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PEN w/ standard Olympus lenses (1 Viewer)

pdh

Well-known member
Am I correct in thinking that to use a standard Olympus lens (particularly the 70-300 ED Zoom) with a m4/3 body such as the E-P2 an adapter would be needed?

What would the loss of functionality be when using this combination?
 
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Am I correct in thinking that to use a standard Olympus lens (particularly the 100-300 ED Zoom) with a m4/3 body such as the E-P2 an adapter would be needed?

What would the loss of functionality be when using this combination?

I'm not fully up to speed on the functionality question, but I suspect that you would get full functionality. I think the adapter you mention is about £150!

There is some discussion on this topic here which might give you more answers:

http://forum.fourthirdsphoto.com/showthread.php?t=55370

From what little I know about micro-fourthirds, the newer cameras have better sensors and are more up-to date (eg. more pixels & better high ISO performance) than the current crop of Olympus DSLRs, which are due for an imminent (much speculation on when?) upgrade, especially the flagship E3 model which is now looking a little dated compared to the competition.

Another issue is about handling. Would it be better to put a smaller Four-thirds DSLR body such as an E-520 or E-620 on the 70-300 zoom rather than one of the micro-fourthirds bodies? Afterall, isn't size and weight the main attraction of micro-fourthirds?

I'm not clear at all where Olympus' priorities lay at present with their commitment to both systems. They seem to have focussed more on micro-fourthirds of late and have not released any new 4/3 lenses for some time. For birding there is to my mind a glaring gap in the Olympus lens line-up if longer mid-range glass is what you want (comparable to Canon's 400 f5.6L or 100-400L zoom). That said, the 70-300 lens is comparable in reach to these lenses for not very much money if you are on a tight budget and want a very compact system.

Personally, after owning an E-510 and 50-200 zoom + EC14 I couldn't wait any longer for Olympus to decide where their priorities lay, so bought into the Canon system as they have much better choice of longer lenses. I still have my E-510 and a few shorter lenses (but sold the 50-200). There is much to like about Olympus stuff but for my money I would rather spend on lenses that fit my needs and hope that better bodies follow later. Canon are certainly able to fulfil this now with a good choice of new & used bodies and lenses available to fit most budgets. If Olympus do further develop the 4/3 system then I might be persuaded to commit back to them in the future, but at the moment I feel they have an serious identity crisis.

Steve
 
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I use the Olympus 70-300 lens with my Panasonic G1 and the Panasonic 4/3 to M4/3 adapter. With the Panasonic, this lens does autofocus in single-shot mode but not in continuous mode (you also don't get Image Stabilization as Panasonic does that in the lens and Oly doesn't). Panasonic has a lens compatibility website here: http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/dsc/connect/g1.html

Many 4/3 lenses will not autofocus with the Panasonic M4/3 cameras as you can see from the list. I am considering a PEN for backup and to get the sensor-based IS. I understand that the PENs will autofocus with many of the 4/3 lenses (albeit I've heard that autofocus is not particularly responsive). I have looked for an Olympus lens compatibility website similar to the Panasonic site but have not found one.

I agree with Steve's comments about M4/3 lens developments to date. Neither Oly or Panasonic are making the range of lenses birders or digiscopers desire. No significant independent lens manufacturer has shown support for the format either. Canon clearly does have the best DSLR / lens lineup for bird photography (I bite my tongue when I say that as a long time Nikon user).

I purchased the G1 primarily for digiscoping and I have figured out a way to make that work. The small size, light weight and lack of mirror slap are all positives. All those advantages apply to photography with telephoto lenses also. I hope the M4/3 format takes off, but I believe that if it does grow in popularity, Canon and Nikon will join the fray with similar (but not M4/3) cameras. That will likely sink M4/3 unless Oly / Panasonic / Independents fill out the lens line. We'll see.
 
I had not registered that the Olympus 70-300 was a 4/3 lens! OK.
This is all part of my quest to understand what options I have for a compact birding camera kit. I have ruled out a dSLR route, and don't intend to buy a scope in the near future.
Thanks for your comments and for contributing to my other other thread here
 
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I had not registered that the 100-300 was a 4/3 lens! OK.
This is all part of my quest to understand what options I have for a compact birding camera kit. I have ruled out a dSLR route, and don't intend to buy a scope in the near future.
Thanks for your comments and for contributing to my other other thread here

I think you are getting confused: these is in current existence a 70-300 lens that is a 4/3 lens, not micro (but can be adapted).
Panasonic has announced that there probably will appear a 100-300 lens that will be a micro-4/3 size lens, but so far it is only a mockup photo.

Niels
 
Not confused Niels, but making typing errors. I have corrected the post so that others however do not become confused!
 
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Am i getting the wrong end of the stick here? A 70 - 300 lens on a 4/3 oly or pan will give you 140 - 600 is that correct? If so how close do you Steve or Gergrd need to get to the birds or wildlife to take a picture, when you say that you changed to canon because there isnt the lenses made for birders in 4/3. I am thinking of getting a oly because of the lightness and the fact that i don't have to carry a big heavy Nikon or Canon lens arround. Please corrct me if I'm wrong.
Ian
 
Hi Ian. I, too, find this very confusing. The 70-300 lens on a four thirds camera has the same ANGLE OF VIEW as a 140-600 lens on a 35MM CAMERA. This is due to the smaller sensor which gives a 'crop factor' of 2.0x. The popular Canon cameras have a crop factor of about 1.6x, which means that a 70-300 lens on them would give the same angle of view as a 112-480 lens on a 35mm camera. There is no magic involved which increases the magnification of the lens. It comes down to the area of the sensor which the light covers. At least that is how I think it works!

In practice the 300 lens on a four thirds camera is quite long enough if I am photographing birds in my garden for example. They will often occupy most of the frame. However, when I am out and about photographing them I usually have to crop the image quite a bit to make the bird 'large enough'. I have a 1.4x teleconverter and this helps but it would be nice if there was a 400mm lens available to get over this problem. 400mm is the most popular focal length for birding lenses on Canon cameras. With the 2x crop factor of four thirds a 400mm lens would be a very useful size. The downside would be the likelihood of camera shake and a tripod would probably be essential. You are correct that the smaller four thirds cameras do have a weight and size advantage over the Canon and Nikon ones. I hope this makes some sense.

Ron
 
The smaller size of the 4/3rds sensor means that greater demands are put on the lens's resolving power when you come to make a print. At this stage a very high quality 300mm might very well compare favourably with a 400mm on a larger sensor if you don't make a huge print, but it's asking a lot of a £300(ish) zoom lens to match, say, a 400mm prime lens costing 3 or 4 times as much. Actually, the Olympus 75-300mm seems to be very good value for money according to some reviews I've read but it's never going to compete with their 300mm F2.8 prime lens costing over £5,000! A very compact 400mm, close-focussing lens designed especially for the micro 4/3rd system at a realistic price would be very nice...
 
This is getting a little off track as the OP was interested in a small lightweight solution - perhaps a super-zoom. I believe a PEN (or similar Pansonic camera) and 70-300 combination could meet the OP's criteria for a lightweight / backpackable setup. The PEN will provide IS with the 70-300 (which I miss on the Panasonic). An add-on viewfinder would be on my must have list with the PEN.

The M4/3 camera with 70-300 does provide 600mm effective reach which is decent for bird photos. However, to get the best photos I can, I usually choose to carry my Nikon D300 / Sigma 150-500 (sometimes with monopod) on my normal trail hikes as you get a little more reach, faster auto-focus, better finder view, and better low light performance. I believe you can do as well if not better with similarly priced Canon equipment. I'll opt for something lighter on occasion when I just don't feel like lugging the heavy hardware. You can get good bird photos with an M4/3 camera, but I do better with my Nikon(s). One of my goals for this year is to get a few decent bird-in-flight shots. Whether my Nikon is up to the challenge will be seen, but I don't believe the current M4/3 cameras provide fast enough continuous focus to be good for BIF.
 
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Am i getting the wrong end of the stick here? A 70 - 300 lens on a 4/3 oly or pan will give you 140 - 600 is that correct? If so how close do you Steve or Gergrd need to get to the birds or wildlife to take a picture, when you say that you changed to canon because there isnt the lenses made for birders in 4/3. I am thinking of getting a oly because of the lightness and the fact that i don't have to carry a big heavy Nikon or Canon lens arround. Please corrct me if I'm wrong.
Ian

Ian, I think you have the right end of the stick, & Ron's calculations seem to look correct to my eyes too. See the attached table which I find helps me to compare between systems.

As others have said, the focal length issue isn't the only factor when choosing a long lens. The Olympus 70-300 is optically very good, and performs very well in tests. In fact I recently read a magazine review in which it came a very close second to Canon's 100-400 L IS zoom in terms of its pure optical performance.

But as Adey and gergrd have said, there is more to longer lenses than pure focal length. With something like my Canon 40D and 100-400 zoom, I get a little more focal length (but the difference is negligible in real world terms), but more importantly the focussing is much faster via Canon's USM (ultrasonic motor), and it can reel off 6 frames per second, so birds in flight are quite easy.

The downside to this is that the Canon combo weighs in at around 2kg or more, whereas the Olympus 70-300 lens with a light weight body would be less than half this. I bought this exact lens as my first long lens about 2 years ago for the same reasons that the OP wants it for; length without too much weight, and reach.

However I was never happy with it and quickly returned it in favour of the Olympus 50-200SWD and EC14 converter. With the converter attached this lens competes directly with the Canon 100-400 zoom @ 350mm (so not much different really) with similar fast focussing, widest aperture of F4.9 compared with the Canon's F5.6, and very similar IQ.

However in going this route I lost most of the 4/3 weight advantage and increased the cost to roughly the same as a Canon L series lens. There was no other 4/3 lens with similar performance available to upgrade to, but the main reason I changed over in the end was because the other lenses I wanted from the system were not available either i.e. a longish macro lens for butterflies & dragons. There is a 100mm macro promised on the Olympus roadmap, but there is no sign of it coming anytime soon. Canon, on the other hand have a multitude of lenses in this category that are available now, including a two excellent 100mm macros. There is also very good support for the system from the likes of Sigma, Tamron etc.

So you can see that in theory the 4/3 and micro 4/3 system promises much, but in the real world it falls a little short IMHO. However, if you're sure that all you'll ever need is a 300-400mm lens, and a light weight body at a reasonable cost, without the need for fast focussing and high frame rates, it might just be what you want.

Just be careful when predicting your needs now that you don't under estimate your future needs as I did. The problem with photography, especially when quite inexperienced, is that you don't really know what you will want and how much you will ultmately be prepared to spend until you have already commited yourself, by which time it is too late, and it gets very expensive to change later.

Steve
 

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My original question in this thread was very specific and has been answered.
The subsequent discussion that has developed is really interesting and helpful, I think, but at the same time it has gone more towards a general discussion about formats which may not sit very well in an "Olympus Only" subforum.
I had started another thread here.
A moderator may consider it worth merging these threads?
 
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