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Olympus 300mm f/2.8 Lens Experience

barnack

New member
I thinking about purchasing this lens. Can anyone who has this lens describe their experience with it, i.e. handling, optical quality etc . . .

Thanks
 

DavidL

New member
I had a friend who used, if you mean the 4/3ds one, it for bird photography and it was excellent. Sorry no personal experience but I did have the 150 f2 which was also a great lens. It's sad Olympus messed up with their 4/3rds system.
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
I had the 2/150 and this was the best telephoto lens ever for me. Similar should be true for the 2.8/300.

You are actually very brave if you buy today into the 43 system, as this is almost dead - nothing coming anymore from Olympus and given their current financial situation I cannot see that this will come to live again. And Panasonic already stopped it and is only concentrating on m43.

Very sad indeed that Olympus and Panasonic let the 43 system die, I had high hopes in it again and again, but finally I sold all of the equipment because of no future in sight - at least IMHO.
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
I haven't used the 300mm. Way beyond my budget. I have talked with people who have though, and they all claim it's one of the best 300mm or 600mm eqv. lenses ever made by any manufacturer. The advantage is of course that you get 600mm reach for the price and weight of a 300mm. Then one can always discuss what the cropping abilities of a higher pixel count full frame camera would give, but the conclusion must be that it's good and well worth the money if you need that kind of reach.

As Peter mentions, 4/3 is a dying system. The cameras and lenses won't die easily though, and the lenses are mostly very usable on 4/3 with full or nearly full functionality. I have started slowly to buy back into the system, simply because I value good lenses more than the latest, greatest body and the PanaLeica 14-50 that I'm using now is clearly the best "normal" zoom I've had the pleasure of using. But then, I'm also buying into the Contax manual focus family of gear, so I might not be the best indicator of what's in fashion at the moment :rolleyes:

Hopefully, there will be an Olympus m4/3 "pro" body in the near future that utilizes the abilities of the 4/3 glass to it's fullest extent.
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
4/3 is a dying system.

Hopefully, there will be an Olympus m4/3 "pro" body in the near future that utilizes the abilities of the 4/3 glass to it's fullest extent.
Unfortunately Olympus let 43 die! Too bad! FOr me this would (could) have been a perfect system, if kept alive.

WRT m43 Pro body - this is rumored for long time now, I have 2 concerns:

1) that Olympus (camera) after the latest issues they had will have any money left to develop a m43 pro body for maybe just 2-5% of their m43 user base

2) Even a pro body cannot be better than the E5, which is very PRO (I know what I am talking because I had it for almost a year) but it simply sucked WRT AF (speed, low light etc). Plus all my trials with 43 glass on m43 bodies (EP2, EP3, GH2) simply sucked as well - performance just lousy!

So that m43 pro body will most likely not happen IMHO.
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
So that m43 pro body will most likely not happen IMHO.
I think it will happen, or at least there will be attempts from Panasonic. The problem is that they don't seem to have the same understanding of build quality etc. that Olympus have excelled in. Another issue is that they have a policy with regards to batteries (changing battery type for almost every new model and trying to prevent customers to buy batteries from other sources) that has actually deterred me from buying a GH2.

When using cameras for work, it simply isn't acceptable to have almost identical cameras that uses different batteries and chargers but that are still almost identical, making it easy to get them mixed up when things have to happen in a hurry.
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
I think it will happen, or at least there will be attempts from Panasonic. The problem is that they don't seem to have the same understanding of build quality etc. that Olympus have excelled in. Another issue is that they have a policy with regards to batteries (changing battery type for almost every new model and trying to prevent customers to buy batteries from other sources) that has actually deterred me from buying a GH2.

When using cameras for work, it simply isn't acceptable to have almost identical cameras that uses different batteries and chargers but that are still almost identical, making it easy to get them mixed up when things have to happen in a hurry.
+1 for this!!!

WRT batteries - this is what I love currently about Nikon - V1 and D7000 using same battery. Hope this is the begin of a whole new area at Nikon at we will see multiple DSLRs and 1-System cameras coming with that type of battery!

PS: Panasonic NEVER came only close to what Olympus was able in pro camera design, especially if you consider the E5!
 
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