I have some real world test shots privately hosted on Flickr showing a comparison b/w the 600PF and 180-600 at 3 different distances (9, 18, 34 yards), if that's any interest.
In summary: from my back-to-back shooting sessions (non-controlled) with both lenses, I've generally not been able to tell the differences, especially after post, and it wasn't until I did these careful test shots (from a tripod, timer release, manually focused, blah blah blah) that I could in fact see some differences. Basically, the closer you are to the subject, the closer in performance these two lenses are, but as you get farther away one of them starts to more visibly fall apart. It's not until you get out of realistic usable range (35+ yards, in this case, somewhere I'd never find myself shooting) that yeah, the 186 isn't holding up, but the shots are going to be crap anyway regardless of what gear you're using, so it's not an useful metric to wave around.
Again, in real life shooting, I firmly believe the differences will not be visible in any end result image, and any small differences are more than made up for in post. Plus, no one realistically positions a subject at the extreme edge of a frame, no one is going to shoot at 35+ yards and attempt to blow up the image. That means you botched the shot.
Apr 07, 2024 at 12:43 PM
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