Featherweight Super-telephoto Lens: the 600mm f/6.3 GM

Summary

My Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) was delivered late on Saturday. I did not unbox it until early on Sunday morning. When I first peeked out the back door, it was raining. At about 8:00am the skies began to brighten so I drove down to the lake. The first thing that I noted was a developing double rainbow out over the lake as the sun broke through. Then, from a distance, I saw a Great Egret on Bob Eastman’s v-perch in the South Marsh so I couldn’t resist driving on the wet field to get into position. I started with the 600mm f/4 on the BLUBB, then went to wider with the Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5 GM OSS Lens and created some verticals at 260mm. Then, almost as an afterthought, I grabbed the featherweight lens and made a few additional images. Image #1 below is my first keeper with that ridiculously small and light lens.

Next I decided to add the 1.4X TC as I knew that lots of folks would be asking. See Image #2 below along with a 100% crop, Image #2A.

In short, the new GM (Grand Master) lens is an amazing game-changer. You will be hearing lots more about it over the next few months. If you decide to purchase a copy, please use one of my two affiliate links to purchase to earn a free copy of my next BAA Lens Guide. My plan is to have the guide ready in a week and then update it one or twice with additional images. If you are at all confused about using a BAA affiliate link, please shoot me an e-mail.

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General information, copy editing, re-crafting, technical refinement, and formatting for this blog post were assisted by Gemini AI.

In the Last Blog Post

Thanks for all of the excellent comments in the last blog post. More than a few folks went with #1, the Willet in soft afternoon light and #3, the white morph Reddish Egret in soft early morning light as their top two picks. BAA IPT veterans David Pugsley and Chris Loffredo both nailed my top two choices, #7 the Black-Bellied Plover with the face of a breaking wave and the specular highlights, and #1, the Willet, for the serenity and pastel Belt of Venus reflections. As usual, nobody but me liked the flight blur 🙂 Thanks especially to gave some love to 1,3, 5, 7, & 8!

What’s Up?

I have so many new images and lessons to share that I will likely be publishing a new blog post every other day for a while rather than every three or four days as I have been doing for the past two months or so. Friday morning past at DeSoto was just about as good at Thursday morning with about ten fewer mosquitoes. How many mozzies were there on Friday? About a zillion. (Mozzies is British slang mosquitoes.) The highlights were several Snowy Egrets fishing and catching tiny baitfish in the shallow surf just after sunrise.

Today is Sunday 18 October. The forecast is calling for mostly sunny skies with the wind NNE at 11 mph. Here is a very fine point: While a NNE wind on sunny days is ideal before the fall equinox, it is somewhat problematic at this time of year as the sun is rising south of east and then heading south. By 9:00am, you will be dealing with wind against sun conditions. Anyhoo, I will be heading down to the lake early for my 35th straight morning of bird photography since I got back from Long Island via the AUTO Train on 13 September. Whatever you opt to do today, I hope you choose to have fun and enjoy life.

Please remember that happiness is a choice — Byron Katie – The Work.Com

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This image was created on 17 October 2026 down by the lake near my home at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Working from the driver’s seat of my SUV I used the BLUBB-supported Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) and The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a-1 II Mirrorless Camera. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel. ISO 640: 1/800 sec. at f/6.3 (wide open) in Manual mode. AWB at 8:13:00am on a then partly sunny morning. Wide/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the larger high-res version. Image #1: Great Egret on Bob Eastman’s v-perch with rainbow background Image copyright 2026: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

First Impressions of the 600mm f/6.3 GM Lens

Like most folks who have already received this lens, it seemed to me as if they had forgotten to put the lens in the box. It does not take a rocket scientist to know that a 600mm lens that weighs only 2 lbs. 3 oz. (2 lbs. 7.6 oz with the hood on) is revolutionary. Folks who could never think of purchasing the weapon of mass destruction, the Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens (6.7 lbs. without the hood at a cost of $14,098.00), can now enjoy 600mm of reach in a tiny, handhold able package. The entire rig — an a-1 ii with a card and a battery mounted on the new 600mm f/6.3 lens weighs a ridiculous 4 lbs. 1.9 oz!

Though a tad on the slow side at f/6.3, this lens will quickly become a favorite walk-around lens for both bird and wildlife photographers. I cannot wait to get into a great flight situation as the new lens will be a dream to handhold while following flight and action. And in part, for the same reasons, it might be the world’s best-ever video lens where f/6.3 is not an issue at all. Its light weight will make it easier to create sharp images in low light situations with relatively slow shutter speeds. And at only $3,698.00 it is a bargain compared to the 600mm f/4 GM.

So why do I own the Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5 GM and the Sony FE 400-800mm f/6.3-8 G OSS lens (Sony E)? The versatility of super-telephoto zoom lenses that allow you to zoom in or out to fine tune your image designs is unmatched, especially when shooting flight and action and you have no time to change your position or swap gear. I have been using the 400-800 handheld quite a bit recently.

So why do I own the massive 600mm f/4? It saves four clicks of ISO and performs amazingly well with the 2X TC at 1200mm. Bird photography today is becoming more and more about being fast and agile and mobile by handholding and never using a tripod. I will admit that I have been using the 600mm f/4 less and less over the past six months. While I still carry it into the field with or without a tripod on occasion, I find myself still using it from my SUV with either teleconverter and working off a BLUBB.

You will find me often in the field on sunny days with just the new Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) in my hands and the 1.4X TC in my Lowepro Trekker Lite HP 100 Fanny Pack.

Adobe Camera Raw Masking Note

I have made more than a few bird photos with rainbow backgrounds over the years and have never been happy with any of them. I have already processed three Great Egret/rainbow photos from yesterday and each of them thrills me. Having learned to use Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) masks as detailed in The Digital Basics IV Video Series makes it easy to juice up the rainbow while keeping the bird and the foreground totally neutral. Coming soon: a single Digital Basics V How-to-Video that will include a single rainbow image optimization and lots of other great new image optimization stuff that I have discovered recently.

This image was created on 17 October 2026 down by the lake near my home at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Working from the driver’s seat of my SUV I used the BLUBB-supported Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS Lens (Sony E) with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter and The Latest Greatest Sony Flagship Body, the a-1 II Mirrorless Camera. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel. ISO 2500: 1/1000 sec. at f/9 (wide open) in Manual mode. AWB at 8:29:51am on a then barely sunny morning. Wide/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the larger high-res version. Image #2: Turkey Vulture — adult with wings spread Image copyright 2026: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

The 600mm f/6.3 with the 1.4X TC

I had no doubt that the new lens would — in the right hands, perform admirably with the 1.4X teleconverter. But I wanted to prove that sharp images in relatively low light were possible. Most days there are vultures perched on the short pilings around the pavilion that is located south and east of the base of the pier. They make ideal practice subjects.

So Why the BLUBB?

If the new lens is so small and so light, why did I place the barrel of the lens on the BLUBB for both of today’s featured images? Simple: When photographing static subjects it is always better to support a lens whenever possible as the results will be sharper. And that is doubly true when working in low light with relatively slow exposures. Image #2 was created at 840mm handheld. I cannot wait to get into a good flight situation on a sunny morning with the new lens.

Click to enjoy a larger high-res version. Image #2A: An Unsharpened 100% crop of the Turkey Vulture — adult with wings spread photo Image copyright 2026: Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

Sharp Enough for You?

How would you rate the sharpness of the eye in this unsharpened 100% crop?

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Typos

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