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First birding birding lens (1 Viewer)

pcolbeck

Active member
Hi

I have an Olympus E500 with both the kit lenses and want to get a lens to try taking some bird photographs and for some general wildlife stuff when I go to Canada for my hols later in the year. At the moment I cant run to the £700 that the Sigma Bigma will be when it finally arrives but I thought about maybe getting a 4/3 to OM adaptor and picking up say an OM system Zuiko Auto-T 1:4.5 f=300mm from eBay or similar. Would this have a long enough reach for birding and as it aprime not a zoom would that be much off a disadvantage (I guess the optics would be clearer than a zoom).

Thanks

Pat
 
OM adapter and Oly lens will work but no auto focus as lens is all manual,, think I would go for a 400+mm for birding with the DSLR,,
 
I believe the Oly has a 2x lens factor, correct? The 300mm lens would be equiv to 600mm and would probably be great!

Manual can be a bear to deal with but it can be done!
 
The E500 is not the easiest Olympus DSLR to use a manual lens on - as it has the smallest viewfinder image in the series for focussing. You can get a magnifying eyepiece but I ended up using an E-1 for my manual lenses up to the 500 mm CAT (lovely close-ups, but needs a good tripod). Don't forget that you also need the auto to manual adaptor (about £100 to free depending on deals). For starting out the Auto focus Sigma 55-200 will give you the equivalent of a 400mm - less than £100 at Warehouse Express (cheaper than buying a manual adaptor!)
 
The Sigma 135-400 is now available in 4/3 fit - seems to be on offer from around £389 to £430 - 270-800mm on the camera.
 
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