100-300 vs. 50-200+1.4TC: surprised!

Hi,

Testing my new equipment here at the long end.

I must confess that I bought the 100-300 without any hope. Consumer slow lens, what to expect.... However, I am deeply and pleasantly surprised by this little lens.

My previous long lens was the 50-200 SWD + 1.4 TC + 2.0 TC. The 2.0 is soft, but the extra magnification compensates for that. The problem with that 2.0TC is that it is virtually impossible to hand hold, so I only use it with a tripod.

So my main wildlife gear was the 50-200 + 1.4 TC, and I decided to test it against the 100-300, both in the EM1. I took 10 pictures of each setting in RAW, identical shooting parameters, choose the sharpest, processed without any treatment with RawTherapee except for curves, everything hand held.

Well, the 100-300 (wide open at 5.6) at 280mm won easily against the 50-200 + 1.4 TC (stopped down also at 5.6!!). I'm still surprised about this. Maybe I shouldn't, since I loved the FZ50 lens.

Look:

Oly 50-200 + 1.4TC at F5.6 1/400s ISO200 and 283mm. Around 20 meters, beautiful day

100-300 at F5.6 1/400s ISO200 and 280mm. Around 20 meters, beautiful day.

ISO400, 1/200s F5.6 280mm, around 3 meters

The difference is quite big, even downscaling.

So I was waiting for the M.Zuiko 300mm F4. Now I'm not sure anymore if this would make a big difference... Of course, I would have to see a comparative output. Now, the only negative point about the 100-300 is the lack of weather seals.

The good news for the 50-200 is that I can handhold it with the 2.0TC, thanks to the IBIS.

Another surprise with the EM1 was the stabilization. I took several keepers at 300mm and 1/30s! Amazing. Look:

1/30s F5.6, ISO 2500, Flash off, EM1+100-300 at 300mm

But the EM1 IQ at ISO200 is not good, too grainy. That's my only complain (for now).

Cheers,

L.

The 100-300 has been a fine performer from the start.  I suspect that those who find issue with the long end of this lens forget to set the aperture to 7.1 or 7.2 to get better sharpness.  For the size and weight, it returns big time.

LMNCT wrote:

The 100-300 has been a fine performer from the start. I suspect that those who find issue with the long end of this lens forget to set the aperture to 7.1 or 7.2 to get better sharpness. For the size and weight, it returns big time.

Actually, I compared the 100-300 wide open with the Zuiko combo stopped down, and it is still better. Certainly stopping down further the 100-300 would make the difference even bigger.

Anyway, I shoot mostly in rainforests, so no way I can close the lens.

Cheers!

L.

How can the image quality out of the EM1 be too grainy at ISO200?

Because it is a bit grainy. You can see it in all the fine color trasitions and darker single color frame parts.
I see it on my EM5 as well.
If you want perfect studio quality smoothness you must brushit with a de-noise brush
Its irritating for some spetial shots. Urrelevant for most. But it there. M43 curse.

OP, thanks for the comparison. They are very revealing.

Rick Halle wrote:

" Keep in mind that tall buildings sway back and forth so they require faster shutter speeds."

AV Janus wrote:

Because it is a bit grainy. You can see it in all the fine color trasitions and darker single color frame parts.
I see it on my EM5 as well.
If you want perfect studio quality smoothness you must brushit with a de-noise brush
Its irritating for some spetial shots. Urrelevant for most. But it there. M43 curse.

It's not just a sensor size thing. It is noisier at base ISO than my E5, that also has a 2x crop factor. Of course, it has more resolution, so you could blame that. Still, much better high ISO than my E5, what is strange due to the lower IQ at base ISO. I confess I don't understand why, I just know it is noisy.

OP, thanks for the comparison. They are very revealing.

You're welcome.

Best,

L.

I thought the following two shots may be of interest here. I've recently picked up a used 50-200mk1 to go with the 75-300 mk2 on my EM-1

The 50-200 is specifically aimed at my water sports uses where the weather sealing is a real boon.

Yesterday I was shooting Thundercat racing on our local beach at Boscombe Pier in Dorset and a couple of miles west there was P1 Powerboat racing off Bournemouth (why do these events always occur at the same time! )

In a lull in the Thundercats I spotted the P1s were racing so took shots with both the lenses, shooting across rather hazy water (heat and mist haze)

The results surprised me

75-300 at 300mm f6.7

50-200 at 200mm f5

both are un-resized crops

I know from earlier experiments that with the EC-14 on I would not have expected the 50-200 to be as good as the 75-300 at this distance but to my eye there is little or no difference even though the crop is a bit larger with the 50-200

The distance is around 1.4 to 2 miles (its 1.4 miles pier to pier but this is on the diagonal and I couldn't see whether the race was to the East or West side of the pier)

Well the iq is not bad at all. But a huge downside is that its tracking abilities are pretty bad. Virtually not usable.

Torlang wrote:

How can the image quality out of the EM1 be too grainy at ISO200?

It's only possible if OP underexposes. It can be grainy if you shoot high contrast scene and boost shadows a lot, but it's not what many people do, so it's probably not the case here.

Especially when OP says that E-M1 is noisier at base ISO than E-5, a camera with 6 year old sensor. This tells that mastering exposure and camera settings properly should be the first item in to-do list.

As for comparison test - close-up pair shows that 100-300 is sharper. But, at least some telezooms can show good quality at closeups and then degrade at longer focusing distances. So, 1st pair should be more relevant comparison. I also wonder if 0s anti-shock was enabled during the test.

And regarding the first image pair - I have a weird feeling that 50-200 shot was focused farther than what crop shows, above cropped area. I could be wrong, of course. OP, would you be able to show full image?
Also, was there any reason to choose non-flat, inclined surface for lens resolution comparison?

Brian Wadie wrote:

I thought the following two shots may be of interest here. I've recently picked up a used 50-200mk1 to go with the 75-300 mk2 on my EM-1

The 50-200 is specifically aimed at my water sports uses where the weather sealing is a real boon.

Yesterday I was shooting Thundercat racing on our local beach at Boscombe Pier in Dorset and a couple of miles west there was P1 Powerboat racing off Bournemouth (why do these events always occur at the same time! )

In a lull in the Thundercats I spotted the P1s were racing so took shots with both the lenses, shooting across rather hazy water (heat and mist haze)

The results surprised me

75-300 at 300mm f6.7

50-200 at 200mm f5

both are un-resized crops

I know from earlier experiments that with the EC-14 on I would not have expected the 50-200 to be as good as the 75-300 at this distance but to my eye there is little or no difference even though the crop is a bit larger with the 50-200

The distance is around 1.4 to 2 miles (its 1.4 miles pier to pier but this is on the diagonal and I couldn't see whether the race was to the East or West side of the pier)

To be honest, not sure how to compare these pictures. The focal length is very different, as well as lighting, noise, etc. In addition, with more than 1 mile between you and the subject, lots of interference of the air can ruin your test.

Thanks for sharing!!

Cheers,

L.

luisflorit wrote:

Brian Wadie wrote:

I thought the following two shots may be of interest here. I've recently picked up a used 50-200mk1 to go with the 75-300 mk2 on my EM-1

The 50-200 is specifically aimed at my water sports uses where the weather sealing is a real boon.

Yesterday I was shooting Thundercat racing on our local beach at Boscombe Pier in Dorset and a couple of miles west there was P1 Powerboat racing off Bournemouth (why do these events always occur at the same time! )

In a lull in the Thundercats I spotted the P1s were racing so took shots with both the lenses, shooting across rather hazy water (heat and mist haze)

The results surprised me

75-300 at 300mm f6.7

50-200 at 200mm f5

both are un-resized crops

I know from earlier experiments that with the EC-14 on I would not have expected the 50-200 to be as good as the 75-300 at this distance but to my eye there is little or no difference even though the crop is a bit larger with the 50-200

The distance is around 1.4 to 2 miles (its 1.4 miles pier to pier but this is on the diagonal and I couldn't see whether the race was to the East or West side of the pier)

To be honest, not sure how to compare these pictures. The focal length is very different, as well as lighting, noise, etc. In addition, with more than 1 mile between you and the subject, lots of interference of the air can ruin your test.

Thanks for sharing!!

Cheers,

L.

for me the comparison was simple, even with all the problems you rightly make - could I identify the boats, see their numbers, see the people etc.

I'm a pragmatic photographer, I have a job to do and I want to know if my gear will do it, in this case the 50-200 does it as well as the 75-300 (making no claims of great images etc, I leave that to those who like to argue the minutiae of IQ and lpi resolution etc )

Its remarkable, as far as I am concerned, that at this distance and under these conditions I can read the text on the side of the lead boat in each shot.

Had I had the EC-14 on the 50-200 then the boat numbers would have been blurred and the image less useful

micksh6 wrote:

Torlang wrote:

How can the image quality out of the EM1 be too grainy at ISO200?

It's only possible if OP underexposes.

This is incorrect.

It can be grainy if you shoot high contrast scene and boost shadows a lot, but it's not what many people do, so it's probably not the case here.

No. I've shoot at base ISO (200) sunny landscapes with "proper" exposure giving an on-camera even histogram.

However, you have to push the curves when processing RAW since a flat curve gives you underexposed shots (unless the RAW processor applies a preset curve for you). This is a "philosophy" Oly adopted since the old E620: ISO200 and ISO100 has identical sensor sensitivity/gain (supposedly to protect highlights), with different exposure curves applied. Because of this, I've set my E3 and E5 with an Expose Shift of +1EV, to expose to the right. The problem with that is that the VF tricks you... But you get used to that. I will quite probably do the same with the EM1 (Gears > Utility > Exposure Shift), it's the only different setting I have from my E5 (as possible).

Especially when OP says that E-M1 is noisier at base ISO than E-5, a camera with 6 year old sensor. This tells that mastering exposure and camera settings properly should be the first item in to-do list.

Indeed.

However, while the EM1 and E5 are different, I've swept the whole menu of the EM1 to match as close as possible my E5. The differences now are all in favor to get an EM1 proper exposure thanks to the beautiful EVF (Live histogram, etc).

As for comparison test - close-up pair shows that 100-300 is sharper. But, at least some telezooms can show good quality at closeups and then degrade at longer focusing distances. So, 1st pair should be more relevant comparison. I also wonder if 0s anti-shock was enabled during the test.

People here forbid me to shoot without it, so I enabled it while the camera was locked in the box. I didn't enable the "short" lag setting, to save battery.

And regarding the first image pair - I have a weird feeling that 50-200 shot was focused farther than what crop shows, above cropped area. I could be wrong, of course. OP, would you be able to show full image?

Unfortunately, the tests are deleted. But, as I said, I shoot 10 pictures with each setting, and kept the sharpest (it was difficult to choose, since all pictures were very similar). It's only a weird feeling.

Also, was there any reason to choose non-flat, inclined surface for lens resolution comparison?

As you wrote, it's much better to decide if there is a front/back focusing when the surface is inclined. Same for the statue, with lots of details at different distance just to detect focusing problems. That's the reason.

Cheers,

L.

Brian Wadie wrote:

for me the comparison was simple, even with all the problems you rightly make - could I identify the boats, see their numbers, see the people etc.

I'm a pragmatic photographer, I have a job to do and I want to know if my gear will do it, in this case the 50-200 does it as well as the 75-300 (making no claims of great images etc, I leave that to those who like to argue the minutiae of IQ and lpi resolution etc )

Its remarkable, as far as I am concerned, that at this distance and under these conditions I can read the text on the side of the lead boat in each shot.

The marvels of modern technology...

Had I had the EC-14 on the 50-200 then the boat numbers would have been blurred and the image less useful

As you may guess, when I got my 50-200 +1.4 I tested exhaustively the TC. And I arrived to the same conclusion that my fellows here at DPR: it is hard to spot the difference in IQ with/without the TC at the same focal lengths. The TC is excellent (and expensive!). The higher magnification pays off easily the small penalty in IQ. Same for the 2.0x.

Cheers,

L.

Jorginho wrote:

Well the iq is not bad at all. But a huge downside is that its tracking abilities are pretty bad. Virtually not usable.

I only shoot one shot with tracking, a BIF, and was fine. But of course this is not quite a serious statistic...   So I'll remember your comment.

Anyway, I never use tracking. My objects move way to much and unpredictably to use anything but S-AF/MF.

Thanks!

L.

Wilu wrote:

...to read such a thread - after all i just hit the buy it now button for a Pana 100-300 a few minutes ago

I hope you get the same surprise I got!

Enjoy,

L.

I looked at these first four images (I am assuming 100% crops) and concluded one of the following.

1. The OP let the camera focus and the first four are completely out of focus.

2. The OP turned off IS for all the first four images and the images are blurred due to camera movement.

3. Both lenses are defective.

I took a photo of my grey roof focusing on the bottom of a 2,5 inch vent from approximately 20 meters and raised the shutter speed to give f5.6. The full resolution image is attached. Then I took the OP image a selected the same number of pixels around the only detail in the first image and took the same number of pixels from the focus point from my image. Note the difference in clarity (Olympus Viewer 3 conversion to tiff, LR - sharpening 35 with radius .7 and saved as jpg from CS6 - no noise reduction) compared to the image OP image. You can easily read the small print on the vent cover that says you should tear out the center ring for a 3 inch vent.

I don't think that the findings of "luisflorit" are correct.

There is something wrong with his set-up.

I did a short test with the 50-200 SWD + EC-14 compared to the Olympus 75-300 at 300mm.

Here is a 100% crop at F6.3 / F6.7

both manually focussed with 14x magnification

Sturdy tripod, no IS, 75-300 with Manfrotto 293 Telephoto Lens Support, AntiShock 10 sec, cable release

First 50-200 SWD + EC-14 F6.3 (officially 283mm)

Second the Olympus mFT 75-300 F6.7 at 300mm

I think the difference is easy to see ......

And I doubt it would be any different with the Panasonic 100-300

And here is a 100% crop from the same distance with the 50-200 + EC-20 at F8 (400mm)

All 100% crops are jpegs ooc