nick0954 wrote:
Dustin Abbott just released his 600 F6.3 GM review. I thought this was an interesting comparison that I was able to make by downloading some of his test chart images.
Looks to me that the 400 F4.5 + 1.4x TC is at worst indistinguishable, and most likely slightly sharper with better contrast, from the 600 F6.3 bare lens. The bare 400 F4.5 looks sharper than the bare 600 F6.3. This makes sense given the optical similarity of the lenses.
Where this falls apart is that the 400 + 2x TC is massively worse than the 600 + 1.4x TC, which was slightly surprising to me. Both lenses frankly look bad with the 2x TC. So the question is really do you want a 400/560 or a 600/840?
Personally, I'm still torn between 100-400 F4.5 + 600 F6.3 or just rolling with a 400 F4.5 + 1.4 TC for my telephoto needs for now. But this makes a compelling case to start with the 400 F4.5 and keep my 70-200 GM II and see how far those 2 lenses + TCs as needed gets me.
These samples don't look right as far as the 600GM is concerned. If that is really as good as that lens gets, I will not buy it, the difference with the 600GM will simply be too big.
Wide open, the new 600/6.3GM should produce tack sharp results, with TC on it is credible that the samples will have a fuzziness that resembles looking through overdue glasses, or that they look like they suffer from slight motion blur, but I would not expect, neither accept that from a bare GM lens wide open, even when it has f6.3 as a maximum aperture.
Question is why the samples from the bare 600/6.3 lack true detail and sharpness. Dustin Abbott admits he is totally unaccustomed to shooting at 600mm, and perhaps the circumstances were not quite right, but really, the bare 600/6.3 GM should at the véry least beat the 400/4.5GM with 1.4TC.
And I believe a good copy will do that easily, otherwise the 600/6.3GM has no raison d'être, Sony could have just made the 400/4.5GM and left it at that, with a little promotion of its TC's. For those that would argue that you cannot get to 1200mm that way, I would say that I don't want to know how Dustin's copy looks with the 2xTC.
nick0954 wrote:
Dustin Abbott just released his 600 F6.3 GM review. I thought this was an interesting comparison that I was able to make by downloading some of his test chart images.
Looks to me that the 400 F4.5 + 1.4x TC is at worst indistinguishable, and most likely slightly sharper with better contrast, from the 600 F6.3 bare lens. The bare 400 F4.5 looks sharper than the bare 600 F6.3. This makes sense given the optical similarity of the lenses.
Where this falls apart is that the 400 + 2x TC is massively worse than the 600 + 1.4x TC, which was slightly surprising to me. Both lenses frankly look bad with the 2x TC. So the question is really do you want a 400/560 or a 600/840?
Personally, I'm still torn between 100-400 F4.5 + 600 F6.3 or just rolling with a 400 F4.5 + 1.4 TC for my telephoto needs for now. But this makes a compelling case to start with the 400 F4.5 and keep my 70-200 GM II and see how far those 2 lenses + TCs as needed gets me.
These samples don't look right as far as the 600GM is concerned. If that is really as good as that lens gets, I will not buy it, the difference with the 600GM will simply be too big.
Wide open, the new 600/6.3GM should produce tack sharp results, with TC on it is credible that the samples will have a fuzziness that resembles looking through overdue glasses, or that they look like they suffer from slight motion blur, but I would not expect, neither accept that from a bare GM lens wide open, even when it has f6.3 as a maximum aperture.
Question is why the samples from the bare 600/6.3 lack true detail and sharpness. Dustin Abbott admits he is totally unaccustomed to shooting at 600mm, and perhaps the circumstances were not quite right, but really, the bare 600/6.3 GM should at the véry least beat the 400/4.5GM with 1.4TC.
And I believe a good copy will do that easily, otherwise the 600/6.3GM has no raison d'être, Sony could have just made the 400/4.5GM and left it at that. For those that would argue that you cannot get to 1200mm that way, I would say that I don't want to know how Dustin's copy looks with the 2xTC.
Sep 18, 2026 at 01:52 PM
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