In defence of the OM100-400 lens (birdsssss)...

Yannis1976 wrote:

I am one of the people not being very happy with the lens. However browsing all the photos (817!!) I have taken with it so far, some of them are quite good and sharp. I decided to collect the best of them in this post.

Thanks for sharing these nice photos!

Currently I have a rather mixed impression about this lens, but I still need to get more photos shot with it to clear up my mind.

What I definitely think is that the bokeh is a weakness of this lens, especially as we are on MFT with its specific DoF properties. I see this basically in every photo collection that was shot with this lens on the internet, and I also don’t like the bokeh in three of these shots, while a fourth one is OK, but it already enters borderline don’t like territory.

With this being the case you are really constraint with this lens regarding the possible motives, and you need to always shoot at a mostly uniform background, or work with the background / subject, or subject / photographer distance, which is sometimes not possible, and in my cases almost never possible.

That said, this is still a nice lens.

I've been very happy with the Olympus 100-400, a reliable/QC consistent affordable telephoto. Finally!

I appreciate those who post SOOC images. Viewing an image that's had post easily obscures what a lens providez.
Have you ever noticed lens reviews never post lousy shots? Yet, you know they happen ...

It is the smaller sensor which is necessarily combined with smaller lenses and shot at longer distances..

Many of the OP's images are shot at 400mm+MC-14. This is equivalent to 1120mm f/18 in full frame.

If you go closer and shoot smaller objects, e.g. insects or flowers the bokeh improves.

rashid7 wrote:

"My PL200mm is on par with the MZ40-150 Pro. A little faster than the PL100-400 but not by much."

only 2 stops (?) ha ha. I would consider even 1 stop to be more than "not much". (twice the light!)

I believe that he means faster AF, not faster regarding f value.

Like all sigma construction this lens is sharp when you get the focus right so the in flight shot looks good

however on static shots the background rendering is better on the PL100400

Peter Heckert2 wrote:

It is the smaller sensor which is necessarily combined with smaller lenses and shot at longer distances..

[…]

If you go closer and shoot smaller objects, e.g. insects or flowers the bokeh improves.

Yes, the lens is great for close-up shots, or when you want to show fine detail, like for example just the head & upper body of a bird.