Back From Road Trip With Only M4/3 Gear; One More Exercise Before Reaching Conclusion; Testing The Olympus 300mm f/4 PRO Lens! Wow!

Bald Eagle perched on a distant pine bough (click to enlarge)
Blue sky added in Photoshop (it was an ugly bald white sky as you will see below.  The sun was behind
and to the left of this eagle so the sky was very bright and the feathers very dark in shade.  This is 25% of full image.
All images with Olympus E-M1 Mark II, Olympus 300mm f/4 PRO lens + Olympus 1.4x tele-converter,
840mm effectively (handheld); 1/1600th sec. @ f/6.3; ISO 200

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This is the sixth of a series of posts about my wife's and my recent southern U.S. road trip taken earlier this month (March 2018).   These posts are equally about how well M4/3 format can fully meet my photographic needs.  For each post, I've written about a different type of photography and how well my Olympus gear performed.  In this post, we have returned to our home but the performance assessment continues.

Upon returning to our home, two of my photography friends and I arranged to meet for breakfast in Williamsburg, Virginia.  We do this occasionally to "swap lies," aggravate each other, talk photography and cure the ills of the world.  After breakfast, our usual routine is to drive over to the Colonial Parkway (this two lane road runs between historic Jamestown and Yorktown—a lovely drive anytime of the year but especially in spring and fall) to see what we can see in the form of raptors (ospreys and Bald Eagles—6 Bald Eagle nests in the area) as well as waterfowl, whitetail deer and other creatures that may come before our cameras and lenses.  Of course the bantering and mutual aggravation continues!  These images are from this outing.

(DISCLAIMER:  Unlike my two friends, I am not an accomplished wildlife photographer.  Just take that into account. LOL)

Distant osprey full frame (click to enlarge)
Effective focal length of 600mm @ f/4.5; ISO 320

~100% crop of above image (click to enlarge)

One of my friends, who is also an M4/3 shooter, specializes in wildlife and owns and uses the Olympus 300mm f/4 PRO lens.  A couple of years ago he downsized to M4/3 format as he has some shoulder issues and the weight of full frame and/or APS-C format camera and those huge telephoto lenses became too painful.  He offered me the use this lens while we were out on the Parkway.  My thanks to him.  We drove and parked along the Colonial Parkway looking for ospreys and eagles making the occasional image.

Upon first impression, this lens is smaller and lighter than I thought it would be.  For its focal length and abilities, the size is remarkable.  Of course it is larger and heavier than shorter focal length M4/3 lenses, but physics is physics and engineers can only do so much to reduce weight and size.  I will say this lens exudes quality construction and materials and I applaud Olympus for what they have created.  But how does it perform?

Osprey captured in flight. Focus was C-AF + Tracking. Full image. (click to enlarge)
Effective focal length 600mm; 1/1600th sec. @ f/5; ISO 200

100% crop of above image (click to enlarge)

First of all, I will tell you that it is possible to hand hold the 300mm f/4 lens without and with the Olympus 1/4X tele-converter—even for a 66 year old guy like myself.  That is an effective focal length of 840mm @ f/5.6.  This is, in and of itself, incredible.  I never tried handholding my Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6 lens even once.  

However, and this is crucial, I quickly found out that technique cannot be sloppy and you have to pay attention to detail.  In spite of some initially poor technique, I made many, many sharp images hand holding this lens in the short time I used it.  When I talk about poor technique, a few times I tried to play "fast and loose" when making some images and it showed in that they were not sharp.  I did things like stop my vehicle, open the passenger window and lean over the passenger seat with my elbow propped on the arm rest to try to make images of an osprey sitting on a branch while hand holding the equivalent of an 840mm lens and expecting to get sharp images.  Wrong!  In cases such as that unsuccessful images were my fault, not the camera and lens' fault.

Overall, I did okay but with more practice I know I could do much, much better.  The images in this post are all hand held and are proof.  But take my word for it, if you are trying to hand hold 840mm at any shutter speed, even with IBIS, you better take your time, pull your elbows into your sides, breathe deeply, exhale and only then press the shutter.  When I did that, my hit rate was about 100%.

I ended up making 465 image in the hour and a half I had this lens in a wide variety of situations.  A few days before this outing I had upgraded my Olympus E-M1 Mark II to the latest 2.1 firmware (however, this lens had not been upgraded to its newest firmware which increases stability) and was anxious to find out how well the Mark II tracked flying birds.  Also, I was also anxious to see just how good of a lens the 300mm f/4 is.  I had my camera set on Anti-Shock L advance and set to 10 fps.  I had the focus set to C-AF + Tracking for all of the birds, whether flying or perched and for the moving vehicles I photographed.  I had S-AF set for the test shots of tree limbs, etc.  I wished I had set my camera for C-AF and tested that as well, but time ran out.  Also, I never tested the camera with anything but a single focus point.  I should have also tested it with both 5 focus points as well as 9 to ascertain if trying to lock on and capture flying birds would have achieved greater success.

Here is the subject matter I photographed:

Flying birds

Birds perched on distant limbs

Moving vehicles on the Parkway coming directly at me and going directly away from me at 45mph

Portraits of my two friends

Very distant tree limbs and pine needles

Out of these 5 subjects, perfect focus was more successful with some than others.  Some of that was due to the gear and some was because of my technique.  Here is a breakdown (this takes into account my flubs as well):

Flying birds   38% in perfect focus when viewing at 100% in Lightroom; that percentage goes way up if you want to count the images that were just a tiny bit out of focus.  You know the type, they look great at full size and even 1:2 but when you get to 1:1, you can see they are just a tad out of perfect focus.  But I wanted to be more critical rather than less critical for this test.

Birds perched on distant limbs   55% in perfect focus when viewed at 100%. Much of the failures of these were my technique as described above.

Moving vehicles   38% (I thought the camera and lens would have done much better with this)

Portraits   100%

Distant tree limbs and pine needles   75% (there was one series of 5 images of a distant long needled pine that was out of focus.  The rest were tack sharp.  Not sure why only that series was out of focus.  An anomaly, I believe)

Total for the hour or so:   54% perfect focus

One of my photography buddies.  He is 82 and has more life in him than any three other
people I know!  Great photographer as well. (click to enlarge)
600mm effective focal length; 1/1600th sec. @ f/4; ISO 400

My other photographic friend and the owner of the lens I used.  Thank you for allowing
me to use your lens.  I fell in love with it! (click to enlarge) An excellent photographer as well.
600mm effective focal length; 1/1600th sec. @ f/4; ISO 500 

Now some comments about individual attributes of the camera and lens combination.

Pigeons roosting in a dead tree This is the full image. (click to enlarge)
840mm effective focal length; 1/1600th sec. @ f/5.6 (wide open); ISO 500

This is about a 100% crop of the above image.  Feather detail in the pigeons is easily seen. (click to enlarge)

Very black crow raising cane on a dead branch.  Full image. (click to enlarge)
840 mm effective focal length; 1/800th sec. @ f/6.3; ISO 320

100% crop of the above image (click to enlarge)
I was surprised that once I lifted the really dark belly feathers that any detail at all was retained.

As I mentioned, for flying birds I had the camera set to C-AF + Tracking and the C-AF Sensitivity set to -2, which keeps the focus point from jumping off your subject quickly if your subject moves or flies behind other objects.  The shutter speed was anywhere from 1/500th of a second to 1/2000th of a second.  ISO ranged from 200-1250, always set on Auto ISO.  My opinion is that, once you lock onto a flying bird, the camera and lens tracks it very well.  The trick is to be able to place that small square over the bird as it flies by!  That is where practice and expertise makes a big difference.  But once you do, the camera holds focus nicely.  Many of my flying bird images were out of focus as I started pressing the shutter before I had the lens fully locked on the subject.  Again, this can be improved through practice, of course.

Osprey perched near the river. 25% crop of full image. (click to enlarge)
840mm effective focal length; 1/800th sec. @ f/6.3; ISO 500

It was one of those miserable bald white sky days but very bright.  The Bald Eagle sequence (below) was backlit by that ugly sky.  The bird's brown feathers are already very dark and were in full shade.  I had to lighten them quite a bit to see the detail.  I feel as though the camera and sensor handled this situation very well.  The detail is retained and sharp.  In the past, my only complaint with M4/3 was the sensor not handling this exact situation very well.  A full frame camera would do better, as I think most of us would agree, but the M4/3 sensor/camera/lens combination did an admirable job and I'm happy with the results, even at 100% viewing.

There was one other thing I noticed about the Bald Eagle sequence.  When the osprey was causing the eagle to quickly move, raise its wings and turn, I think in a few of the images the focus jumped from the eagle to the pine cones and branches in front of it.  They seem slightly in sharper focus than the eagle itself.  The first sequence of eagle images I made were shot at 1/500th second as I forgot to switch shutter speeds after photographing other stationary subjects.  You can't make mistakes like that if you want to be successful.  The second osprey attack was shot at 1/1600th second. I was kicking myself for not having the shutter speed higher in the first attack, but after looking at the images, I like the movement of the osprey in flight.  To tell you how fast it came in on the eagle, I had my camera set at 10fps and the camera only recorded two images of the osprey as it flew by.  It came in fast and was gone.

This is puzzling.  I'm not sure why the camera didn't do well in tracking moving vehicles driving toward and away from me.  The vehicles were moving about 40-45 mph.  In analyzing the images, most of the vehicles had horizontal chrome type grills and I wonder if the lack of vertical lines may have made focusing more difficult?  I just don't know at this point but this deserves more research if you like to photograph automobile racing and such.  As the cars approached closer and passed me, the focus was fine.  Only directly toward me and away from me at a distance did the focus fall short.

The portraits of my two buddies were nice and sharp, even hand held at an effective focal length of 600mm @ f/4.  I can't fault the gear for any issues here.  However, I"m not responsible for their looks!  LOL Friends just have to aggravate friends whenever possible!

All of the stationary subjects (trees, distant tree limbs, pine needles) were in focus with the exception of a series of 5 shots I made focused on a really distant pine tree, heavy with long needles.  For whatever reason, it just missed focus on that tree.  Completely missed focus.  Wasn't even close.  The other trees with bare branches as well as pines in the distance, were well focused.  Detail was excellent and well defined.  That is reason for making these particular images. 

There were a few birds perched on distant dead tree limbs.  The crow was sitting on a branch of a dead tree and was raising cane.  I wanted to capture him as he exhaled and cawed while slightly spreading his wings.  As I mentioned, the sky was very bright and the crow was very black but the sensor did manage to retain some detail in those black shiny feathers.  Again, I had to lighten them quite a bit to see the detail, more for this illustration than I would in a final image.  On a more distant tree branch were 4 pigeons sitting huddled together.  I've seen them in that tree in the past.  I wonder if they huddle together for protection against hawks and other predators.  The feather detail in those reproduced very well.

The Bald Eagle sequence just below was fascinating.  This adult Bald Eagle was perched on a high pine branch near the edge of the James River.  It kept looking around.  What it was looking at was an osprey that didn't want it sitting on that branch.  The eagle watched it and as it started to approach, the eagle first spread its wings, than became low and horizontal.  At that point, it started to cry out.  As the osprey approached and strafed the eagle, the eagle stood high, spread its wings, lifted its head and cried out to scare off the osprey.  After three tries, the eagle finally left the branch.  I had the camera set for 10fps and the osprey was so fast that when it only showed in two frames of any of the three sequences.  Fascinating.  I had never seen this before.  Even at 840mm, I could have used 1000mm to be a bit closer and not have to crop quite as much.

Full frame of one at the top of this post. For the sequence below, I've cropped each frame to about 25% of the original
image. (click to enlarge each one)

At this point, the eagle spotted the osprey in the area.

Now the eagle makes itself more horizontal and starts crying out with a series of "whistles."

Here comes the osprey on its first dive.

This is the second run the osprey had at the eagle.

This is the third dive.  The eagle flew off to another tree about 100 yards away after this.

Lessons learned in using this lens for a brief time:  Good technique is a must.  Pay attention to detail in your camera settings.  You can shoot handheld with this camera and lens combination and achieve a high level of success.  This camera and lens combination has the potential to meet and exceed. at least. my expectations which I consider pretty high.  In the past, I've used my full frame Nikon D700, D800E and D810 with a variety of long Nikon lenses including the excellent 200-500mm f/5.6 and I don't think I got any better images nor a better hit rate with that gear—and, all of those images were made on a tripod.  I will say the same for my Fujifilm X-T2 and 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens combination as well.  No better.

In summary, I am pleasantly surprised and very pleased with the performance of the M4/3 camera and, especially, this 300mm lens.  In the past, many of these exact situations were a source of disappointment for me in dark detail being rendered muddy and grainy.  It seems as though Olympus has upped their game with this 20mp sensor and their newest processor.

In my next post, I'll provide a summary of my thoughts about these series of experiments using taking and only M4/3 gear while traveling and in general.  Check back on Wednesday.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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