As I promised, I'd post some shots with the 150-600 on my Sony body when I got the lens - I received it today when I got home from work, and though it was very late with failing light and I only had my backyard for test subjects, I did snap a handful of shots just to test the lens and make sure it wasn't damaged in shipping, was aligned, that focus was accurate on my body and didn't require any adjustments, etc. I tested two specific things in my yard - wide-open aperture (F5) at 150mm to test the wide end performance, and wide-open aperture (F6.3) at the 600mm end to test that performance (which admittedly is the part that's most important to me). As a general caveat for my tests - I owned the lens exactly 8 minutes when I took these, I could only photograph what was available in my backyard at 6:30pm, I shot only in JPG, straight from camera, handheld, and these are unedited, and because of the lower light, I had to raise the ISO quite a bit at the long end so the shots are at ISO1000 and 1600. Still, I was able to confirm the lens seems all OK and to spec, and the performance just in these first tests looks very good to my eye. The shots linked below are all posted at full size, from-camera JPGs with no editing...go to the link for each image, then click 'original' just under the photo to see the full size:
150mm F5:
http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/3702150612/photos/3020135/tamron-150-600-first-tests-041
http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/3702150612/photos/3020134/tamron-150-600-first-tests-035
600mm F6.3:
http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/3702150612/photos/3020133/tamron-150-600-first-tests-029
http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/3702150612/photos/3020132/tamron-150-600-first-tests-001
Once I get to the weekend, I'll have a lot more opportunity in good light, and a lot more birds and wildlife to choose from...but I wanted to share the very first shots as I promised I would for those waiting for Sony-body examples.