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

Joe

I am going to go against the flow, and probably upset some folks, and say that I don't think you are doing too badly. There are things which you could do better. The main things being:

Shoot RAW and PP properly. I would not expect to get shots which stand up to critical examination from OOC JPEGs.

Use E shutter. Although the received wisdom is that shutter shock only strikes up to about 1/300, my experience in using EM1 (sorry no EM5) is that it has residual effects at all shutter speeds

It's a balance between getting fast enough shutter, and low enough iso. In some circumstances you just can't get a perfect shot. Today, I had to use iso 3200 to shoot at 1/500 wide open with my test shots. iso 3200 is never going to win any prizes, nor is shutter speed less than 1/500, hand held. I am hoping for better light tomorrow.

Then, there are one or two good shots which have been posted by others, but many are at 200-250mm (some shots quite stopped down as well and some quite unsharp?) It is accepted that 250 -300mm is the problem area for this lens, and those shots you have shown at 300mm are mostly where you think you are having problems, so far as I can see. So shots which are less than 300, or are not posted at full resolution are not going to be helpful for a decent comparison. In fact, if I analyse carefully what I guess to be the focus area of your shots they are not bad (no worse than some others which have been posted) Don't forget you have a very shallow DOF compared with your Fuji (which model, incidentally, I am guessing something with a small sensor) and you cannot expect subject matter on a different plane from the focus area to be in focus.

I am sure with a bit of attention to the points which others have mentioned you are going to be happy with the lens!

Incidentally, I always tell myself that if I can ever get one really sharp photo from a lens, there is nothing wrong with it. If the rest are not sharp it is my technique failing

cheers

tom

Joe Snow wrote:

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.

Spiridakis Michael wrote:

The Fuji that you say is a leaf shutter camera, so there are no vibrations from the shutter plus some other benefits too.

I didn't know that.

Thanks,

tomhongkong wrote:

Joe

I am going to go against the flow, and probably upset some folks, and say that I don't think you are doing too badly. There are things which you could do better. The main things being:

Shoot RAW and PP properly. I would not expect to get shots which stand up to critical examination from OOC JPEGs.

Use E shutter. Although the received wisdom is that shutter shock only strikes up to about 1/300, my experience in using EM1 (sorry no EM5) is that it has residual effects at all shutter speeds

It's a balance between getting fast enough shutter, and low enough iso. In some circumstances you just can't get a perfect shot. Today, I had to use iso 3200 to shoot at 1/500 wide open with my test shots. iso 3200 is never going to win any prizes, nor is shutter speed less than 1/500, hand held. I am hoping for better light tomorrow.

Then, there are one or two good shots which have been posted by others, but many are at 200-250mm (some shots quite stopped down as well and some quite unsharp?) It is accepted that 250 -300mm is the problem area for this lens, and those shots you have shown at 300mm are mostly where you think you are having problems, so far as I can see. So shots which are less than 300, or are not posted at full resolution are not going to be helpful for a decent comparison. In fact, if I analyse carefully what I guess to be the focus area of your shots they are not bad (no worse than some others which have been posted) Don't forget you have a very shallow DOF compared with your Fuji (which model, incidentally, I am guessing something with a small sensor) and you cannot expect subject matter on a different plane from the focus area to be in focus.

I am sure with a bit of attention to the points which others have mentioned you are going to be happy with the lens!

Incidentally, I always tell myself that if I can ever get one really sharp photo from a lens, there is nothing wrong with it. If the rest are not sharp it is my technique failing

cheers

tom

Joe Snow wrote:

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.

I think many people here replied and advised (and I thank them for that) as I'm still learning how to shoot with a zoom.

The number of unusable photos are more than what I was expecting. and giving the fact that I had an older camera (Fuji HS20EXR) 6 years ago with much smaller sensor and longer focal length, I didn't have this percentage of blurry/Shaky results. So I don't fully agree with 600mm equiv. and some handheld techniques.
However, the lens still produces nice and sharp results.

I usually shoot RAW, but when the photo is blurry there is not much to do.

here are some examples for nice and sharp results OOC:

Boss of Sony wrote:

I think you're not close enough to your subjects. It does reach 300mm, but you still need to be reasonably close to get a decent bird shot. Also, certain bodies will give you shutter shock and some people will blame the lens when it's actually caused by the shutter. The latest Panasonic cameras seem to be free of shutter shock with the new shutter. IBIS needed too at long focal lengths. Check out my post. All these shots were taken within a few days, most at 300mm: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4223426

Totally agree with this... the boat in this shot is about 400 yards away. If I can get this detail, check out the rollers for example, then the lens isn’t the cause of soft shots...

Joe

I think that the first shot, below, shows that there is not much wrong with your lens (at the centre, because that is all it shows)

I think that all of them are definitely at the slow end of shutter speed, though.

So the rest is up to your technique, and you have had plenty of suggestions, and your expectations.  You simply do not get the dof with the 4/3 lens that you have been used to.

Good luck and show us some shots when you are happy....I am sure they will be gret

tom

Joe Snow wrote:

I think many people here replied and advised (and I thank them for that) as I'm still learning how to shoot with a zoom.

The number of unusable photos are more than what I was expecting. and giving the fact that I had an older camera (Fuji HS20EXR) 6 years ago with much smaller sensor and longer focal length, I didn't have this percentage of blurry/Shaky results. So I don't fully agree with 600mm equiv. and some handheld techniques.
However, the lens still produces nice and sharp results.

I usually shoot RAW, but when the photo is blurry there is not much to do.

here are some examples for nice and sharp results OOC:

Today was nice and sunny. I took some test shots, a couple are below

These were taken using e shutter on EM1 mk1.

Focus was right in the centre, on the round fan/motor unit

I had some support, resting the lens against the edge of my window frame. I also took with anti shock (diamond) and could not see any difference

Now, if I can get my handholding technique as good, I will be happy! Anyway it shows that my lens is good (I think)

Comments welcome

300mm

240mm

Tom

Trevor Carpenter wrote:

Can I add to the discussion. Forget about taking pictures like 1,2 & 3 for now. If you want to shoot dogs with the lens do it when they are a few metres away, likewise kingfishers and boats. When you are getting good quality pics (which you will), then and only then, think about taking more distant subjects. It's been said many times on this forum but long zooms are best used for making close subjects even closer, not necessarily for taking subjects miles away.

I agree with you in general. However, the 1st picture is shot at 1/500 sec at 75mm...

glassoholic wrote:

Also use the electronic shutter.

Yes, the electronic shutter on the EM10 vII helped a lot. (my technique didn't change/improve) I had lots of frustration shooting with it on my EM10 v1 which does not have the option of an electronic shutter, the O" EFCS didn't seem to help much.  Maybe it would with I.S. off?

I also use a 1/8 second delay with the electronic shutter to mitigate camera movement from me pressing the shutter button.

F9 seems like a good compromise, consistently sharp and sharper than F6.7 and seems nearly as sharp as F11 in corners. F9 is a little less than one stop (F9.3) down from F6.7. F6.7 is only occasionally sharp, lens focusing errors?

I haven't been able to determine as yet whether slightly shorter than maximum focal lengths (e.g. 275mm) provide more detail than 300mm. The lens is certainly sharp up to 200mm.

Hello Joe / All,

Something that you might not have considered is that the very light weight of the Olympus 75-300 lens is working against stability in a super-telephoto.

As you know, a 300mm lens is extreme telephoto in m34 format. It's a 600mm 35mm equivalent, and its use is like a marksman taking a shot at extreme range.

Something you'll notice about a marksman's equipment, is that the target shooting rifle will have a very heavy barrel or his bow (for Olympic archers) will often have weights attached to it. That's because weight = stability.

So, if you're after action shots, like the jet aircraft, and you don't want to use a tripod (or monopod) then -- just as an experiment -- try strapping some weights to your lens. You'll be amazed how much the addition of weight will improve your stability.

I'm actually a Sport England qualified National Shooting Coach, in rifle and archery, so I do know what I'm talking about.

One other thing to be aware of (and now I'm speaking as a professional photographer) is that Electronic Shutter and fast jets / cars will give you problems. The image will appear to lean over, due to the way the sensor scans the image, line-by-line, in electronic shutter mode. Electronic shutter will work great if you're photographing a stationary object, like a Heron sitting on a perch, but try Googling for videos explaining the pro's and con's of the different shutter modes -- Mechanical, Anti-Shock, and Electronic -- to get a good understanding of the trade-offs of each.

BTW, some great examples of extreme telephoto photography on here. Nice work.

Rick