Aussie birds and the 100-300 Panasonic

I recently had the opportunity to spend 3 weeks travelling around parts of Western Australia.

It would have been crazy to go without a decent telephoto/zoom and the 100-300 Panasonic was available at considerable discount, so I bought one - it arrived a couple of days before I left for this trip, so these are the first photos from this lens.

Initial impressions? Wow. This thing is big and ugly. It is hard to justify the basis for m4/3 and its small size when lenses of this size exist. I realise the m.Zuiko 75-300 is really very small, but it is also hugely expensive.

Other impressions? I was gobsmacked to find there is a decent lenshood included, and even a decent softcase - which is invaluable. I don't know what Olympus are playing at with both pricing and extortionate costs for essential extras.

In use, the 100-300 OIS is astonishingly good - with it on, it makes framing and shooting handheld at 300mm very easy, with reasonable results. All the photos below were handheld. People argue that IBIS is great because it stabilises all lenses, but on my E-P1 I generally find that IBIS is more of a hindrance than a help and I usually leave it off until it is definitely required, and even then I'd prefer to use a tripod if I am able.

Focus isn't fast, or even reliable - if it is critical it might be necessary to check focus manually, but it is way better than no AF at all (all my other long teles are fully manual).

The lens vignettes quite heavily at 300mm.

Brilliant lens for close ups, too - but that is another topic

Thanks for looking.

Cormorant at Busselton Wharf. (BTW the wharf is 1.8km long - there is an annual swim around it)

Plover. These are very hard to photograph, they are very small, hard to see and very active. Also, endangered. Like dotterels, their environment is very fragile and susceptible to damage from human activity - even walking in the area.

Pelican landing.

Swallow shouting at the top of its voice. Walpole, WA

Easy to achieve subject isolation.



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