Hands On: Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 300mm f4.0 IS PRO Lens

LAS VEGAS—Hands-on product testing at CES is usually express to picking up a device in a meeting room, which doesn't tell usa much almost cameras and lenses. Sure, I was able to hear the automobile gun shutter of the new Nikon D5 rattle off shots at 12fps in a press room, but that doesn't tell me much near how it's going to perform in real-world conditions.

Olympus put together a brusque shooting expedition with its new M.Zuiko ED 300mm f4.0 IS PRO telephoto lens. The logistics of CES made for a hard shoot. An offsite location was picked—Nelson, Nevada, a ghost town that played a role in the Kurt Russell/Kevin Costner opus 3000 Miles to Graceland, about twoscore minutes outside of the city. The simply viable time for myself (and other journalists on the trek) to become out of town is after the show floor closes, and since it's Jan, that means pitch blackness atmospheric condition.

Normally, that wouldn't exist too big of a problem. Olympus supplied some continuous lighting to illuminate scenes, and moving outside of Vegas would allow for some great astrophotography opportunities forth with the 300mm. I was planning on shooting some absurd star trail shots along with the Alive Composite office found in the company'southward Micro 4 Thirds camera line.

But mother nature played a cruel trick. Somehow, on a January night in the heart of the arid desert, I was greeted with heavy, pouring rain. I'm happy to say that the weather-sealed lens, paired with the E-M1, worked absolutely perfectly. They got soaked (I did too) but the lens hood kept h2o droplets off of the front chemical element. But shooting through pelting diminishes the quality of an image. A crashed aeroplane was dramatically lit, with a tripod setup ready for a long exposure, only shooting through the torrent blurred the image.

That's fine. There were other shots. An exotic fauna dealer (who told us he was a shut personal friend of Nicolas Muzzle—a claim which is at the same fourth dimension utterly cool and completely believable) brought a scorpion, snake, and tarantula. The scorpion proved to be a very cooperative photo subject field, moving in a wearisome, lumbering manner and stopping long enough for movement blur not to play a part in photos. The 300mm has a 1:2.1 macro magnification, which lets yous get up close and personal with the stinging beast, without having to get close enough to go scared. Focus was quick and accurate, even in lighting where I was pushing the camera to ISO 1600 to become a 1/80-second exposure at f/4. But both the snake and the tarantula proved to be a bit also speedy to capture a precipitous shot. Kids and animal acts, you but can't work with them.

The front porch of the general store of the forgotten town was lit up besides, and provided some other opportunity to test out the lens'south macro capabilities. I found good frames in a vintage, rusty 7-Up vending machine, and—if you don't mind the pitter-patter factor—in a mummified cat that was sitting in a basket on the porch. And the covered area provided welcome shelter for photographing a modernistic twenty-four hour period cowboy who was there to spin his gun, show off his skills with a lasso, and go full Indiana Jones with a bullwhip.

The working altitude for shooting portraits that captured this activeness was pretty extreme, and with other photographers working in the area, I was also dealing with folks walking in front of my lens. But I got a few solid shots of the cowboy. He was well lit, but in lodge to proceed the shutter speed quick enough to freeze motion, I was still pushing the E-M1 to ISO 1600.

I also tried some handheld shots. The atmospheric condition and limited time didn't requite me the opportunity to lite some of the scenes I wanted to (an old Texaco sign was only screaming to be photographed, as well as a battered light-green selection-up). I did shoot the truck, hand-held at 1/6-2d, just to see how far I could push the IS. I was shivering at that bespeak from the cold pelting, which didn't exercise much for my ability to go along the camera steady. All the same, the shot did a fine task showing the weathered texture of the dark-green paint. There'due south some blur visible, simply I was pushing the IS to about 6 stops, beyond its stated capabilities, and yous practise have to do some pixel peeping to actually come across the motion.

It'due south a piddling early to return a verdict on the lens. I need more than 1 cold, dark nighttime to inform readers if I recollect it's worth a hefty $2,500 purchase. When information technology comes in for review (which should exist shortly, according to Olympus), I'g going to give it a more than extensive real-world test, and see what kind of resolution it puts out in the lab. Olympus claims that it'southward the sharpest optic it'due south developed to engagement, and when you lot couple in a weather-sealed design, the ability to pair it with a 1.4x teleconverter, splendid close focus capability, and a stabilization organisation that's rated for five stops of compensation, you have a lens that a lot of Micro Four Thirds photographers are going to lust subsequently, especially those who love to capture wild fauna and sports action.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/lenses/9380/hands-on-olympus-mzuiko-digital-ed-300mm-f40-is-pro-lens

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