Sigma 150-600mm f/5.0-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary Lens for Canon

I have used this Sigma 150 -600 for four years and as a working pro I am shocked at how good it is. I have shot wildlife with this lens ( whales, eagles etc ) and although it is certainly not a prime pro lens the results are quite usable. Because of its external zoom it is a bit unwieldy at 500 or 600 as the balance point moves but even handheld the glass and IS are good enough to provide sharp contrasty shots. A decent tripod with a gimbal head will help increase your keepers but the first day out of the box I handheld this for a moon shot on a APS-C camera ( steadied on a fencepost0 and got a great shot. The 5.6/6.3 is slow but for a $ 1500 lens it auto-focuses fairly rapidly with a good number of keepers on a moving subject. For the aspiring wildlife photographer this is a great lens and reasonably affordable. Although not as well constructed as the Sport version I believe the Contemporary IQ in most cases is just as good and a $$ grand cheaper. I have struck this thing again boat gunnels and rock faces without doing any discernible damages except for a few scratches. If you have the budget of course a prime 500 or 600 lens by Canon, Nikon, Sony or Fuji is going to be superior but even for avid enthusiasts this lens rocks. Prefer it to the 150 - 600 Tamron. Recommended.

I'm still rather new when it comes to photography, but seeing how much I enjoy taking pictures at airshows, it didn't take much self convincing for me to pull the trigger. I don't think there are any other lenses that come quite close in terms of value for the length you get, with there not being many options to choose from in the first place.
Also, unlike the other fellow, I felt like I could get some pretty decent focusing with it, though it should be a given that using a hefty lens like this kinda necessitates using support from a tripod or monopod. Even with a tripod, I found it difficult to get good shots on occasion (the weight made it hard to track sometimes) but I found it to be a really engaging and fun challenge, and I'm a bit proud of some of the shots I got with it. (The ones I added are not edited because I have absolutely no editing capability, at least for now)

The focus is not sharp enough, garbage!