Researching The 75-300

[mik]

Thinking about buying this lens while the cashback offer is on, can you tell me what you think about its performance, especially at 300mm and any links to bird images at 250-300mm.

Thanks

[mik]

Re: Researching The 75-300

Thanks, i only buy from my local camera shop and they are official Olympus dealers.

[David M]

Re: Researching The 75-300

You could always use the trick a couple of Canon users I know use. Buy three and return the worst two. Of course, that's L glass, you may not get the same sample variation with cheap Olympus glass.

[mik]

Re: Researching The 75-300

Thanks just checked on the Olympus site and my LCS is on the list

[090657]

Re: Researching The 75-300

Thinking about buying this lens while the cashback offer is on, can you tell me what you think about its performance, especially at 300mm and any links to bird images at 250-300mm.

Thanks

Mik,

Have not got any birding shots but these aircraft shots were taken at Fairford this year with the 75-300 albeit in good conditions. This first on at 132 mmL



This one at 194mmL



This one at 281mm:



And this last one at 300mm:




I love the lens- decent reseults, small and light.

Tim

[Cerebus]

Re: Researching The 75-300

For the money it's a great lens; I had the Panasonic 100-300 MkI in the past and the Olympus 75-300 definitely outperforms it.

The Panasonic 100-400 is better optically, but is also significantly bigger, heavier and more expensive.

[Ian]

Re: Researching The 75-300

People mention this lens is soft at 300mm but I always suggest that things need to be put into perspective. 300mm is very long; it's a 600mm full frame field of view. Subject and camera movement is always going tbe a potential impact. In other words, no matter what the quality of the glass, extreme focal lengths like this will be prone to some motion blur.

Anyway, even with the above said, I regularly get results at 300mm that I am very satisfied with. Here's one using the Mark 1 version of the lens, wide open at f/6.7, ISO 200, 1/1000th using a Mark 1 E-M5. This frame only contains an eighth of the uncropped frame area after cropping (1200x1600, or just under 2MP) and is reproduced for Web viewing here at 600x800 pixels.



And this is an in-camera JPEG, not from RAW!

Ian

[OM USer]

Re: Researching The 75-300

I have the mk1; other than the nano coating and a slight refresh of the dials on the mk 2 the two versions are the same. Yes, it is a little soft at the 300mm end; even more so when shooting at near infinity focus. Up close (e.g bird table near your house) you won't notice the softness. Plenty of shots of birds in my garden in my gallery.


300mm


281mm


300mm

[mik]

Re: Researching The 75-300

I have the mk1; other than the nano coating and a slight refresh of the dials on the mk 2 the two version are the same. Yes, it is a little soft at the 300mm end; even more so when shooting at near infinity focus. Up close (e.g bird table near your house) you won't notice the softness. Plenty of shots of birds in my garden in my gallery.


300mm


281mm


300mm

Nice results, i thought the new one had a faster focus motor.

[mik]

Re: Researching The 75-300

According to all the reviews and tech. references the difference is exactly as OM USer stated above. Where did you see a faster motor mentioned ?

John

You know how it is when your researching will do my best to find it again.

[benvendetta]

Re: Researching The 75-300

People mention this lens is soft at 300mm but I always suggest that things need to be put into perspective. 300mm is very long; it's a 600mm full frame field of view. Subject and camera movement is always going tbe a potential impact. In other words, no matter what the quality of the glass, extreme focal lengths like this will be prone to some motion blur.

Anyway, even with the above said, I regularly get results at 300mm that I am very satisfied with. Here's one using the Mark 1 version of the lens, wide open at f/6.7, ISO 200, 1/1000th using a Mark 1 E-M5. This frame only contains an eighth of the uncropped frame area after cropping (1200x1600, or just under 2MP) and is reproduced for Web viewing here at 600x800 pixels.



And this is an in-camera JPEG, not from RAW!

Ian

You have a very good copy there Ian. I agree that it is excellent VFM for what you get. I got mine a few years ago from HDEW.

[Ian]

Re: Researching The 75-300

I'm not aware that there was a change to the focus motor with the Mark II. I have both the old and new versions so I'll compare the two to find out if there is any difference in the focusing performance.

Ian

[Ian]

Re: Researching The 75-300

I'm not aware that there was a change to the focus motor with the Mark II. I have both the old and new versions so I'll compare the two to find out if there is any difference in the focusing performance.

Ian

OK, comparing the old and new style lenses side by side on an E-M1, I am not seeing any difference in focus speed and both lenses are silent (the sound you hear is from the image stabiliser). If am pushed, I'd say the Mark II is a tad more decisive in focusing. It hunts around slightly less before locking on, but this is very marginal indeed. This latter observation may simply be down to firmware as neither versions of the lens have available firmware upgrades but the MkII could well have more advanced v.1.0 firmware.

Ian

[mik]

Re: Researching The 75-300

Yes it looks like i suffered from information over load in my research and got it wrong,i was researching the Panasonic 100-300 at the same time and it has had a upgraded motor.

[mik]

Re: Researching The 75-300

Just an update and final thanks for the time spent helping me,i did have a Panasonic G80 and 100-400, the 100-400 developed a fault after 11 months and Panasonic said they would replace it.
I waited 5 weeks with no replacement and my local dealer said as he was getting a new one in exchange i could have a full refund, so being a bit annoyed about the wait i took him up on the offer and got a Nikon D500.
The D500 is a proficient beast but the G80 does every thing i need including BIF when matched to the 100-400.
I have the EM10MK11 twin kit as a walk round set up and the G80 and 100-400 for my wild life.

Thanks mike