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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

oly 150-400 lens (1 Viewer)

It's an f/4.5 with built-in 1.4x tc? I think that's great they did something different than the Panny 100-400, which is a great little lens with a lot of legs. I'm sure some people will want the olympus sporty lens and other the lighter smaller panny.
 
It's an f/4.5 with built-in 1.4x tc? I think that's great they did something different than the Panny 100-400, which is a great little lens with a lot of legs. I'm sure some people will want the olympus sporty lens and other the lighter smaller panny.
Built-in 1.25xTC making it 187.5 - 500 f5.6 (375 - 1000mm equivalent).




Chosun :gh:
 

1.85 kilograms without the tripod foot, which is what is important to me since I would only use it handheld. It should also be emphasized that the only source they cite for this weight is some guy on a forum saying a week ago that Olympus told him this. He was asked a week ago for more details on what exactly his information was, and hasn't responded.

Yesterday, I physically weighed the current long m4/3 telephoto lenses and got the following results:

PL 100-400mm: 2.6 pounds or 1.18 kilograms
Oly 300mm F4 w/ 1.4TC: 3.6 pounds or 1.63 kilograms

If true, the 1.85 kilograms is impressive; it is not too much heavier than the 300mm f4 with TC, yet has the option for 80mm more reach at the flick of a switch, and the flexibility of a zoom. Only slightly slower at f4.5; not likely to make a real world difference. There have also been suggestions that it will be good for macros; and I would also love a lens that could improve on the .25x magnification of the PL100-400; the PL100-400 is great for larger insects, etc., but you end up doing pretty severe cropping for the smaller stuff. And then there's also the planned 2x TC option....

Though the downside is that I do find the 300mm f4 to cause some shoulder soreness even on shorter hikes, and that will obviously be worse with a heavier lens. But I'm not currently using a sling strap; hopefully that would alleviate the problem.
 
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Jim would highly recommend switching to cotton carrier. Helped relive my neck/shoulder issues while carrying a heavy dslr on long hikes. Newer ones are much easier to adjust the fit
 
So Jim,
your self-determined weight of the 100-400 is about 200 g or almost 20% more than the weight given in DP-review. I wonder what they did not include when the original weight was determined.

Niels
 
So Jim,
your self-determined weight of the 100-400 is about 200 g or almost 20% more than the weight given in DP-review. I wonder what they did not include when the original weight was determined.

Niels

I see different sites giving different weights for lots of things. Could be a lot reasons--scale off, transcription error, intentional misrepresentation, somebody just copying data from somewhere else without weighing themselves, etc. My weight includes the included lens hood, lens cap, and my own clear filter, but don't think that alone could account for the difference. Of course, my scale might be off as well.
 
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Jim would highly recommend switching to cotton carrier. Helped relive my neck/shoulder issues while carrying a heavy dslr on long hikes. Newer ones are much easier to adjust the fit

Thanks. Took a look at their site and they look interesting, though I already use a waist pack from Mountainsmith as a day pack, so would probably need to fit one somewhere else.
 
With speed as a consideration this lens on this system would have to be the new lightweight champion.

Teamed with the new Oly OM-D EM-1 III (580gr) would give a 2.43kg (5.36lb) rig without the tripod attatchment. This would give you 20MP and ~1000mm equiv. @f5.6

Compare that to my current rig of Nikon D7200 + Tamron G2 150-600 f6.3 which is 1/3 kilo heavier (and larger) ..... 765 + 1990grms = 2.755kg (6.07lb) and in 1.3x in-camera crop mode gives you 14.2MP and (say) ~1133mm @f6.3 allowing for focus breathing ....
So when all the washing is done that crunches down to about 80% of the proposed Oly rig's pixels at the same focal length, but 1/3 of a stop slower.

You could put a Canon rig together of 90D + 400mm DO II + 1.4xTC, which at ~3kg would be another 1/3rd of a kilo heavier again, but with ~30% more pixels at the same equivalent focal length. The maximum aperture at f5.6 would be the same, and IQ would be a notch above my Niki setup, and you would think on par with the proposed Oly rig - ie PRO level.

The only way to get near this Oly setup at the moment with Nikon is to pair the D7200 with the PF 500mm f5.6 lens. This is actually 1/5th of a kilo lighter at 2.22kg (4.9lb), but using the 1.3x in-camera crop only gives you 14.2MP at 975mm equiv @f5.6
Running this through the wash gives only 70% of the Oly's pixels at equivalent lengths. IQ should be similar PRO level.

There is some hope for Nikon if they ever get the rumoured (back when Jesus was a boy!) PF 600mm f5.6 into production.
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In combo with a (again, even less than rumored APS-C 26MP D500S) that would give 15.4MP and 1170mm (600x1.5x1.3) eq @f5.6 and maybe circa ~150grms heavier. Again PRO level IQ, and 90% of the Oly's pixels.
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In combo with the rumored (but seemingly late) FF 61MP Mirrorless Nikon Z8 that would be ~2.5kg (~5.5lb) and 15.25MP and 1200mm eq @f5.6. So washing that through would be about 91% of the Oly's pixels and PRO level IQ.

So you can see from these late night back of the envelope calcs that the Oly is right in there at the pointy end of the bunch.

That's some serious wonderin' to do, to decide whether to jump holus bolus into the Oly fold ...... particularly in light of the global economic ructions currently and the general industry contractions that were already underway ......

Anyone know how the Panny fast wide-angle and normal (12-60mm) zooms play with the Oly bodies ?

I think I'll have a good 12-18 months to mull all this over and see who's still standing by then (me included) .... :cat:






Chosun :gh:
 
First, Jim did warn us to take the reported wight with a grain of salt.

Secondly, Oly-Pana lens/body combos: my wife is using an Oly 12-40 pro on a small Pana body and have had no problems. I would expect similar things going the other way. The one thing to realize is that one loses the interaction between IBIS and lens IS, so the combo loses maybe one stop on IS. With a small, fast lens, no big deal. With a birding lens even less of a deal because one needs the fast shutter speed to freeze the moving bird anyway.

For a general travel zoom in the m4/3 world there are a couple of options such as these
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...v314080bu000_m_zuiko_digital_ed_12_100mm.html
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1469487-REG/panasonic_h_fsa14140_lumix_g_vario_14_140mm.html

Niels
 
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