Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 75 to 300mm II F4.8-6.7 Zoom Lens, for Micro Four Thirds Cameras

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I enjoy using this lens for shooting wildlife and astrophotography. I have several lenses in my inventory and this is the one I seem to use the most and I enjoy using it. I’ve managed to get some amazing shots using the lens. Bright conditions make this lens really shine, but overcast conditions the lens can be pretty slow on autofocus which would be my one major gripe. It works great for astrophotography, especially for moon and larger DSO’s. Pros: 1. You get a 600mm equivalent reach using this lens compared to the equivalent full frame DSLR camera. 2. In bright light you can get some amazing picture of moving wildlife. 3. Inexpensive compared to full frame equivalent lenses. 4. It is flexible to use since it has a wide zoom range (75 mm – 300 mm) Cons: 1. No lens hood. 2. Can be slow to auto-focus under overcast conditions. I have missed some potentially good shots due to this, but you would need to go to the 300 mm f4 prime lens which is 5x the cost to help with this issue. Overall this is a fine lens when you consider price. If I were a pro I would consider the pro 300 mm prime lens, but it is substantially more expensive. I would recommend this lens for anyone trying to get more reach than they get with the 40-150 mm lens. Tip: Ive been able to get good results action shots even in less than ideal lighting conditions by using manual shutter speed @ 1/500 sec with auto ISO set and using high speed shutter sequence. Note: 1. I am using an Olympus E-PL5 camera body. 2. I used multiple 30 second exposures and Deep Sky Stacker for my picture of the Orion Nebula, but the frames were collected using this lens.

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First I am using it on the OMD E-M5 and the lens is one of only 2 options in the native micro four thirds mount, so if you are shooting a Panasonic body buy the Panasonic with OIS. If using the Olympus body the decision is harder a few stops of light of the Panasonic vs size and extra focal range of the Olympus. I chose based on the range and slightly closer minimum focusing distance. I found the 75-150 range perfect, the AF is accurate the images are sharp and color rendition is signature Olympus blue skies and contrasty details. Low light AF is poor but I have to admit this is my only lens slower than f/2.8 so I may have a biased opinion. This one seems to hunt anytime I need to push above ISO1250, or shutter speeds creep downwards. That being said in good light eve heavily overcast daytime light it is fast to confirm focus and adjust. I imagine the newer sensors and faster processors would further improve the speed also. It is an equiv. 150-600mm lens and it is the size of a 12oz soft drink without hood, a 22oz bomber can with the hood. That is unheard of, when I was testing the lens taking the images I uploaded there was a guy hauling a FF camera and a 300mm canon L lens he had a luggage trolley a backpack and a tripod that could have held my weight, hopefully his images were better than mine. Looking at his set up he had roughly $18,000 in his lens and body alone, I had 10% of that and was able to carry my kids lunch and water bottles as well as my set up in a sling bag. The true advantage of this lens is size and range. There are other options and even super zoom cameras that will compete for IQ at the long end, but none that give you size and adaptability of the micro four thirds system and this lens is a must have as of 2014 there is no native option that offers all of this.

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I wanted a long lens that would couple with my OM-D EM 5 mk II to shoot the 21 August eclipse. Given the budgetary facts of life, it was either this one or get a T-mount adapter and use a 40+ year old 400mm stovepipe tele I had in the closet. The stovepipe wouldnt couple and isnt so sharp. So I bought this. I am delighted that I did. The lens is reasonably sharp at long distances and all focal lengths. The corners soften wide open at 300mm, but stopping down to f/8.0 or f/11 pretty well mitigates the problem, and anyway with a long lens central sharpness is most important. At focal lengths up to about 250-275 mm I have no optical complaints whatever. To be sure it is not the famous Leica 400mm Visoflex lens of long ago, nor one of the Olympus PRO-Series lenses. Neither does it carry their price tags. It is slow, so the remedy is to up the cameras ISO value, an advantage of digital over any film ever made. Even stopped down the depth of field is shallow, so isolating the subject is not a problem. I havent yet done any tests for /bokeh/, so I cant comment on that. The exposure, as corrected by the cameras firmware is even with little or no vignetting. Chromatic aberration is commendably low, given the price point. The lens is well built, given focal length range, aperture, and price. The plastic seems to be high quality industrial grade, and the whole thing feels solid on the camera (EM-5 mk II). The package is well balanced in the hand. Cons: the lens really should have some kind of bracket or foot to improve the way it balances on a tripod. The ergonomics are less than stellar, and its awkward to reach the manual focus ring to tweak focus, necessary on tele shots. Real Life: I have attached an enlarged and cropped HAND HELD picture of the moon. As to post processing: very little. A bit of exposure correction and routine sharpening that all digital pictures benefit from. Note that the lunar color is pretty neutral, as it was that evening. No color corrections at all were applied. The Tycho crater stands out cleanly; the craters along the terminator came out much better than expected. If solar prominences are present at the eclipse, there should be no problem capturing them. Long distance landscape test shots were sharp, with excellent contrast and color. I really can recommend this to any micro-4/3 user who wants a very long lens for nature, scenery, and sports but who also has a budget that prevents acquiring a Pro-series lens.

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I was not sure what to expect from this lens. Certainly the price was right so I had to give it a whirl. I bought it right before going to the US Open tennis which always presents a bit of a photo challenge because Im far away from the action and there are often sharp light and shadows on the players. I do NOT have steady hands which is one of the ways in which I am cursed as a photographer. Long slow zooms often present real challenges for me. I am a part time professional photographer who shoots both micro 4/3 as well as full frame dslr and often have terrible shots with big zooms when I am not on a tripod. Since I was just shooting the Open for my own pleasure, it really didnt matter how the shots came out. Shock of shocks, I got some really good crisp images. I am sure the credit for that belongs with the lens more than my unsteady hands. I was pleased with how quickly it focused. But it was sunny and contrasty as the open which makes a big difference. If you compare this to a fast nikon or canon tele zoom you will clearly see that this is quite a bit slower to focus and doesnt give nearly the same bokeh. But I am not comparing it to those lenses. For the price and for the range of what it can do, this is a bargain. Just dont expect it to perform at the same level as some of its more expensive brethren. This is not going to perform well in humid or hazy conditions. It really needs a contrasty world to show what it can do Bottom line: Is this as sharp and crisp as a canon 70-200 f2.8? No, definitely not in the same class in my opinion. But if you are looking for a somewhat solid and affordable performer for your micro 4/3 camera, I would recommend this lens. It has good reach and though slow, was able to handle the sports at the US Open and delivered some crisp action shots. It is good for the price. By the way, I paired this with the olympus OM-D E-M5. I am eager to get my hands on an E-m1. Would love to see what this lens could do paired with that camera.

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This lens takes good quality photos especially when set to the right f stop for the focal length. It is also one of the few long (reasonably priced) zoom telephotos for m43. As others have noted, it can hunt for focus in low light. My main issues were the weight and how slow it is. My E-M10 ii with this lens weights almost exactly one ounce less than a Canon 77D plus a 55-250 lens. The canon lens is f4.5-6 while the Olympus is f4.8-6.7. One of the advantages of M43 is the light weight. With this lens you have lost all your weight advantage vs a larger sensor, plus the lens is so slow that I frequently had to push the ISO over 1500 for wildlife photos with fast shutter speeds I dont like pushing the small sensor M43 to high isos like this. This lens is a 600mm 35mm equivalent. The Canon is 400. However since the Canon (like most apsc cameras) has 24 mp vs 16 for the Olympus, you can easily crop to get the 600mm magnification. I havent done this comparison and Im not trying to do a Canon-Olympus comparison to start an argument between fans of different camera systems, just pointing out what I think are the weaknesses of this lens.

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This zoom lens completes my m4/3 travel lens lineup which is consisted of 12-100, 9-18 and this 75-300. I also have 40-150 but need something longer than 150, which is quite a bit worse than the 75-300 especially at the edges and corners. However, among this 3-zoom lineup, the 75-300 is the weakest in terms of IQ. It is, however, not surprising given the much lower price of this lens compared to the other two. While it is not as good optically as the other two zoom lenses, it is still very good in absolute term. I am extremely pleased with the performance at the edges and corners. There is no need to crop out the edges, they are perfectly usable even when pixel peeping. Wide open performance is only very slightly worse than f/8. This very useful since this is not a fast lens. I terms of sharpness over the zoom range, I found that the extremes (75 and 300) are weaker than the rest but both FLs are still perfectly usable. Since I have the 12-100, I doubt that I will need the range between 75 to 100. I bought this lens primarily for the just in case situations where a longer FL is needed; I typically use WA and UWA most of the time. As for AF, it is silent and fast enough for my style. The MF ring is stiffer than I like, however. Zoom ring OTOH is smooth. Construction is typical of this class of lenses, solid enough for normal handling. Overall, this lens is a very good, quite affordable long zoom, especially for travel when weight is a serious consideration.

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M.Zuiko 75-300mm F4.8-6.7 II has exceeded my expectations on what the lens can deliver. It performs well in terms of autofocus and handling, and delivers detail rich images even at the longest 300mm zoom. The lens is generally very sharp throughout all focal lengths, and can be used without hesitation at the widest aperture without stopping down. Handling is good, while hand-holding the lens is not an issue with the amazing Image Stabilization system in Olympus OM-D cameras. Above all, the lens is not expensive, yet small and light. I have used it at my sons soccer games,natural habitats and results are remarkable.A must have telephoto lens for M4T ecosystem.

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I couldnt decide if it was worth it to buy this, as I had the telephoto thats a step below, and goes up to 150mm. It was worth it! Took it with on a trip to the Canadian Rockies, and got great pictures of a bear, some big horn sheep, a loon, and an eagle. It has a little trouble in lower light, but on a reasonably sunny or partly cloudy day, it works fantastic. I was very pleased.

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I just received this lens today and I am glad I did. I took few pictures and I am already very impressed with the quality and sharpness of images. For this price and range you would be hard pressed to find another lens to compete with it. Build quality, compactness and focus speed is very good. It is slow a bit but for daylight shooting this is not a problem. Paired with my OMD EM1-ii the vibration is not a problem hence you can shoot at much slower shutters. The size of this lens is a phenomenal advantage over DSLR s. The effective 150-600mm range would require a hefty lens and camera combo if you were shooting a full frame DSLR. In short highly recommended. You will be very happy with it.

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A recent price reduction made the purchase of this lens more appealing, so I took the plunge. After mounting it on my OM-D EM-1 camera body Ive been pleasantly surprised with my ability to take hand-held photos at maximum zoom and achieve images that are sharp enough to withstand heavy cropping. Even in indoor light Ive been able to achieve sharp results. Photos show Arizona pronghorns taken during afternoon sunlight using this lens with an OEM lens shade (not included) and then cropped about 75%. Another photo taken indoors under artificial light at a horse auction shows its amazing hand-held performance under low-light conditions. The young cowboys were across a sizeable tent covered arena where horses were being ridden but this lens brought the subjects close to me.

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