as they support auto focus work great and can almost double your focal length on big telephoto zooms like this oh how do i determine what the realistic focal length is i look at the framing of the subject without the extension tubes and then i zoom back and in this case i need to be at about 325 millimeters to get the subject the same size in the frame the focus breathing might not be an issue for you and this is still the best option for sony shooters with a budget of under 10 000 so still a great lens and the winner the single best wildlife lens out of this huge competition is the amazing nikon 200 to 500 f56 at only about 1200 and it's not the sharpest lens in this list but it did great it's not the smallest or most compact lens but it's good it's simply the best all-around lens with amazing performance now you can only attach it to a nikon dslr but it's so good that when people come to me and they ask what wildlife camera they should get i'll send them to a nikon d7200 or nikon d500 just so they can use this amazing lens the autofocus is fantastic for things like flying birds it does not fall behind like those third-party lenses do and it's simply an amazing value that produces better results than you might think for the 1200 dollar price tag the sony 200 600 is very close but this one has better close focusing for those times when you want to get really close to small birds congratulations nikon for winning the wildlife title once again chelsea you're a canon r5 shooter so which lens are you picking i choose the canon 800 millimeter f-11 it's light and that makes it easy to wield easy to catch a lot of action it's really sharp sure it has those drawbacks of not being great in low light but overall it's my favorite lens to use and with my sony alpha one i'm going to be shooting with the sony 200 to 600 at least until i can get a 600 millimeter f4 because i love the versatility it's not as light as that but it's still fairly lightweight and it's really sharp once again thanks to our sponsor keh sell all the gear you're not using there they'll turn it into cash and find a new home for it and any new gear you're looking for check there first they have an amazing selection of newish and even older discontinued gear that you can still get amazing shots with thank you so much keh for making this possible if you have follow-up questions write it down below and of course subscribe for more free reviews we're going to be doing a follow-up review of camera bodies to tell you what you should put on your favorite lens yes now if you don't yet have a camera good for wildlife photography i'm going to recommend some bodies to pair with these lenses but first i'm going to take a few minutes and talk about the testing that we did the methodology and our own credentials for doing this test i've been doing wildlife photography for 25 years in that time i've taken hundreds of thousands of photos i've photographed and catalogued photos of more than a thousand different species including more than 100 different species of songbirds both chelsea and i are fanatical about this we've also worked closely with every single major camera and lens manufacturer so we can understand how to get the best results out of their equipment on the flip side we have never taken money or free gear from any camera or lens manufacturer and we're one of the few outlets of this size that can say that and we do that because our only priority is you the consumer if you appreciate that about us please subscribe please check out our educational content at northrop.photo also please use our links and coupons at our sponsors like keh because it's their funding that makes these epic tests possible we tested each of these lenses over the course of two weeks though we have years of experience with some of the lenses chelsea and i both took turns at every lens shooting in different scenarios including close-up photos of birds near our bird feeder birds in the field where we had to hike some distances and flying birds in a variety of different conditions from sunny to over cast to after dark we made a spreadsheet and ranked each lens in 10 different categories that's over 200 rankings for two people and 10 lenses we then boiled it down to what we thought were the key elements of each lens and presented that to you in this video we recognize that other reviewers are going to come to different conclusions i speak at length about this in a separate video called technical camera reviews are hard so before you complain please check that out in almost 10 years of youtube this video has been the hardest video to produce we took and poured through over 10 000 photos with these lenses but you know what we loved every minute of it because we love wildlife photography and we really love helping people get the most bang for their buck now if you don't yet have a body suitable for wildlife photography i'm going to recommend camera and lens pairings at different price points that we believe will get you the most bang for your buck i checked the prices at keh kh gives you 180 day warranty and a 21 day return period so if you're not happy with it there's no risk at all and i'm gonna cheat by looking at my phone at thirteen hundred dollars the canon 70d and the sigma 150 to 600 contemporary will produce amazing professional quality results if you have a little more money at sixteen hundred dollars upgrade that body to the canon 7d mark ii and continue to use the sigma 150 to 600 if you have a few more bucks at 2 000 for the combination get the canon 90d used if you can find it and again pair that with the sigma 150 to 600 contemporary that 90d has 30 megapixels in an aps-c sensor so it has a really high pixel density and it means you won't have to crop as much or extracting as much detail as possible out of that now if you have a few more bucks we're going to switch you to the nikon system at 2400 and over i would get the nikon d7500 and pair that with the winner of this competition the nikon 200 to 500 if you can go for 2 900 get that nikon 200 to 500 but pair it with the nikon d500 an older dslr body that still produces amazing amazing results if you have more budget now i'm switching you to the canon eos rf system the canon eos r5 with the canon 800 f11 is chelsea's camera combination of choice and she can literally choose anything at any budget because we do this professionally it is a proven system for lightweight photography flying birds things where you might be holding the camera up and it's almost as sharp as a 13 000 lens the auto focus on that combination is fantastic if you have more money it's kind of a slight edge here but i prefer the sony alpha one a 6500 body with the sony 200 to 600 zoom now that body alone is 6 500 so you're looking at 8 400 price point but i think the combination is versatile and pretty amazing and it's what i prefer myself please subscribe give us a like and maybe say something nice in the comments of course if you have a question write it down in the comments below too thank you

Channel: Tony & Chelsea Northrup

Views: 487,480

Keywords: Nikon 200-500 review, sony 200-600 review, canon 800mm review, sigma 150-600 review, sigma 150-600 contemporary, sigma 150-600 sport, Tamron 150-600, Tamron 150-600 g2, tamron 150-500, canon 600mm f11, sigma 150-600 contemporary vs sport, tamron 150-500 vs sony 200-600, tamron 150-500 vs 150-600, wildlife camera review, wildlife lens review, wildlife photography equipment, wildlife review, camera review, telephoto lens review

Id: h-aYXUoRDkM

Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 30 2021