Olympus 75-300mm II for Closeups

Playing with my go-to lens again, the m.zuiko 75-300mm II, this time for closeups of small subjects.

I've thought about getting a dedicated macro lens, but I've come to the conclusion that I prefer close up shots to actually be not-so-close, still allowing for some environment to be included.

I know you can't get anywhere near the 1:1 of true macro with this lens. However while the 75-300 requires some degree of cropping afterwards, the benefit of not having to get too close to the target is a tradeoff I think I'm happy with. The dragonflies for example wouldn't let me get within 6 feet before flying away.

All hand held with ibis:

This last one was taken with the all mighty Olympus 12-40mm, but in my personal opinion the image quality is not noticeably better than those above, which again is another pleasant surprise.

I'd be interested in hearing other people's experiences with the 75-300 II for close ups like this.

I love the dragonfly shots I seldom see them here in my neck of the woods in AZ but think they are beautiful creatures.

I have been trying to get used to the lens myself, the close focus distance minimum is the toughest adjustment for me. But the ability to bump ISO so high has really helped, these are ISO 2500 hand held as well.

Shot with m.zuiko 75-300 on EM5

Posted in the Oly SLR forum as well

Lots of fine pictures in this thread.  Using the 75-300mm lens is working for both of you.

Nice examples of the utility of this lens for close-ups. I use my tele zooms for that purpose too (previously 40-150 and 100-300, now 40-150 and 75-300 II). Although you can't get to 1:1, you can get a bit more magnification by means of extension tubes (which I have found preferable optically to close-up lenses with these tele zooms although you get less magnification). The below samples (first two with the 100-300, last with the 40-150) were all shot with extension tubes. I haven't yet had the time to shoot much close-ups with the 75-300 II since I bought it only a few months ago. But I expect it to work just as well as the 100-300 for this purpose.

I've used extension tubes with my Panny 100-300mm and works very well.  Except I bought a cheap set of tubes and I found some light leaking into the system resulting in hazy images when the camera is pointed towards a bright background.  I think if I buy a good quality set of tubes (Kenko's), I should have great results.  I'm also experimenting with attaching a diopter in the front.  I'll report out when I get good results.

ysal wrote:

I've used extension tubes with my Panny 100-300mm and works very well. Except I bought a cheap set of tubes and I found some light leaking into the system resulting in hazy images when the camera is pointed towards a bright background. I think if I buy a good quality set of tubes (Kenko's), I should have great results. I'm also experimenting with attaching a diopter in the front. I'll report out when I get good results.

What you might be seeing is reflection of light off the inner barrel of the tubes rather than "leakage". See the post to which I link below and the subthread that follows for a discussion of this problem and a cheaper alternative to the Kenko tubes that appears to be free from this issue:

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/51893286

MarkLeeds2k5 wrote:

Anders W wrote:

What you might be seeing is reflection of light off the inner barrel of the tubes rather than "leakage". See the post to which I link below and the subthread that follows for a discussion of this problem and a cheaper alternative to the Kenko tubes that appears to be free from this issue:

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/51893286

Anders, are these the extension tubes you use?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/automatic-extension-Olympus-panasonic-thirds/dp/B00CANGBIK

Right. Build-quality is definitely so-so. They feel really cheap. But they are light, gets the job done, do have an inner barrel properly designed to reduce inner reflections and don't cost much.