Olympus 100-400mm/5.0-6.3 IS - my review

Petr Bambousek wrote:

NCV wrote:

As expected some great pictures have been produced by the OP with this lens.

But I would say that the post should be titled "Presentation" rather than "Review", seeing that the OP is connected to Olympus by being a "Visionary."

This post is a social media marketing exploit and not in any way an impartial "review".

Please lets have some honest transparency and have an accurate title.

Well, I would like to avoid to start flame in rather decent discussion. I am just wondering, what you think to be "Olympus visionary" REALLY means? I expect you think Olympus pay to visionaries to say its gear is great. Which is common mistake far from reality.

Obviously I do not know the details of the contract you signed to become an Olympus Visionary.

I run a small business and have gone out of my way to do courses on how to market my business via social media. I have a son who has a degree in this sort of stuff who advises me. So I have a good idea of what Olympus are doing with their Visionary program.

But I surmise from my experience and common sense that you would not last long as a "visionary" if you included negative opinions about a piece of Olympus kit. I think we can agree on that.

I too do not want to get into an argument. I just believe these "reviews" by "Visionaries " and such should be labelled as "Presentation by Olympus Visionary".

I am just asking for correctness.

My idea of a review is description and comment on a device by somebody with no link to the manufacturer or agent.

All my articles are based on my personal experiences and never been changed single word from Olympus guys.

I imagined they briefed you about what you can and cannot say.

I chose my equipment voluntarily based on my personal preferences and feelings. BUT yes - I love my gear. YES, I dig very deeply to setting to tune up the camera to be perfect in real wildlife photografy life. I'd rather look for a solution than make an infinity complain that that's not good enough for this and that. And finally YES, Olympus like my work and I am honored I am time to time featured in their materials as well as I am priviledged to have some gear in advance to make personal testing before release (feedback from visionaries is important for future fw updates, etc.).

I don't doubt it.

I am confident all my observations reflects my real experiences and are not curved to make the gear better than I really mean. And honestly I really don't understand why people tend to believe more "reviewers" who are not interested particularly to wildlife photography (and very often even to Oly gear) and just recap technical facts with several usually poor pictures. They are not even willing properly set the camera just make sure nothing is good enough for their needs. "Visionary" multi-award wining wildlife photographer with more than 15 years of real field experiences in wild "review" with tens of exapmles confirming what is written based on 3 weeks intensive testing period is less valued one.

Sure, but I would like to see the word "presentation" rather than "review" used it the title.

This is why I never "review" portrait/wedding/street oriented lenses.

Choice is always on particular person, I always recommend to "try first" before buy. As there are zillion other "reviews" available, I am pretty sure people can do their clear decision if buy or not. Everybody can find lots of my work examples (over 300 to be seen here: https://500px.com/sulasulacom/galleries/olympus), I am not hidden person for rest of the world behind nickname.

I fact I never buy gear I have not handled.

A presentation by a demonstrator ( or visionary) is very valuable. I go to demonstrations of  software I am interested in buying for my business. But I am under no illusions about the fact they are trying to sell me stuff.

Regards,
Petr

Fsi wrote:

Petr Bambousek wrote:

NCV wrote:

As expected some great pictures have been produced by the OP with this lens.

But I would say that the post should be titled "Presentation" rather than "Review", seeing that the OP is connected to Olympus by being a "Visionary."

This post is a social media marketing exploit and not in any way an impartial "review".

Please lets have some honest transparency and have an accurate title.

Well, I would like to avoid to start flame in rather decent discussion. I am just wondering, what you think to be "Olympus visionary" REALLY means? I expect you think Olympus pay to visionaries to say its gear is great. Which is common mistake far from reality.

All my articles are based on my personal experiences and never been changed single word from Olympus guys.

I chose my equipment voluntarily based on my personal preferences and feelings. BUT yes - I love my gear. YES, I dig very deeply to setting to tune up the camera to be perfect in real wildlife photografy life. I'd rather look for a solution than make an infinity complain that that's not good enough for this and that. And finally YES, Olympus like my work and I am honored I am time to time featured in their materials as well as I am priviledged to have some gear in advance to make personal testing before release (feedback from visionaries is important for future fw updates, etc.).

I am confident all my observations reflects my real experiences and are not curved to make the gear better than I really mean. And honestly I really don't understand why people tend to believe more "reviewers" who are not interested particularly to wildlife photography (and very often even to Oly gear) and just recap technical facts with several usually poor pictures. They are not even willing properly set the camera just make sure nothing is good enough for their needs. "Visionary" multi-award wining wildlife photographer with more than 15 years of real field experiences in wild "review" with tens of exapmles confirming what is written based on 3 weeks intensive testing period is less valued one.

This is why I never "review" portrait/wedding/street oriented lenses.

Choice is always on particular person, I always recommend to "try first" before buy. As there are zillion other "reviews" available, I am pretty sure people can do their clear decision if buy or not. Everybody can find lots of my work examples (over 300 to be seen here: https://500px.com/sulasulacom/galleries/olympus), I am not hidden person for rest of the world behind nickname.

Regards,
Petr

Spot on Petr, don't waste your time with the peanut gallery. Your findings on the ability to underexpose by 3 stops with iso 64 and live nd mode, for example, was found because you use the camera daily, not just for a limited time and then blow up over specs. The visionaries / ambassadors are a great help ( regardless of camera brand ) because they are working professionals, not amateurs looking for the next big thing.

Read and understand what I wrote.

These posts are valuable demonstrations of a piece of kit. But they are in no way an impartial review.

Semantics old boy.

Gary from Seattle wrote:

NCV wrote:

As expected some great pictures have been produced by the OP with this lens.

But I would say that the post should be titled "Presentation" rather than "Review", seeing that the OP is connected to Olympus by being a "Visionary."

This post is a social media marketing exploit and not in any way an impartial "review".

Please lets have some honest transparency and have an accurate title.

Nobody can do a better review of equipment than someone who uses the gear extensively. Something less is just a short test but without the skills to get the most out of the gear.

Read and understand what I wrote.

These posts are valuable demonstrations of a piece of kit. But they are in no way an impartial review.

Semantics old boy.

Chris 222 wrote:

gary0319 wrote:

Adrian Harris wrote:

NCV wrote:

As expected some great pictures have been produced by the OP with this lens.

But I would say that the post should be titled "Presentation" rather than "Review", seeing that the OP is connected to Olympus by being a "Visionary."

This post is a social media marketing exploit and not in any way an impartial "review".

Please lets have some honest transparency and have an accurate title.

On balance I felt it was far superior to what DPreview managed to do!

Absolutely! I would much prefer to have a “presentation “ by someone who is both knowledgeable and accomplished, than a review by someone who is neither.

Spot on Gary.

The pictures speak for themselves!

As to the Nikon expert you responded to, "exploit" is a French word whose meaning he clearly doesn't understand, so..

From the Collins Dictionary:

COUNTABLE NOUN [usually plural, with poss]

If you refer to someone's exploits, you mean the brave, interesting, or amusing things that they have done.

Example: His wartime exploits were later made into a film.

.
"Please lets have some honest transparency and use accurate words"?

LOL.

LOL say Sorry man. You are wrong.

Or maybe he's just seriously miffed that ANYBODY could possibly produce better shots with a puny MFT system than he never could get with his mighty Nikon?

Either way his post is pretty insulting towards Petr Bambousek IMHO..