LensTip.com

Lens review

Sigma 150-500 mm f/5.0-6.3 APO DG OS HSM

16 July 2009
Arkadiusz Olech

10. Autofocus



Please Support Us

If you enjoy our reviews and articles, and you want us to continue our work please, support our website by donating through PayPal. The funds are going to be used for paying our editorial team, renting servers, and equipping our testing studio; only that way we will be able to continue providing you interesting content for free.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - advertisement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Sigma 150-500 mm was equipped with the HSM motor (Hyper Sonic Motor), which was supposed to ensure a speedy and silent focusing mechanism. It is silent indeed, but when the speed is concerned, we’ve seen quicker motors of this type – for instance one that is installed in the Sigma 70-200 mm f/2.8. Running through the scale, from 2.2 meters to infinity, takes the Sigma 150 –500 mm about 1 second and this result remains pretty much the same, no matter in what direction we move. We can additionally express a regret, that Sigma didn’t decide to use any type of autofocus control mechanism which would make it work faster.

The autofocus accuracy is difficult to fault. In studio , the lens missed in 8% of all attempts and we haven’t noticed any frontfocus or backfocus tendencies.


Sigma 150-500 mm f/5.0-6.3 APO DG OS HSM - Autofocus