In praise of the lowly Olympus 75-300mm

I recently acquired my 2nd version of this 'lowly' (since it's only 'Consumer grade' and not 'Professional') telephoto zoom, which is relatively affordably priced, especially used copies, as opposed to the definitely superb but heavier 'Pro' zooms, from both Olympus and PanaLeica, but I have been surprised by the quality and usability of the images it makes. Including this urban documentary shot (uncropped, using the full frame) --

taken in downtown Medford, Oregon

And this lightly cropped shot of one of my rural neighbors, an American Kestrel, near my house in southern Oregon--

taken at the supposedly 'softer' telephoto end of the zoom

It's light enough to not weigh a person down on a long walk or hike; the only disadvantage being that it's harder to keep a lens this light as steady as some heavier lenses. But if you can live with the slower apertures, the plastic construction and the lack of weather sealing, it seems like a rather fine and affordable piece of glass.

"I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed."
~Garry Winogrand~
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I totally agree -

I was just outside his flight distance.

Henry

I might get one some day. It's a fine lens for the $$$. As you say, holding a light long lens still is a challenge. Olympus IBIS helps

This one is on my shortlist! I have seen many reviews here, as many positive as negative it seems. It seems like half the issues may be the challenge of shooting a long lens, in this case unstabilized and with less generous aperture to play with.

For my purposes a lens like this would be for daily urban birding, and I think that would give me plenty of opportunities to practice. My current daily carry is an adapted EF Tamron 18-400, which I find versatile and sharp for slow/static subjects when I have more than a moment to set up a shot. Adapted (Viltrox mainly), the Tamron does not acquire focus fast enough for sudden bird moments, and BIF tends to be about 100% spray-and-pray. The Tamron is not a huge lens, but adapted it is just barely jacket-pocket portable. (I can just barely cram it into the cargo pocket of a shooting jacket, which I suppose is an ironic adaptation of gear from another form of birding).

I tried the Olympus 12-200, but found it lacking in range and corner performance. That leaves the 40-150 Pro with a teleconverter, if I want to stay in-brand with my E-M1 IIs and take advantage of stuff like ProCap L. I’m not quite ready to commit to the 300 f/4, and anyway the 40-150 Pro is right at the line everyday carry for me. The impending 40-150 f/4 unfortunately won’t be taking teleconverters, apparently.

Thanks for posting your impressions and samples!

My 75-300 is rather slow, but it only cost $350 direct from Olympus.

I’m learning you need to get closer to birds.

That seagull at Tuscumbia was over a hundred yards away.

When it’s warmer weather I’m going to Bagnell Dam where there’s an observation platform above the power generator discharge where blue herons wait for a meal.  You can get close, down there.

UrbanHobbit wrote:

This one is on my shortlist! I have seen many reviews here, as many positive as negative it seems. It seems like half the issues may be the challenge of shooting a long lens, in this case unstabilized and with less generous aperture to play with.

For my purposes a lens like this would be for daily urban birding, and I think that would give me plenty of opportunities to practice. My current daily carry is an adapted EF Tamron 18-400, which I find versatile and sharp for slow/static subjects when I have more than a moment to set up a shot. Adapted (Viltrox mainly), the Tamron does not acquire focus fast enough for sudden bird moments, and BIF tends to be about 100% spray-and-pray. The Tamron is not a huge lens, but adapted it is just barely jacket-pocket portable. (I can just barely cram it into the cargo pocket of a shooting jacket, which I suppose is an ironic adaptation of gear from another form of birding).

I tried the Olympus 12-200, but found it lacking in range and corner performance. That leaves the 40-150 Pro with a teleconverter, if I want to stay in-brand with my E-M1 IIs and take advantage of stuff like ProCap L. I’m not quite ready to commit to the 300 f/4, and anyway the 40-150 Pro is right at the line everyday carry for me. The impending 40-150 f/4 unfortunately won’t be taking teleconverters, apparently.

Thanks for posting your impressions and samples!

I mentioned in my original post that this is my 2nd 75-300mm. My first was also excellent, but I used it mainly on a GX9 body and it felt rather unbalanced and unwieldly. This time around, I am using it on an E-M1.1 body, and it feels like a different lens. AF (autofocus) feels quicker, and the lens feels better 'balanced' on the E-M1 body. I realize these are unscientific and subjective impressions, but there you have it. I suspect that faster shutter speeds may be one way of combating the difficulty of holding such a light lens completely steady when shooting at the 300mm end.

Incidentally I read all the positive and negative reviews first, before buying it, and a surprising number of people complained about 'softness' at the telephoto end. Maybe it's a copy to copy issue, with some random copies of the lens being softer and others sharper, but so far in my experience it's not 'soft' at all. My lens is v.II and most of the time it locks on focus quickly; but on other occasions it hunts or simply focuses on the wrong focal plane (a curse of many AF lenses in my admittedly prejudiced opinion).

My bottom line: the lens is a compromise (as many lenses are), it does a lot of things very well, others not so much. But (knock on wood) my copy is giving me results that are much better than I hoped for.

On my E-M10 II I have set Digital Zoom x2 on the F3 button (left of on-off switch).

For focusing, I selected the middle 9 sectors on the Super Control Panel for quickest operation on that model -

To switch to full screen or spot, I use the Info button .

Off Topic, having Face Detection ON makes my E-M10 II seeing faces in a black sky.

Henry

Henry Falkner wrote:

I totally agree -

I was just outside his flight distance.

Henry

the main subject is not in focus

It's a good lens when there's plenty of light.

I took these photos in the Serengeti with a 75-300 mounted on an E-P3:

The toughest beef in the world - Tanzania buffalo fights off a pride of lions

S

Thank you. My bad! This one has less head movement -

Henry

Henry Falkner wrote:

Thank you. My bad! This one has less head movement -

Henry

Sorry to say that, but both images are really bad to demonstrate the lens performance. is this one with digital zoom enabled?
this is one of the reasons that keeping me out of this lens, I see more bad examples than good. Only few of them were sharp enough (at full resolution).

Yes, the previous example does have digital zoom applied.

I am in the mood for an argument - so I try this one -

He had the decency of keeping still for most of the shots

Henry

Henry Falkner wrote:

Yes, the previous example does have digital zoom applied.

I am in the mood for an argument - so I try this one -

He had the decency of keeping still for most of the shots

Henry

thank you! it is in focus, but
240mm
iso4000 killed all of the fine details
not any better  than results from cheap 1" ultra zoom, although this is only 4x zoom lens

Nice examples, thanks for posting.

I don’t use my 75-300 for birding but it has become my standard for trips to botanical gardens for close ups of bugs and butterflies. I use it with my E-M5 III or E-M10 IV with a 16mm extension tube attached which gives me a shorter close focus distance, while still allowing autofocus out to about 18 feet. My copy is sharpest backed off to about 270mm and stopped down a tad, which still works fine for my use case. I got mine on a 20% off refurbished sale for about $350, IIRC. Well worth the price, I think

A few examples.

This with the 2x digital TC and tight crop

I ran across some kite boarders on the trip back from the botanical garden so the 75-300 was pressed into service.

Using C-AF with all focus points for cluster focusing at about 15 feet, tight crop.

hannahntilly wrote:

It's a shame I can't find a way of blocking your contributions.

More Options - Ignore user

there is nothing anti m43 in showing how the things are. Do you disagree that images are out of focus ?

gary0319 wrote:

Nice examples, thanks for posting.

I don’t use my 75-300 for birding but it has become my standard for trips to botanical gardens for close ups of bugs and butterflies. I use it with my E-M5 III or E-M10 IV with a 16mm extension tube attached which gives me a shorter close focus distance, while still allowing autofocus out to about 18 feet. My copy is sharpest backed off to about 270mm and stopped down a tad, which still works fine for my use case. I got mine on a 20% off refurbished sale for about $350, IIRC. Well worth the price, I think

A few examples.

This with the 2x digital TC and tight crop

I ran across some kite boarders on the trip back from the botanical garden so the 75-300 was pressed into service.

Using C-AF with all focus points for cluster focusing at about 15 feet, tight crop.

You've really got that lens singing.
I wouldn't have thought of adding an extension tube for close-ups.

First image is RAW converted to JPG from photoshop, some small tweaks with brightness, no sharpening or noise reduction.

Second is with deep prime denoise.

Not a good shot, backlit BS, but shows there are details from this lens.

BTW it was just shot through window, handheld, random shot.