Обзор Sigma AF 400mm f56 APO TELE MC

Bokeh

Despite the slower speed of the lens, bokeh in general is very smooth at all focal lengths. Bokeh balls usually show barely any outlining or onion rings.

In the comparison below I did not change my position

Only with objects in the foreground like grass one can observe double edged structures in the bokeh which can be distracting like in the two examples below.

Sony a7RIII | 400mm f/5.6Sony a7RIII | 200mm f/5.6

This happened only in a few occasions. To get a better idea of the bokeh in general use, see the photo’s below.

Build quality and handling

The Sony GM 100-400 is made of metal and high quality plastics. The lens feels solid without play on the rings, the buttons and switches feel solid. There is a small rubber gasket around the mount but it is too thin to actually close the gap between the lens and the camera mount. The focus ring feels nice enough. There is no physical coupling, the focus ring only serves as an encoder. Focusing at infinity near the long end of the lens can be somewhat tricky though, and is not as easy as with a true manual focus lens.The lens focuses internally but it extends a lot when zooming.

There are quite a few buttons and switches on the lens.

AF/MF switch
focus limiter switch that limits the focus focus range between 3m and infinity
on/off switch for OSS
switch to set OSS mode
There are three custom buttons that can be used as focus lock buttons etc..

The lens features a ring to tighten the zoom ring to prevent zoom creep. On my sample setting this ring to “tight” was sufficient to fully prevent zoom creep no matter how you hold the lens. However there are quite some claims that this setting isn’t tight enough to prevent zoom ring so I guess it varies a bit from sample to sample.

There is a tiny bit of radial play between the lens mount and camera mount. I found it in combination with the a7RIII as well as with the a7II. During use, it didn’t bother me and I only noticed it while testing for it.
The lens features a removable tripod collar that can be rotated which feels very sturdy. Unfortunately it doesn’t feature an Arca Swiss compatible foot so one still needs to attach a plate.
A large plastic bayonet hood is included in the box. The hood is covered with felt at the inside and sits tight. The hood also features a slider so you can make an opening to turn circular polarizers.

All in all handling was fine on my a7Riii with L-bracket. The three custom buttons were a big plus for me. Still, the lens is heavy and walking around with it for a few hours is a bit exhausting.

When using the Sony GM 100-400 on a second generation or higher Sony a7 body or a9, one profits from 5-axis stabilization.
In general stabilization works fine, at shorter distances (up to at least 10m) at 400mm I was able to get a decent amount of sharp images at 1/80 sec. At longer distances and near infinity a tripod is recommended though when there isn’t much light.

Sharpness

Sharpness infinity

Center sharpness is very good from wide open at every focal length, the midframe always looks great as well. The corners are best at 200 and 300mm and a bit worse at 100mm and 400mm on this sample. Are the corners bad? No, but they simply look not quite as well as the midframe.
At 200 and 300mm sharpness in the extreme corners is almost as good as midframe sharpness, only contrast is a bit lower.
All in all, across the frame resolution the plenty good enough for landscape photography. Also remember that especially in summer you won’t be able to use the lens near 400mm due to heat haze which degrades sharpness a lot.

Field curvature

At 400 mm refocusing can make a significant difference as can be seen below. Both pictures were taken at f/11, I refocused without sacrificing center sharpness (focus on tower) to gain better corner sharpness.

400mm f/11 800*800 pix crop

Sharpness near MFD

The MFD of 0.98 meters at 400mm is a great feature of the GM 100-400. Near MFD sharpness is very good as well. The center looks great at all focal lengths from wide open. The midframe looks good from the start already and improves a bit on stopping down.
Corners look good to very good at 100 and 400mm but suffer a bit at 200 and 300mm.

Sony a7RIII | 400mm f/5.6Sony a7RIII | 400mm f/5.6

Sharpness at 4m

At 100 and 400mm, center and midframe are excellent from the start with very good to excellent corners, especially the performance at 100mm is remarkable.

at 200 and 300mm center and midframe are great as well, only the corners fall behind and never get great.

Alternatives

Canon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS II USMThe Canon is quite a bit cheaper but you will need an adapter to use this lens on a Sony camera which probably has a negative impact on AF speed. Furthermore the Canon 100-400 is +/- 170g heavier without an adapter, with the Sigma MC II the difference is almost 300g. The Sony is should be sharper, especially at the long end, but I did not test them side by side.

CONTAX ZEISS VARIO-SONNAR T* 4.5-5.6/100-300The Zeiss is much cheaper, and significantly lighter. The Zeiss is also shorter and offers no AF. The Sony has smoother bokeh and is better corrected for CA, sharpness is very good on the Zeiss though.

Sigma/Tamron 100-400Both are lighter and cheaper, bokeh is less smooth and the Sony is sharper. However, if you don’t have an infinite budget they might be a good choice.

Sony FE 70-300 f/4.5-5.6G OSSThe 70-300 is quite a bit cheaper and lighter than the 100-400 (+/- 600g). A good sample of this lens is very sharp but it has a bad reputation for high sample variation.

Sony FE 200-600 f/5.6-6.3G OSSIn case birds and wildlife are your main focus this one might be the smarter choice since it offer significant more reach. However, the 200-600 f/5.6-6.3 also is much larger and heavier than the 100-400 (near 700g).

Sony a7RIII | 400mm f/5.6

Conclusion

Good	Average	Not good
Sharpness MFD Build quality AF Bokeh	Manual focus Weather sealing AF near MFD Distortion Size and weight	Flare resistance Price

The Sony GM 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 is a very solid performer, as it should be with its price tag. Sharpness is great for a zoom, bokeh is very smooth, CA correction is good and AF is fast and precise.
Besides the optical qualities, build quality and handling are very good as well.

Despite 400mm being a bit on the short side, the lens delivered satisfactory results when I used it for photographing birds from wide open. Sharpness is great combined with great bokeh even at longer distances.
Due to the good bokeh, the Sony GM 100-400 can be used for portraiture as well despite its limited speed. However a faster lens like the 70-200/2.8 will deliver some more blur and is more suitable for this purpose.

The minimal focus distance of only 0.98 m at all focal lengths makes it a semi macro lens which makes it two lenses in one. For me personally this was one of the main reasons to buy this lens. Especially the great resolution near mfd is a huge plus. It makes it a very useful tool to take pictures of frogs and insects with coming too close.

Due to the very good sharpness across the frame near infinity the 100-400 GM is a fine landscape lens as well. You won’t be using the long end near infinity a lot though, heat haze often spoils the game.

The Sony 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS can be found new for approximately €2500,- or used a little under €2000,-Ebay.de* | Ebay.com*

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Specifictions

This lens is the first and so far only 100-400 telezoom from Sony for E mount.

Diameter: 93.9mm
Length: 205mm- 285mm
Weight: 1395g (without tripod mount) or 1476g (with tripod mount) Lens hood: 108g
Filter diameter: 77mm
Elements/groups: 22/16 (2x ED, 1x Super ED)
Field of view: 24ﾟ-6ﾟ10′
Number of aperture blades: 9 (rounded)
Aperture: f/4.5-5.6
Close focusing distance: 0.98m
Maximum magnification ratio: 0.35x
Mount: Sony FE