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The following chart presents a comparison between the parameters of the Sony FE 400-800 mm f/6.3-8 G OSS and these of the Sony 200-600 mm and the Canon 200-800 mm mentioned in the introduction.

The new Sony lens is heavier and bigger than the Canon – an understandable feature, taking into account the superior aperture fastness. You should remember, that the data from this chart provide the length of the Canon in a folded position, at 200 mm, and this lens increases its dimensions with the increase of the focal length.

It's worth mentioning the fact that the Sony 400-800 mm is not especially bigger and/or heavier than the Sony 200-600 mm. The difference in length amounts here 28 mm and 360 grams when it comes to weight. The new model, apart from the bigger entrance pupil, also features a more advanced autofocus module, based on linear XD motors. What's interesting, despite such a huge entrance pupil, at the 600 mm focal length the aperture fastness of the Sony 400-800 mm amounts to already f/8.0 and it is slower than the Sony 200-600 mm which relative aperture reaches f/6.3 at that point.

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In the photo below the Sony FE 400-800 mm f/6.3-8 G OSS is positioned between the Sony FE 200-600 mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS and the Sony FE 50 mm f/1.4 GM.

The tested lens starts with a metal mount that surrounds the contacts and a black, well matted and ribbed inner tube. In the middle of this tube, about 2 cm deep inside, there is a black 26x19 mm frame. Right below this frame there is a rear element of this lens that doesn't move and is about 27 mm in diameter. From this side everything seems to look very well and the lens is completely closed.

The proper body of the lens starts with a white, metal ring with the mount type mark (E-mount), a white dot, making an alignment with a camera easier, the serial number along with the model number of te lens, and information that the lens was produced in China.

Then this ring gets wider noticeably and on its already widened part you find the name and parameters of the lens and a whole array of different switches on the left. The first of them, AF/MF, controls the focusing mechanism working mode, the second one allows you to choose the autofocus range.The producers offer you three options: FULL, from NEAR to 10 meters, and from 8 meters to infinity. The third switch, OSS ON/OFF, controls optical image stabilization, and the fourth one (MODE 1,2,3) allows you to choose an appropriate stabilization working mode.

A big, rotating part of the barrel with neck strap hooks and a tripod shoe is next. A tripod adapter is added to the box and seems to be very solid. Contrary to the 200-600 mm model here you must really stretch and bend in order to remove it as it is kept by four screws.

Then you find a manual focus ring, quite a big construction, 33 mm wide, and almost completely covered by black, rubber ribs, very nice to the touch. The ring is a focus-by-wire construction. It moves quite smoothly with a slight but still acceptable resistance. Running through the whole distance range needs a turn through an angle of about 260 degrees and it depends very weakly on the speed of your turning. Still, this value allows you quite precise settings.

Further on you see an immobile ring with the logotype of the producer and three round, programmable focus lock buttons. Then comes a huge zoom ring, as wide as 63 mm, most of its surface covered by comfortable rubber ribbing. Below there are focal lengths markings at 400, 450, 500, 600, 700, and 800 mm.

The ring is even but its resistance we found a bit too slight. During our test we didn't notice any unwanted slacks and moving the lens doesn't change the focal length uncontrollably but I'm afraid that the situation from our test of the 200-600 mm might repeat itself in time and such problems are just a matter of 'when' not 'if'.

A white, immobile ring with two capital Gs as markings of the series is the next big part. It turns into a black and immobile part of the lens that ends with a hood mount. Here you also find the filter diameter (105 mm), and information that the minimum focusing distance ranges from 1.7m/5.58ft to 3.5m/11.5ft.

The front element doesn't move, is 97 mm in diameter and is surrounded by a non-rotating filter thread, 105 mm in diameter. The construction of the lens is completely closed – both zooming and focusing are performed inside.

When it comes to optical construction, you deal here with 27 elements positioned in 19 groups. Inside you can find as many as six low dispersion ED glass elements. Additionally, you get a round aperture with as many as eleven blades that can be closed down to a value from f/36 to f/45 depending on the focal length you apply.

Buyers get in the box with the lens: both caps, a huge hood, a removable tripod adapter, and a strap. Unfortunately there is no case, a big and rather negative surprise when you take into account the fact that the significantly cheaper Sony 200-600 mm has such a case in its accessory kit.

Optical stabilization

In order to check the efficiency of optical stabilization offered by the tested lenses we took several dozen photos at the 800 mm focal length with exposure times ranging from 1/1000 to 1/10 of a second and the stabilization switched on and off. For every set of photos we determined a percentage of out-of-focus shots; then we presented it in a form of a graph of exposure time which was expressed in EV (with 0 EV being an equivalent of 1/800 of a second).

The maximum distance between both curves indeed reaches 4.6 EV and such is, in our view, the real efficiency of the stabilization mechanism of the tested Sony 400-800 mm. It is an excellent result that allows you to use the lens even in weak lighting conditions, even a tad better than in the case of the Sony 200-600 mm.