omd-em5 lens

[Rita]

I see that most people on here use either Canon or Nikon but I am looking for some feedback for a lens for the OMD EM5. The 2 lenses I am toying with are the 75-300mm mk11 or the 50-200mm with an adaptor. I know the 50-200 is optically superior but, steep in price. I want the new lens mainly for birds and wildlife pics. If anyone has had experience with either of these your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[Sponge]

I don't have any experience with either of these lenses but from what I understand the 50-200 is slow to autofocus on the EM5 due to it being designed for phase detect autofocus. I think that lens would make more sense if you plan to upgrade to the EM1 (which has on sensor phase detect) or eventually to the EM6/7 which will most likely offer the same. I've read some comments from users who are happy using the 50-200 on the EM1.

As for the 75-300, I've seen some nice results but it's a slow lens and it sounds like it can be difficult to achieve sharp photos. Olympus has a 40-150 2.8 planned for 2014 in the m43 mount but that might not be quite long enough for your needs and youd have to wait.

I'm sure if you post your question on mu-43.com you'll get a lot more responses from people with experience with the lenses you're interested in.

[Rita]

Hi Patrick,
Thanks for the feedback. I will take a look at mu-43.com

[thequacksoflife]

Rita

i've never used those two lenses. I have used the panasonic 100-300, its advantage over the Olympus lens is that it is signiciantly fast at the long end.. it's a nicely built lens but a bit short sighted. What do I mean by that? well I think it works best on birds that are relatively close rather than a long way off. it isn't a pro lens, and is comparable to a typical 70-300 from Canikon rather than say an L lens...... A friend who owns it say it is not as good as the 100-400 but better than the EF 70-300mm IS USM

None of the lenses will really be good for birds in flight tho.

[jcuknz]

I don't know any of these lenses but one option for static bird life [ as opposed to BIF] is that you get the Canon lens with a Canon Telephoto converter which with the x2 version double the focal length so the 300 lens becomes a 600 lens and with trhe x2 crop factor of MFT you have a 1200 lens with the easy ability to quarter crop to give you 2400.

A consideration when people do this with DSLRs is that Phase Detection becomes un reliable or doesn;t work with apertures of f/8 and smaller but you needd have no fears with the Contrast Detection your camera comes with ... as with my Pany G3 when I added a telephoto adaptor up front and ended up with f/10 as my maximum aperture I found CDAF snapped into focus just as quick as with just the camera lens. With the help of my editing programme I made quite decent 2000mm reach photos from my old 8Mp FZ30 so with twice the Mp and a larger sensor it should be a snitch with MFT

[inkista]

I'm cheap. I use the Panasonic 45-200 OIS. My camera body is the Panasonic G3, so this combo's not good for birds in flight, but it's ok for stationary birds, larger less-shy wildlife, and terrific for zoo shooting.







The reviews of the 45-200 aren't good, but I honestly think that a lot of the issues with the lens come from inexperience with supertelephoto focal lengths and the fact that a lot of m4/3 bodies don't have eye-level viewfinders. If you know how to handhold properly, aren't counting on stabilization to do all the work for you, and know how to guesstimate 1/focal_length shutter speeds for yourself, and to stop down for sharpness, the 45-200 can work. It's great for a consumer-grade lens, and imho, there really aren't any pro-grade superteles in m4/3, yet. For me, the Lumix 45-200 and the Lumix 100-300 were the lenses I was considering.

Personally, for wildlife, I'm not about to go MF or with slower/compromised AF performance from adapters--particularly when there are already such good native lenses--my G3's slow enough already. YMMV.

[jcuknz]

I bought the 45-200 as a birthday pressie for my son with his G3 and afterwards [ ] I checked out consumer comments and found equal numbers saying it was dreadful and saying terrific .... my son apparently is enjoying using it.

[Rita]

Thank you all for your feedback and suggestions, much appreciated. I will let you know what I decide.

[Glenn NK]

I often use this site for lens information as I find them to be unbiased:

http://www.photozone.de/m43

Perhaps you already know of it.

Glenn

[Rita]

Hi Glenn, no I didn't know about this. Thank you, I will check it out.

[thequacksoflife]

photozone is a great site.

i own the 100-300 and have used the 45-200 and 45-150. the later two are obviously different lenses to the 100-300.

hard for me to compare the 45-200 and 45-150 as i used them on two totally different bodies. on an E-m5 a 45-200 should perform better than it did on a GX1 with the attached viewfinder for what it is it is a very competent lens. the 45-150 is small, light and great for travel.....

you'll find birds in flight hard on any of them.

[ajohnw]

I have been using the Panasonic 45-200mm and 100-300mm on Pens and the EM-5, I find the 45-200mm a little soft but usable and the 100-300mm is better. When people talk about soft lenses it largely relates to images that are viewed at full size.

After some use I stopped using the 45-200mm and carried the around Olympus 40-150mm instead. That was also the point when I bought the 100-300mm. The 40-150mm is actually a pretty good lens. The other lens that is kitted with Pen's is as well, Curiosly I actuall have a test shot taken with the 40-150 at 150mm. It's an odd one from raw. The squares are pixels and these are the results before interpolating colour. If you look carefully there is some side to side shake.



As to the size of that in a jpg this is it.





These are camera jpg's. Basically the lens is more or less pixel size limited at 150mm. Just goes to show that "kit" lenses can be rather good. Distance maybe 40m and through glass too.

Anyway both the Panasonic lenses are currently on Ebay in the UK and I have bought the Olympus 75mm-300mm. It arrived recently. I fancied a BLT this lunchtime and intended to shoot some ducks with it but the pool has been drained. Worse still I then noticed that the card wasn't in the camera. I decided to disregard the comments about low light shooting. That seems to be justified. I tried the lens at 300mm on the same scene as in the iso25600 thread. It hunts around a little but does focus. I don't envisage using the lens in those sort of situations and don't think an extra 1/2 stop would make much odds. The depth of field even at F6.3 is limited anyway. From tests the lens crisps up well without much stopping down. People and reviewers are inclined not to think about what lens apertures actually mean in exposure values.

John
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[Rita]

Thank you John, I very much appreciate your feedback.

Golly, a drained pool and no card in the camera, I think you weren't meant to take pics that day. Kind of reminded me of a time a took my sister in-law to a local lake to find the entire lake had been drained and all that was left was a sign that said "no diving"