# Nikon D500 & 3rd Party lens Issues



## quinte (May 10, 2016)

Anyone had any issues with your D500 and 3rd party lens, especially the Sigma 150-600 Sport and Tamron's 70-200?  I'm about to pull the trigger and preorder the D500.  I have seen a couple of posts on other sites about possible issues.  I just messaged Sigma to see what they would say about the Sport.  Thanks for any input.


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## KmH (May 10, 2016)

Issues mating 3rd party lenses to camera bodies newly released is fairly common.

Sigma is a notable regarding Sigma owners in the past having to send lenses back to Sigma so Sigma can re-chip the lens so it will work with a newer camera.
Nikon does not give 3rd party lens makers proprietary Nikon camera information and the 3rd party lens makers have to 'reverse engineer' to figure out how to make their lens work with the new camera.


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## Solarflare (May 11, 2016)

Well ... if you havent yet bought that lens, my choice would definitely be the Nikon AF-S 200-500mm f5.6 for that task. It will have a bit less focal range than the Tamron/Sigma 150-60mm f5-6.3 lenses, but apparently its both optically and from its autofocussing speed superior. In fact since the other two lenses are so bad at 600mm, I've seen discussions if going to only 500mm on them and cropping wouldnt actually be superior in actual final resolution. So it seems all you're really given up with that lens is actually 150-200mm, and thats not what I personally would need much with such a lens, anyway.

And for the record, of course its still possible that Nikon breaks certain camera and lens combinations themselves as well. IIRC that (still relatively) new AF-S 300mm f4 PF VR had some issues like that ?


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## quinte (May 11, 2016)

I already have both the Nikon 200-500 & the Sigma 150-600 Sport.  I contacted Sigma, and they responded today saying the 150-600 should function properly with the D500.


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## Derrel (May 11, 2016)

KmH said:


> Issues mating 3rd party lenses to camera bodies newly released is fairly common.
> 
> Sigma is a notable regarding Sigma owners in the past having to send lenses back to Sigma so Sigma can re-chip the lens so it will work with a newer camera.
> Nikon does not give 3rd party lens makers proprietary Nikon camera information and the 3rd party lens makers have to 'reverse engineer' to figure out how to make their lens work with the new camera.



Yup...Sigma has an entire generation ofd lenses that are now being sold on the used market at low,low prices as "film-camera-ONLY". THese are the slippery-barreled, gray plastic generation lenses. I saw a nice 400mm f/5.6 gray plastic Sigma the other day at my favorite camera-centric pawn shop. The price was right, $139, GREAT condition, Canon EF mount. I asked to demo it on a Canon d-slr and told the sales associate that, "If it works on digital, I might just buy this." He gave a knowing look of smug derision...then put it on a Canon 50D and snapped an image....NO image...he verified that there was a memory card...tried again..NO image...tried again...Errrr message... When he told another associate (I assume the one who took the lens in, unaware that it was useless to most people...) that the SIgma 400/5.6 they recently put up for sale was film-only, the other guy groaned loudly and looked skyward. That $139 lens suddenly was worth maybe $60 at pawn-shop price level.

I have a Sigma 70-210mm f/4~5.,6 that I bought with a Canon Rebel XT, a 1990's 35mm film SLR....the 70-210 Sigma works great on the film camera...but locks up my Canon 20D and Canon 5D about every other shot. My Sigma 100-300 f/4 APO-HSM is erratic on anything new.My Sigma 180/3.5 APO-HSM Macro was erratic on AF performance 2004- and later Nikon cameras--it would just go on focus hunts right as the shutter button was being pressed. Well, hunt is not the right word--it would ZIP right to Infinity focus. Maddening.

The issue with a Sigma lens working with a **current** NIkon model ought to be no big thing. The worry really most likely would be how well the Siggy might function with a NIkon from say, 10 years in the future--or whenever the Nikon folks make a major change to either camera body controls, or to AF focus protocols. As I recall, the Nikon D200's on-body AF-on button "broke" hundreds of thousands of Sigma lenses--that was a new Nikon issue that Sigma's older-generation lenses could not handle, and so users had to have lenses re-chipped. The film-generation-ONLY lenses cannot be re-chipped, but they had a 10- to 15-year life span where they were usable. I kind of wonder if this is not something Nikon does deliberately, about every decade or so?


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## coastalconn (May 11, 2016)

Solarflare said:


> In fact since the other two lenses are so bad at 600mm...


Not sure where you have been seeing that. The sigma sport the OP mentions has better center sharpness than the Nikon...Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6E VR Review - Page 3 of 6

Also when I shot with the Tamron 150-600 it was very good stopped down a little. I have many images on flickr at 600mm to prove it.. Perhaps people don't know they should stop down a budget 600mm lens?


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## PaulWog (May 11, 2016)

Solarflare said:


> Well ... if you havent yet bought that lens, my choice would definitely be the Nikon AF-S 200-500mm f5.6 for that task. It will have a bit less focal range than the Tamron/Sigma 150-60mm f5-6.3 lenses, but apparently its both optically and from its autofocussing speed superior. In fact since the other two lenses are so bad at 600mm, I've seen discussions if going to only 500mm on them and cropping wouldnt actually be superior in actual final resolution. So it seems all you're really given up with that lens is actually 150-200mm, and thats not what I personally would need much with such a lens, anyway.
> 
> And for the record, of course its still possible that Nikon breaks certain camera and lens combinations themselves as well. IIRC that (still relatively) new AF-S 300mm f4 PF VR had some issues like that ?



At 500mm vs. 600mm, I see little to no difference at the center. 

Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6E AF-S VR Lens Image Quality

At 500mm vs. 500mm, it seems like the Sigma C is better than the Nikon.

Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6E AF-S VR Lens Image Quality

To the OP: For Sigma lenses, I would be surprised if any compatibility issues weren't fixed quite quickly through the Sigma dock, if there were any.


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## Derrel (May 11, 2016)

Nikon 200-500 VS Sigma 150-600 Sport: Real World Review

Approximately four-pound $1,400 Nikon zoom lens with future Nikon resale value, versus an over six-pound $2,000 Sigma zoom lens with future Sigma resale value.


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## Solarflare (May 12, 2016)

Derrel said:


> I kind of wonder if this is not something Nikon does deliberately, about every decade or so?


 Probably every chance they get, I would persume.

Good luck breaking my Zeiss and Voitländer lenses this way, though.


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## Sgpscott (Jul 7, 2016)

quinte said:


> Anyone had any issues with your D500 and 3rd party lens, especially the Sigma 150-600 Sport and Tamron's 70-200?  I'm about to pull the trigger and preorder the D500.  I have seen a couple of posts on other sites about possible issues.  I just messaged Sigma to see what they would say about the Sport.  Thanks for any input.


Hi
Sigma have a firmware update for the 150-600 which fixes the overexposure issue. If you intend in using the lens outdoors the sigma is fully weather sealed whereas the nikon 200-500 isn't at all. A 600 mm lens produces an image 44% larger in the viewfinder than a 500 mm lens. The sharpness at 600mm with a 1.4tc seems good to me, here is a file. Most of the images on my FB page are with this lens and tc combo sgpscott@Facebook.cim


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## gckless (Jul 14, 2016)

Sgpscott said:


> quinte said:
> 
> 
> > Anyone had any issues with your D500 and 3rd party lens, especially the Sigma 150-600 Sport and Tamron's 70-200?  I'm about to pull the trigger and preorder the D500.  I have seen a couple of posts on other sites about possible issues.  I just messaged Sigma to see what they would say about the Sport.  Thanks for any input.
> ...



I'm sorry, and I don't know if there was some quality stripped from the original somewhere, but that image is unacceptable to me. That photo would be deleted. In comparison, here's my most recent shot from my 200-500 on Flickr: 


Smokey by Gilbert Kless, on Flickr


I'm not real sure how we got into a lens debate between these two. In any event, OP, Sigma does have their dock you can use. I would assume you would be able to update the lens' firmware through that. Have you tried contacting Sigma at all as well?


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