Sony announces 200-600mm and 600mm lenses

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Sony has announced two new super-telephoto lenses today: the Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 GM OSS and the Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS.

Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS

This is an interesting lens for professional sports and wildlife photographers. Until now, the 400mm was the lens with the longest focal length, and these lenses will be very popular for events such as the Olympic Games.

Sony now joins Canon and Nikon as a serious alternative option for photographers who work with this type of lens.

Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 GM OSS

This lens also has 11 aperture blades for a lovely soft bokeh. This is interesting, because many alternatives from other brands use 9 blades, making the background blur, when the aperture is stopped down a little, less round than with this lens.

What stands out about this lens is that the zooming happens completely internally. The lens therefore does not become longer or shorter while zooming.

You can focus from as close as 2.4 metres, and the lens can also be used with Sony's 1.4x or 2.0x teleconverter. Autofocus remains available when using them.

In practice

Sports photographers are, of course, an important target audience for the two super-telephoto lenses. I expect the fast 600mm in particular to be popular with this group.

In the past, the need for a DSLR was clear for sports photographers, but these days that is no longer so obvious. Pair a Sony Alpha A9 with this new 600mm f/4 and you have a combination that every sports photographer would enjoy.

The 600mm is a huge beast, but you can certainly photograph with it handheld, at least for a while. The lens is well balanced. If you hold it for a little longer, a tripod is still quite useful.

The 200-600mm is a little less light-sensitive, especially at 600mm. It is many times cheaper, however, and will therefore probably be much more accessible to most photographers.

Depending on your subject, a super-telephoto zoom lens like this can also be more convenient than a lens with a fixed focal length. You can quickly determine your framing by zooming in or out a little more.

That goes very smoothly with the zoom ring, because you only need to turn it a little to cover the complete range.

Focusing with both lenses is extremely fast and also works in combination with, for example, Eye autofocus, even on animals' eyes. I am not a sports photographer, but I feel that Sony is no longer behind the established brands in this area.

Price and availability

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