Designed for Sony's full-frame mirrorless cameras, this monster telephoto closes the gap on Canon and Nikon
In the DSLR vs mirrorless war, Nikon and Canon have always had their long-range pro telephotos to fall back on as their key advantage in the pro sports, action and wildlife markets. Not any more. The announcement of the Sony FE 600mm F4 GM OSS drives the Sony A7 and A9 mirrorless models right into the pro DSLR heartland.
The FE 600mm F4 GM OSS, first rumored just four days ago, joins the existing Sony FE 400mm F2.8 GM OSS lens to offer pro sports photographers a genuine mirrorless alternative to Canon and Nikon's dominance.
Sony FE 600mm F4 GM OSS specifications
The FE 600mm F4 GM OSS super-telephoto prime lens (model SEL600F40GM) is a real beast, weighing in at just over 3kg. Nevertheless, Sony claims it's the lightest lens in its class and has 'balanced' handling.
Fast-moving subjects demand high-speed autofocus systems, and FE 600mm F4 GM OSS lens comes with two XD (extreme dynamic) Linear Motors with specially developed motion algorithms to minimise lag and instability – and also to reduce operational noise. The Sony A9's party trick is its silent shooting mode, so it needs lenses with low operational noise too.
The new lens is part of Sony's premium G Master series, and uses a large XA (extreme aspherical) element to produce "incredible" levels of detail, contrast and resolution right to the edges of the frame. It also has three high-end fluorite elements and an ED (extra-low dispersion) element to suppress chromatic aberration and color bleeding and spherical aberration.
All of this pushes the cost way up, of course, and the Sony FE 600mm F4 GM OSS will go on sale at around £12,000 / $13,000 when it arrives in August 2019.
The new lens will also be compatible with Sony’s 1.4x and 2.0x E-mount teleconverters for increasing its already impressive focal range still further.
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Rod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com
