10 of the Best Camera Lenses for Aviation Photography

I have the Sigma 150-600 attached to a Nikon D3300. Despite being the best lens in the camera mag reviews time after time, it has pros AND cons. It is extremely heavy and has a stiff manual zoom which makes it tricky to use on flyers. Also if you want those pin sharp, full frame shots of high trailing overflights we have all seen, this lens only achieves them when conditions are good and you are in the perfect location, ideally directly underneath and able to keep it steady. Even then you also need a high megapixel camera to enable you to crop the image with no loss of detail. My 25MP Nikon is only just enough. To get those shots a 600mm prime may be the only answer.
However, when you get used to it, the image stabilisation (VR) enables you to get wonderful shots of flyers at an airfield-type distance as long as you think ahead and work out where the zoom ring should be as the plane flies past. I was told to turn VR off when it is on a tripod or resting on a fence as using it confuses the lens, but I have not found this at all and the maximum VR is effective at all times. The shots are crisp and as sharp as a kit lens at all focal lengths in my experience, despite what I have said about trails. Quick auto-focus was important for me and this lens is as fast as I could have hoped for.
It is not sold with a lens cap so attaching the hood is advisable, which screws on and off with a threaded nut within seconds. The tripod mount is movable so that when it is swung round to the top of the lens it doubles up as a handle. It is so heavy you must hold the lens, not the camera, or you risk straining the ring mounts. Do not use the camera strap for the same reason, use the strap attached to the lens.
At high magnification it is capable of shooting through a fence without any wire in the frame (without the lens hood of course).
There are bags designed to take this whopper of a lens with its camera attached, but the lens hood needs to be removed, disappointingly, meaning a minute or two is needed to set it up, so keeping it safe in the bag while still hoping to grab it to capture a briefly visible plane will end in frustration.
It is possible to use this lens as a telescope/binocular substitute. Logging by camera is common these days but you still need a decent pole to read off distant planes, which can cause eye strain over time. On a DSLR which is not full frame the 600mm equates to 18x magnification – with no eye strain. The downside is you cannot be discreet using it.
Is it worth the high price and the neck ache – absolutely!

A truly non sense article. The Best lenses for aviation photography are simply the best lenses available in the range between 35 and 250 mm or 300 for the full frame cameras (both analogic or digital). Going over 300 is not for serious, traditional, spotting but of course nice for “artistic” and dinamica aircraft photograpy. There are lenses from the ’80 that are much better than most of today’s lenses and that can be used on modern digital or analogic cameras.

Nikolay, I suppose you asked so long time ago that replying YOU have no sense
but perhaps somebody else will find it useful?
well, IMHO F4 is better choice — not only cost but weight and size too
most aviaphotos are taken in good weather, so one additional stop didn’t get you anything valuable.
Only real point is using extenders — with 2.8 you can use 2x while with 4 only 1.4