testing Olympus 140-600mm (70-300) lens last night

[Robert Watcher]

I have a lifestyle family shoot on Monday and wanted to get much more familiar with my new Olympus long reach lens so I make use of it for extending the reach of my standard 12-60mm lens.

I have to admit that after playing with the 140-600 (that is what Olympus has labeled it) last week when I purchased it, I found it to be a bit aof a challenge getting shots that were sharp enough - mostly all a result of motion. I think that it is a case of a lens that has a focal length to die for - that is simply too long for using with a hand held freewheeling shooting style. At least without a lot of practice and some discretion in the focal length used, shutterspeed, and maybe even subject matter. That said, any long 300mm to 600mm lens would be a challenge in this regard.

A trip to our nearby beach last night produced some hits and some misses for me to evaluate. I used the 70-300mm lens on my E-510 where my standard settings are "Natural > Contrast -1 > Sharpen -2 > Saturation 0" : Noise FIlter - Low : IS set to on : WB set to Auto or Shade on some for a warm glow that I wanted.

1)
300mm (600mm) setting : 400 ISO : f8 @ 1/400'th


2)
158mm (316mm) setting : 400 ISO : f4.6 @ 1/500'th


3)Anne took this shot of me sitting on a bench for a skin tone reference and background blurring at shorter focal lengths
78mm (156mm) setting : 400 ISO : f4 @ 1/1250'th

[Robert Watcher]

4)
300mm (600mm) setting : 400 ISO : f5.6 @ 1/1000'th


5)
125mm (250mm) setting : 800 ISO : f5.6 @ 1/500'th


6)I tried some tracking of birds with continuous AF as they flew overhead - with varying success (I'm not an animal photographer for sure)
81mm (162mm) setting : 800 ISO : f5.6 @ 1/2000'th

[Robert Watcher]

7)
277mm (554mm) setting : 400 ISO : f5.6 @ 1/800'th



300mm (600mm) setting : 800 ISO : f5.6 @ 1/4000'th


9)
300mm (600mm) setting : 800 ISO : f5.6 @ 1/640'th

[Robert Watcher]

10) I took this shot across the water at the minimum focal length of 70mm and the maximium focal length of 300mm (both shots are uncropped showing the tremendous reach of this lens)

70mm (140mm) setting : 400 ISO : f5.6 @ 1/1000'th


300mm (600mm) setting : 400 ISO : f5.6 @ 1/1250'th


11) A shot my wide took while leaving - she likes the light blue and rust colors
120mm (280mm) setting : 800 ISO : f4.5 @ 1/250'th

[Mr. Pickles]

Lots of good work here. Interesting subjects and typical great Olympus colors.

I for one don't like it when the lens is labeled with some 35mm equivalent. The 70-300 lens is a 70-300 lens. I really don't care how the 70-300 is different than say a Canon 100-400. They are both lenses, with different numbers, for different systems, and whether they are the same focal length or not, really doesn't matter to me.

What matters is having the right lens for the job. In your case here, the Olympus 70-300 is a good choice. By the way, there is no 11-60 (like you mentioned), so we'll just assume you meant 12-60...

[Robert Watcher]

By the way, there is no 11-60

What - am I the only one privileged enough to own an 11-60mm ?

A typo - thanks for letting me know.

[70Falcon]

Robert,

Thanks for posting these as I'm considering this lens for my e330. I like the smooth bokeh in the third shot of you, and the others look quite good for a "budget" lens. I'm sure the 50-200 is much better, but at three times the price of the 70-300 I would expect it to be. I guess I need to start looking for a better tripod as well.

[Vjim]

Robert,
Nice shots; thanks.
Wrotniak gives it a good review, as you probably know.

wrotniak.net: Zuiko Digital 70-300 mm F/4.0-5.6

Love, Vjim

[rjones315]

To be honest, I like having the long range, but I don't like the speed of the lens.

Being creative, I'm looking for items to really get close to -







I still have a lot of experimenting to do.