Is that the Z 105 or the AF-S? The AF-S model was a pretty soft lens (in my experience and by reputation). My Z 105 is noticeably better, although indeed it’s not especially sharp for long focal distances. Presumably it’s tuned for closer focal distances (higher magnifications). I don’t have any real complaints about its image quality, at least for macro subjects. Its AF is annoyingly slow, though.

I’m interested in seeing your image samples, if you share them somewhere. Though I’m not really in the market for the 100-400 again – while I’ve occasionally missed its flexibility re. impressive minimum focus distance and zoom nature, honestly these days I almost always find myself just using the 400/4.5 or 800/6.3. Oddly neither is what I consider stunningly sharp (although the 400/4.5 is close) but nonetheless I find I get good results with them. Their bokeh and other characteristics are significantly better than with the zooms.

I do think the 100-400 is still the best lens I’ve ever used in terms of image stabilisation, though. The 400/4.5 is pretty good, the 800/6.3 is okay, but the 100-400 (like its 80-400 predecessor) is just on another level.

I’m somewhat interested to see how the new 180-600 performs (if it ever actually ships 😝).

The biggest real world relevant difference is that the Nikkor 24-200mm is visible less sharp and has less contrast than all other lenses.
The Nikkor 105mm was a tiny bit better than the Nikkor 100-400mm. I expected more difference.
The Nikkor 100-400mm performs a bit sharper and has more contrast than with TC1.4 at same focal length.
The difference between the Sigma and Nikkor (with or without TC) is neglactable.

I can share my files if you are interested.

I haven’t used the 150-600 much lately, actually. I’ve been travelling a lot and have favoured the 400/4.5 instead since it’s lighter and optically very good.

As far as I recall the Sigma 150-600 is on latest firmware. I don’t know if I’ve tried it with Z9 3.0 or later.

I doubt anything’s changed, though. i.e. its image stabilisation is likely still very poor. Sigma have had many years to fix that and have not, so I suspect they either can’t or won’t.

Hello, I loved your comments, I would like to ask a question, did you update the nikon Z9 and the sigma 150-600 lens continues to work without problems?
What version of software did you test?

I haven’t really used the 80-400 much on the Z9, actually. I’ve mostly been using the Sigma 150-600, as I usually need the extra reach. But I think the experience is similar with both, and I’d say it’s comparable to with a D500. It easily tracks birds in flight on a clean background (e.g. blue sky), but frequently looses the bird in favour of the background if the background is non-trivial (e.g. trees) and the bird is smaller in the frame than ~2 AF squares. No matter what AF mode and settings are used.

I was photographing some kiting & diving kestrels just the other day, in fact, with the Z9 + 150-600. I got some decent shots against blue and cloudy sky, but not a single in-focus shot when the ground was behind them (even when it was hundreds of metres away and very blurred out from depth of field – the Z9 is very biased to infinity focus, same as the prior Z cameras).

That’s with firmware 2.0, too.

Nominally the Z9 has the advantage of head and eye detection, but it doesn’t work very often for birds in flight and even when it does it’s only meaningful (with either of those lenses) if the bird is at least a third the width of the frame – otherwise, the AF systems in those two lenses just aren’t accurate and consistent enough to actually focus that precisely anyway. I never tested the 100-400 on the Z9 but I expect it’d perform notably better because its AF accuracy & consistency is way better.

Stationary birds are a different story, by the way – for me the Z9 does way better when there’s less movement in the frame, and the eye detection is super handy (when it works – it’s very dependent on bird species). Any of the lenses in question work fine for stationary subjects, even small ones. The native Z lenses will get focus correct much more often, in terms of precisely hitting the eye, but all will get focus on the bird.

As to your choices… well, I’ve ordered the 800/6.3 – still having mixed feelings about that indulgence 😅 – in lieu of a better option. The 100-400 is just not great, and as you allude the 200-600 isn’t even properly announced yet, so who knows if & when that’ll actually arrive. If it’s just an updated 200-500 it might be underwhelming (the 200-500 was okay in my experience, but terrible value compared to Sigma & Tamron 150-600s that are smaller, lighter, cheaper, and optically superior).

Hi Wade, on the note of AF performance on the older 80-400, have you been able to test birds in flight with it on your Z9? I’m interested in getting into birding and have the Z9 as well. It’s been super tough to decide which lens to get since we don’t have that 200-600 yet and the 100-400S is definitely a pricy investment. Interested in your thoughts on what’s been working well for you!

TBF they probably added that 70-200 with 2x in there to see if it’s worthwhile to just buy the TC if you already have the 70-200 since the 100-40 is also quite expensive…

Also, it’s worth noting that the Cameralabs test images do clearly show the 80-400 as sharper at 400 (though the inverse at shorter focal lengths, which I didn’t see – again, probably they got a better copy than me). However, without really knowing the scale, it’s hard to say if the difference is similar in magnitude to what I saw.

I think it might be misleading to have the 70-200 + TC2 results shown beside the others, since that combo yields such a bad result that maybe it makes the 80-400 vs 100-400 difference look less significant than it is.

(I’ve never understood why anyone would think a 70-200 + 2x TC makes any sense – the image quality is always atrocious and rarely any better than just cropping)

Yes, I suspect I got a bad copy too. That’s partly why I’ve not yet followed up with a more final review – it seems like it might be pointless, if I tested an outlier.

One thing I wish I’d stressed more in these comparisons posts is the difference in real use between these lenses, in particular vs the Sigma 150-600 C. Soft as it was, the 100-400Z I tested still had noticeably better autofocus accuracy & consistency than the other two lenses, and way better image stabilisation than the Sigma 150-600 C. So in real-world use you’d probably actually get better results, more often, with the 100-400Z than the Sigma. Even if the 100-400Z is technically softer. If you don’t really need the extra 50% magnification.

The 100-400Z also took the 1.4x teleconverter fairly well (or at least, didn’t get much more soft), although I’m less confident ruling it a better overall package than the Sigma for the full 600mm reach. Especially given how nuts the price difference becomes at that point (nearly 5x!).

Vs the 80-400G I’m not as sure… if I could just swap the 80-400G for the 100-400Z at no hassle or charge, I think I might. But since I already have the 80-400G, and its image stabilisation is pretty close to the 100-400Z, it didn’t seem smart, fiscally.

Note that while the difference in autofocus consistency between the 100-400Z and the 80-400G is quite obvious in use, with wildlife a lot of the time it doesn’t make a huge difference since you have e.g. eyelashes or hair or whatnot obscuring your focus target, so you’re going to need a lot of shots regardless in order to luck into one that has focus exactly where you want it.

Unfortunately my Z9 didn’t arrive in time for me to the test the 100-400 on it. But I’d be very surprised if it exhibited any difference in image sharpness (other than from the improved image stabilisation).

Spoiler alert (for the full 100-400 review that in theory I’ll post one day): I returned the 100-400. I just couldn’t rationalise keeping (and therefore spending $3k on) a lens that’s significantly softer than all my other telephotos. But I still feel torn about that return decision – in every other respect the 100-400 was really great.

I might try getting another copy of the 100-400 to see if I was perhaps just unlucky with that first one.