75-300 ii, Is this what I should expect?

Joe

I have just bought a 75-300ii (GBP 85 cashback in UK at present) and am interested in this discussion. Unfortunately since I bought it, the light has been really poor so I have not got any proper samples. yet.

However, just for clarity

What were your focus settings?

Are these RAW or JPEG?

Have you done any PP on them?

Did you use e-shutter?

Exactly which part of your image are you looking at, which gives you concern about the IQ

Thanks...I hope I can share if the sun comes out!

tom

Stunning butterfly shot well done, i love this lens and as others have said to get the best out of it technique is so important, i fine around 7.1 is best keeping shutter speed above 600 if possible.

Besides the tips concerning handholding (which are important even with lens- and/or in-body-IS) I see some issues with focusing here. Use the smallest single focus box you can get and place it directly on your subject. The second shot has focus on te waves in the bg, the last one has focus on the grass in front of the tree. I think I also see some focusing on bg in the first shot. Even a slow f6.7 produces VERY shallow DoF at 300mm...

Besides that your subjects are too far away in #2 and #3 (and #4), even a 12000$ 600mm f4 on a high-res Nikon D850 wouldn't resolve enough detail to get pleasing or even usable images. Get closer to better fill the frame with your subject. Even with a long tele lens you want to get as close as possible...

Cagey75 wrote:

Not being funny, but looks like your hand holding technique sucks a bit. Are you reminding yourself that this lens is pretty much a 600mm in terms of full frame? Try hand holding a 600mm on a Nikon D800 and 'casually' shooting .... it's a new ball game, you have to knuckle down, steady up, use a tripod when you can otherwise really pay attention to the fact you are shooting so long.

Thanks for your advice.

I'm wondering what would be different between using this lens and my old fuji hs20 which was 720mm equiv. and never had a problem handholding it.

I will try using a tripod maybe and see the results.

scottyinfrisco wrote:

Joe Snow wrote:

scottyinfrisco wrote:

This lens and the Panasonic 100-300 seem to vary greatly copy to copy. The copy of this lens I had was much better than what you are showing here.

would you please post an example OOC?

All hand held SOOC

Thank for sharing.

I have some good results with my lens and they are the same as yours. which leads me to think my technique was the issue!

Adrian Harris wrote:

You have not stated anything about your camera or settings or technique. All of which can and will affect your results greatly.

With practice and fine tuning camera settings, the sharpness of images I got from my 75-300 mk2 improved dramatically. It is now even quite sharp at the 300 end!

Give us more info to allow us to advise.

PS. Turning on the electronic shutter is an important first step.

I will try using the electronic shutter. Thanks

will focus wrote:

Higher shutter speeds certainly help, especially when shooting from a moving, bouncing boat, as was the case here. Still, when viewed original size, a crewmember is clearly visible through the windows of the bridge. The distant (10+ miles away) windmills are suffering from atmospheric distortion.

The lens does take some effort to get right and is , after all, like handholding a 600mm at the long end. I've had mine since May and I'm still trying to remind myself that I need to keep the crosshairs on target and squeeze the shutter release like I would a rifle shot If I want detail when zoomed in. I think the stabilization cuts both ways sometimes in that, sure, it helps stabilize the image, but it also tends to hide how sloppy I am holding the camera. Disable it and crack off a few hand held shots. You'll see how bad you'd be if you were shooting an old Nikkormat film camera with a 600mm lens hanging off the front. It's eye opening and an easy barometer from which to compare.

Nice example.

Thanks for sharing.

Martin.au wrote:

This is what I expect.

amazing examples.

Thanks for sharing.

will focus wrote:

Although I used a much slower shutter speed here (1/100th sec) I was able to obtain a sharp image at the max zoom of 300mm by carefully handholding. Things work out much better when both the camera and the subject are stable. It gives a better representation of what the lens is capable of.

thanks for your input.

Astrotripper wrote:

Check to see if things improve with electronic shutter. My Panasonic 100-300 II benefits significantly from e-shutter and anti-shock mode (on my E-M10, which does not have e-shutter), so maybe 75-300 is similarly affected by shutter shock.

I will try it definitely. many folks have the same advice.

Brian Wadie wrote:

I think the others have covered the key points, higher shutter speeds, Electronic shutter and the like

For me, the biggest bar to getting really sharp images was that the lens is very light for the focal length so I found it tended to "waver in my hands" and I found it really difficult to sort the hand-holding technique for best results

I came up with two "tricks", the first was to attach a monopod but rather than extending it as a rest I kept it closed and used it as a counter-weight to help my stability.

Second was to adapt my hand-holding technique so that I created a rigid triangle between the camera, both arms and the eye-piece pressed tightly against my eye-socket. I then moved the entire group to focus turning my body rather than rotating head and shoulders. (its difficult to describe clearly but I hope it makes some sort of sense)

My final solution was to sell it and go for heavier / higher quality optics such as the 50-200 SWD and now the panny 100-400, where I find the extra mass makes hand-holding stability much better

I felt the same way, the lens s light. I will try using different techniques to deal with the weight (which I'm happy with)

tomhongkong wrote:

Joe

I have just bought a 75-300ii (GBP 85 cashback in UK at present) and am interested in this discussion. Unfortunately since I bought it, the light has been really poor so I have not got any proper samples. yet.

However, just for clarity

What were your focus settings?

Are these RAW or JPEG?

Have you done any PP on them?

Did you use e-shutter?

Exactly which part of your image are you looking at, which gives you concern about the IQ

Thanks...I hope I can share if the sun comes out!

tom

Hi Tom,

all pictures are SOOC, no PP no RAW. I was using mechanical shutter. The lens gave me some good results (for the price) and I'm happy with, but I had some other photos where the photo is unusable.

the blurry photos are my concern, especially on 1/640th.
I had a fuji before and I was shooting @ 720mm equiv most of the time and didn't have an issue at the same shutter speed. So I thought the lens may suffer from something.

I will try using the electronic shutter and see if that will help.

cerich wrote:

I really ave barely used my 75-300 at all. Maybe a dozen backyard play shots before the other day when I brought it along to the zoo.
This was hand held. I think the lens is good, but to get the most from as so many have said takes some practice and technique.

amazing shot. thanks for sharing.

fft2000 wrote:

Besides the tips concerning handholding (which are important even with lens- and/or in-body-IS) I see some issues with focusing here. Use the smallest single focus box you can get and place it directly on your subject. The second shot has focus on te waves in the bg, the last one has focus on the grass in front of the tree. I think I also see some focusing on bg in the first shot. Even a slow f6.7 produces VERY shallow DoF at 300mm...

Besides that your subjects are too far away in #2 and #3 (and #4), even a 12000$ 600mm f4 on a high-res Nikon D850 wouldn't resolve enough detail to get pleasing or even usable images. Get closer to better fill the frame with your subject. Even with a long tele lens you want to get as close as possible...

I usually use the small inbox and in most case I magnify it and use it that way to make sure the focus is right.

Thanks for your advice.