75-300 is horrible

I have the Panasonic 100-300mm and although it will not challenge the 300mm f/4 in sharpness or brightness at 300mm, I agree with your assessment: those pictures are noticeably soft.  If you do go for the 300mm f/4 I suspect it will make you happier.

When I see results like yours, I wonder what's wrong with my 75-300?  My experience is more similar to the OP's.

Does this lens have more sample-to-sample variance than most others?

Mark Ransom wrote:

When I see results like yours, I wonder what's wrong with my 75-300?

Technique? The OPs photos were all taken at 300mm, and 1/300sec or less and relatively high ISO, and guessing (but could be wrong) hand held with only body stabilization. I would have been surprised if they were sharp, not forgeting that it is a cheap consumer grade hyper-zoom lens. Surely can't compare that to the 300mm pro lens that is 6x the cost or photos taken at nearly 3-8x the speed.

Roger

Mark Ransom wrote:

When I see results like yours, I wonder what's wrong with my 75-300? My experience is more similar to the OP's.

Does this lens have more sample-to-sample variance than most others?

Not seeing what you are seeing.

Even at tiny web sized "thumbnail" they all look watercoloured.

It's clear heavy noise reduction has been applied in an attempt to hide the obvious softness.

Unimpressed at all.

BWfoto wrote:

I really have come to despise this lens. Especially zoomed out where I always shoot it. Took these today and the lens is so soft.

That was my experience with the lens as well. I've seen people get sharp photos from it but the one that I briefly had performed more like yours. It was very clearly optically inferior even to the inexpensive Olympus 40-150mm F4-5.6 R that I tested it against. I think, as others have speculated, that there's a lot of variability in this lens.

I ended up with the Panasonic 100-400 instead. It was vastly superior from an optical standpoint. It was a bit less exciting from a financial and weight perspective and I was not always happy with the focusing performance at the long end. I don't know how much of that last was the lens and how much was the older body (E-M1) that I used with it.

I hope that the 300 f/4 works out for you!

Dennis1972 wrote:

Mark Ransom wrote:

When I see results like yours, I wonder what's wrong with my 75-300? My experience is more similar to the OP's.

Does this lens have more sample-to-sample variance than most others?

Not seeing what you are seeing.

Even at tiny web sized "thumbnail" they all look watercoloured.

It's clear heavy noise reduction has been applied in an attempt to hide the obvious softness.

Unimpressed at all.

You realize that DPReview destroys the pictures it displays in-line in the thread?  You need to click on the image and display it at 100% to see it as intended.

Mark Ransom wrote:

Dennis1972 wrote:

Mark Ransom wrote:

When I see results like yours, I wonder what's wrong with my 75-300? My experience is more similar to the OP's.

Does this lens have more sample-to-sample variance than most others?

Not seeing what you are seeing.

Even at tiny web sized "thumbnail" they all look watercoloured.

It's clear heavy noise reduction has been applied in an attempt to hide the obvious softness.

Unimpressed at all.

You realize that DPReview destroys the pictures it displays in-line in the thread? You need to click on the image and display it at 100% to see it as intended.

Of course I did?

I call them "thumbnail" because they aren't in full res and are all < 5mb.

Even so it's clear they are watercoloured.

Totally, the 75-300 Oly is a disaster. Honestly I can’t believe they even approved its release based on its slow 6.3 aperture in combination with its unacceptable image quality.

worst part is when it was released, it was something like $900......

The first image is taken at 1/100s at 300mm. That's asking a lot from your steady hand plus image stabilization. But I notice a bit of a double edge at the feathers which to me suggests shutter shock. The second image has a bit faster shutter speed but still seems to suffer from some motion blur to me. The way in which parts of the image are soft seems "directional" which makes me suspect motion blur. At 300mm you need to be very careful about keeping the camera and lens steady and not cause blur from pressing the shutter button in order to get sharp results.

I only have a few images that could possibly compare to what you tried. Here is one, with a much smaller bird (also cropped a bit). 1/1500s and f/8 are key to getting a bit of sharpness here.

Here a different type of bird and not all the way at 300mm (1/500s, f/8):

But it can also go wrong, as shown here (1/200s, f/8), shot taken seconds before the sharp one:

If the lens can do what the sharp image shows then clearly I would say the blurred (last) image is due to user error (shutter speed too slow plus motion blur).

I see a kind of double image of all of the lichen in the first picture, which suggests to me some kind of shake or vibration from the camera.

I found the 75-300mm F/4.8-6.7 II soft at 300mm & used AF focus adjust that’s provided on the Olympus E-M1 MKII.

When I first got the lens I checked the focus in manual mode using a tripod targeting at different distances. Close too it was ok but above 280mm it became unsharp.

Fortunately with the E-M1 Mark II its possible to adjust for this deficiency.

AF Focus Adjust found at menu * A3 - 4

I had to adjust mine to +2 for it to be very sharp at 300mm.
Also I use the largest jpeg image possible which is LSF mode (5184 x 3888) pixels when not using RAW.

This critter refused to move round the tree into the sunshine but nevertheless the feather detail is ok even in the shade.

really nice pics, and those prints!!! very nice

check that guys posting history, you may be wasting your breath, though I wont complain if you post more images