Unassuming lens for birding on a budget

These are a couple of my best with my 75-300 at 300. The first is handheld and the second is via tripod. That second I couldn't find at original resolution, unfortunately. I kind of soured on this lens, but I may go back to it, especially since nearly all my experience was with my Mark 1 EM5, and now I have the Mark 2. If I remember right, I noticed a big improvement early on when I switched to anti-shock, from which I concluded that shuttershock was an issue for me with this lens...and I know the anti-shock options are better on the Mark 2.
OTOH I wouldn't be surprised if mine is one of the less than excellent units. I bought it second hand, and even these best of mine aren't as sharp as the photos of at least two out of three of the posters above.
(Note, in case it seems unfair to judge the lens at 1/50 sec handheld, this shot is no blurrier than another I took moments before at 1/250 sec. The bird was just standing obligingly still)

JamesMorgan wrote:

I've had the lens a couple of years and love its size and weight. Its focusing is a little slow so BiF can be challenging, but can do done (as long as you accept quite a few missed focus shots). For stationary birds it is fine. To me the only real drawback is that it is a little too short for many birds - I am often wishing that I had a longer lens (ideally 400mm). This results in a lot of post-processing cropping which can lead to softness. My ideal combination would be this lens plus a high MP body (25-40MP if it existed on m43).

The following is a selection of indicitive photos (all heavily cropped, except the Robin!)

I found the same as you, an excellent lens for birding but I usually ended up cropping my image.

So a month ago I bought the Oly 100-400mm, and quite a difference with the extra 100mm. But not really worth the 3.5 X price tag. Wouldn't take much for me to abandon the 100-400mm.

Interesting to hear about the 100-400mm. A relative actually bought me the 300mm f4 Pro for Christmas after they heard I was looking at the 100-400mm - looking only, as I couldn’t afford it anyway. I haven’t used the 75-300mm since. But the 75-300mm is so much lighter and more compact, I can see travelling situations where it could possibly be preferable.

JamesMorgan wrote:

I found the same as you, an excellent lens for birding but I usually ended up cropping my image.

So a month ago I bought the Oly 100-400mm, and quite a difference with the extra 100mm. But not really worth the 3.5 X price tag. Wouldn't take much for me to abandon the 100-400mm.

I'm also very tempted by the Oly 100-400, but keep putting it off as ideally I want to keep the 75-300 but use it on a higher MP body so I'm waiting for a G9 replacement with 25MP (I may be waiting a long time!).

I'm also tempted by the Canon R7 with RF 100-400. This is a smaller lens than the Oly 100-400 and combined with the 32 MP body may be a good combination.

One of the common criticisms of the 75-300 is that it doesn't have a very wide max aperture. However, I rarely find this an issue as I often shoot at f8 to get all of the subject in focus.

I don't know which camera body you're using, but recently, (two months ago), I upgraded from E-M5 II to the E-M1 III.
A huge improvement in focusing the 75-300, much faster, much more positive.

And as far as more Mpix goes, the HHHRes mode is amazing. It only takes a fraction of a second (and I mean typically 1/4 sec) to capture all 16 pix, and a few more seconds to process them in-camera.
Which means a bird only has to sit still for !/2 sec or so to get a high res shot. (Assuming your light levels are high enough to be shooting at about 1/1000 sec).

There's a thread somewhere, where someone captures HHHRes shots of butterflies and other bugs.

3dpan wrote:

JamesMorgan wrote:

I found the same as you, an excellent lens for birding but I usually ended up cropping my image.

So a month ago I bought the Oly 100-400mm, and quite a difference with the extra 100mm. But not really worth the 3.5 X price tag. Wouldn't take much for me to abandon the 100-400mm.

I'm also very tempted by the Oly 100-400, but keep putting it off as ideally I want to keep the 75-300 but use it on a higher MP body so I'm waiting for a G9 replacement with 25MP (I may be waiting a long time!).

I'm also tempted by the Canon R7 with RF 100-400. This is a smaller lens than the Oly 100-400 and combined with the 32 MP body may be a good combination.

One of the common criticisms of the 75-300 is that it doesn't have a very wide max aperture. However, I rarely find this an issue as I often shoot at f8 to get all of the subject in focus.

I don't know which camera body you're using, but recently, (two months ago), I upgraded from E-M5 II to the E-M1 III.
A huge improvement in focusing the 75-300, much faster, much more positive.

And as far as more Mpix goes, the HHHRes mode is amazing. It only takes a fraction of a second (and I mean typically 1/4 sec) to capture all 16 pix, and a few more seconds to process them in-camera.
Which means a bird only has to sit still for !/2 sec or so to get a high res shot. (Assuming your light levels are high enough to be shooting at about 1/1000 sec).

There's a thread somewhere, where someone captures HHHRes shots of butterflies and other bugs.

And following up on the idea of 25 Mpix on a G9, I suspect that is not actually going to be a 25% advantage over 20Mpix.
Even at 20Mpix now, the limiting factor is lens resolution and aberration levels, and not sensor.

And as for the APS-C R7, at 32MPix the pixel density (ie resolving capacity) equates to 16MPix on an m4/3 sensor.
Hardly sharper than 20MPix on m4/3.

Think about it.

JamesMorgan wrote:

And following up on the idea of 25 Mpix on a G9, I suspect that is not actually going to be a 25% advantage over 20Mpix.
Even at 20Mpix now, the limiting factor is lens resolution and aberration levels, and not sensor.

And as for the APS-C R7, at 32MPix the pixel density (ie resolving capacity) equates to 16MPix on an m4/3 sensor.
Hardly sharper than 20MPix on m4/3.

Think about it.

I'm currently using a Panasonic G85 (so only 16MP). I can't get too excited about upgrading to a 20MP camera as this is only a 25% increase, however, a 25MP sensor would give me over 50% increase. This would effectively convert my 75-300 into a 375mm lens.

The attraction with the Canon set-up is the lens. The sensor is the same pixel density as my G85, but the RF 100-400 isn't much heavier than the Oly 75-300 (and about half the weight of the Oly 100-400). This means for a similar weight set-up I can convert to a 400mm lens. There are also other advantages of the R7 (eg focusing - I'm sure some of the issues I currently have with BiF is down to my current camera rather than the lens)

Actually your math is off a bit. The pixel density of the Canon APS-C 24 MP sensors are similar to the 16 MP m4/3. The Canon 32 MP APS-C sensor is similar to the 20 MP m4/3 sensors.

The Canon APS-C sensors only have about 50% higher surface area compared to m4/3 (NOT 2x).

Chris

ChrisPCrunch wrote:

JamesMorgan wrote:

And following up on the idea of 25 Mpix on a G9, I suspect that is not actually going to be a 25% advantage over 20Mpix.
Even at 20Mpix now, the limiting factor is lens resolution and aberration levels, and not sensor.

And as for the APS-C R7, at 32MPix the pixel density (ie resolving capacity) equates to 16MPix on an m4/3 sensor.
Hardly sharper than 20MPix on m4/3.

Think about it.

I'm currently using a Panasonic G85 (so only 16MP). I can't get too excited about upgrading to a 20MP camera as this is only a 25% increase, however, a 25MP sensor would give me over 50% increase. This would effectively convert my 75-300 into a 375mm lens.

The attraction with the Canon set-up is the lens. The sensor is the same pixel density as my G85, but the RF 100-400 isn't much heavier than the Oly 75-300 (and about half the weight of the Oly 100-400). This means for a similar weight set-up I can convert to a 400mm lens. There are also other advantages of the R7 (eg focusing - I'm sure some of the issues I currently have with BiF is down to my current camera rather than the lens)

Actually your math is off a bit. The pixel density of the Canon APS-C 24 MP sensors are similar to the 16 MP m4/3. The Canon 32 MP APS-C sensor is similar to the 20 MP m4/3 sensors.

The Canon APS-C sensors only have about 50% higher surface area compared to m4/3 (NOT 2x).

Chris

Thanks, you are correct and I apologise. Nice to know someone reads my posts.

I had forgotten Canon APS-C was so much smaller than Nikon APS-C.

JamesMorgan wrote:

I've had the lens a couple of years and love its size and weight. Its focusing is a little slow so BiF can be challenging, but can do done (as long as you accept quite a few missed focus shots). For stationary birds it is fine. To me the only real drawback is that it is a little too short for many birds - I am often wishing that I had a longer lens (ideally 400mm). This results in a lot of post-processing cropping which can lead to softness. My ideal combination would be this lens plus a high MP body (25-40MP if it existed on m43).

The following is a selection of indicitive photos (all heavily cropped, except the Robin!)

I've never gotten anything close to this sharpness, which I think validates my hunch that my copy of this lens is a loser, while you and some of the others here bought winners.

Your review is spot “on” from my experience. There is a very frustrating learning curve and lots of less than average results for birding. My confidence level is not very high that it will “deliver” the goods on a consistent basis unfortunately. Maybe a later review will have better results.