Introduction
First test series is with the D2x. My normally used Crop-Camera. Unfortunately Nikon does not build semi-professional crop-cameras anymore. A modern 16Mpix crop-camera with either D2x or at least D300s body would be something I’d definitely would buy. The D7100 which I had for some months was good but the sensor did have too many pixels. I didn’t get it to work properly with my tele-lenses. Maybe it’s the 20 centimeters behind the camera causing this but it had to go…
The full pictures
The Nikkor had the TC17II attached and was set to 350mm resulting in 600mm@35mm equivalent. The camera was set to 100 ISO (while the D800 and D3 were running ISO 200). All pictures taken with open aperture which is f6.3 for the Sigma and Tamron while the Nikkor resulted in f6.7 because of the TC-17II.
Using the Sigma compared to the Nikkor, the first thing I noticed is that the Nikkor although reporting 600mm in Lightroom has slightly less angle and therefore you’ll get a little bit closer to the subject.
The Tamron has similar angle as the Sigma has. Therefore showing again a little bit more than the Nikkor.
The details
I didn’t change the distance of the shooting subject but kept the focus point closely during all shoots. Therefore, the added gimmicks (plastic puppet and dream-catcher) cannot be used for detail comparison as they didn’t make it to the picture. Order is always Nikkor, Sigma, Tamron.
Comparing the horizontal lines of the testchart.
Next compare is the vertical lines of the testchart.
Last one is showing the small circle with round lines and the numbers.
Conclusion
I did several comparisons using the iMac Retina and the MacBook Air in Lightroom. Looking at 1:1 crops but also 2:1 crops, so at 200%. My ranking is:
- Sigma
- Nikkor with TC17II
- Tamron
Testpictures
Download of Lightroom DNGs for Nikkor, Sigma and Tamron. Rightclick on the link and choose “Save as…” to store to disk.
Thank you for your test. You mention in your review that your D7100 had too many Pixels. Can you explain in what way that disturbed you? Because i own one and find the IQ very “noisy”
I wasn’t used to the 24 MPix of the D7100 because of the Pixel-Pitch compared to a FX camera. A D800 (36 MPix) has the same pixel-pitch as a D7000 (16 MPix). I also do own a D7200 these days. The quality is noisier than pictures of a D800/D4 at 100% but depending on the viewing distance and the output size the noise gets down as well.
Hey,
nice review
I have the Sigma 150-600 C but on my Nikon D3200 I noticed that it can´t focus small objects (birds) very well, so I want to buy a used camera (up to €800). Do you have any recommendation for a good body?
If you want to stick with similar camera size and usage I would go for a D7200. Autofocus is very good with that body and results are great. I do not know the C-Version but from reading it is very close to the S-Version in respect of picture quality.