Am i excepting to much from m4/3?

Auf Reisen wrote:

Very good points all around, especially about having a fully weather-sealed kit, which seems hard to achieve at this price point with other brands.

But that only matters if you want/need weather sealing.  Me personally, wouldn't buy a wildlife lens that wasn't weather sealed...……..spend way to much time shooting from a kayak to do otherwise.  I have used non-sealed gear in my kayak and it is just straight up a pain in the A$$.

The prices for the teleconverter and the adapter were quite a bit higher on the UK used market when I checked yesterday, but I'm sure with a bit of patience, one can find a better price.

Didn't realize you are in the U.K., prices are probably a lot different over there than here in the states.

About IQ. Well, not to flatter you too much, but you are by far one of the most skilled photographers around here.

thanks, really appreciate the comment.

I'm sure you'd produce fantastic images with a point-and-shoot.

Maybe but having amazing telephoto lenses sure does help.

You also get really close to your subjects and from what I can see from your pictures, you get a ton of lovely Australian light.

Light is not something I have a hard time with here in Texas.  The summers are rough because it's hot and the light is super harsh, leaving only a few hours a day to shoot (unless you get up under the canopy of the swamp).  The winters (which I am entering now) have some of the most amazing light ever.  I love shooting fall thru spring here.

I'm not in a position to say what the SWD would achieve in the hands of a less-skilled photographer in worse light and at greater distances.

Not much a person can do about the light but distances are easily overcome.  Honestly that is the biggest mistake people make with wildlife.  Getting longer and longer reach hoping that will make their photos better but it does nothing.   That is why I get close enough to shoot full body with my 150/2 and then use the 300/4 (with or without the TC) to shoot close up detail images.  Here is a perfect example of that.

Close enough to shoot full body with the 150/2

while doing tight head shots with the 300/4

I don't use my super telephoto lens to capture a subject from a distance.  I use it to get close and capture the amazing detail of the subject and the 300/4 is the best lens I have ever used, even better than my Canon 500/4 that had.

That also applies to more expensive gear, of course. What would you say, how does the SWD perform at greater distances? I find the 75-300 rather lacking in this regard.

All lenses are lacking when you shoot something from a distance.  What makes some better than others is their resolution.  While the sensor (lets say in the m4/3 world going from 16mp to 20mp) does play into how far you can shoot and crop the lens has a much larger impact.  Sure using lets say the 75-300 you can crop a bit more and retain good detail going from a 16mp to 20mp.  You may even extract a little bit more detail in the more mp camera.  But going up to a better lens will provide an even greater improvement because the better lenses resolve more detail (that is one of the things you are paying the big bucks for).

The 75-300 is in my opinion seriously lacking if you shoot from a distance, just like all the other consumer zooms on the market.  The SWD (w/ or w/out EC-14) does a better job and the 300/4 does an amazing job.  I am amazed with how much detail the 300/4 can retain even when cropping 1/2 the photo away.  If you want to shoot from way to far away, crop over 1/2 away and still have a chance of some detail the 300/4 is the only lens in the m4/3 that I have used that can do it (the new Panny 200/2.8 probably can as well based on it's resolution but I have no personal experience with it).  But that is only if you are going to print small or only display on the internet.  If you want to print large you just can't crop much with m4/3 since the sensor is a lot smaller than say full frame.

regards,

Phocal