That old 70-300mm DSLR lens, on todays OM-1.

[Ross the fiddler]

After Larry showed his use of the Bigma on the OM-1, I decided to see how the old 70-300 (f4-5.6) DSLR lens performed on my OM-1 camera. Although it isn't a quiet & fast focussing lens, it was quite effective on the OM-1 & even worked well with Bird ID AI, however I had set the drive mode to SH-2 & so it reverted to SH-1 (not being a MFT lens) saving an unknown number of frames taken at 120 fps. I stopped it as it was still busily saving all the files I had apparently exposed.

Anyhow, here are a few JPEGs SOOC (only sharpened for downsized display), plus a couple of crops at 1600 pixels across to show how well the detail was captured with this lens.
BTW, I believe this lens was made by Sigma for Olympus, like our recent 100-400mm f5-6.3 lens is.



Cropped at 1600 pixels across




Using Bird ID AI







Cropped at 1600 pixels across

[blu-by-u]

blackfox, Look 70-300 in action.

[Ross the fiddler]

Here's a small crop (1600 pixels across) of the young white hen after adjusting highlight & shadow in Capture One & then in Denoise Clear.

[blackfox]

Very nice set

[griffljg]

Nice set of photos. It doesn't do too badly, does it?

I remember something being said that, as the 70-300mm was made for Olympus by Sigma, it was subject to slightly less than ideal quality control. If that is the case, then I "lucked" into an excellent copy, as mine is as sharp as a tack with excellent image quality, although the bokeh appeared to be a bit unpleasant when used on the old E-M1.

I must go and play with it a bit more.

[Ross the fiddler]

,

Nice set of photos. It doesn't do too badly, does it?

I remember something being said that, as the 70-300mm was made for Olympus by Sigma, it was subject to slightly less than ideal quality control. If that is the case, then I "lucked" into an excellent copy, as mine is as sharp as a tack with excellent image quality, although the bokeh appeared to be a bit unpleasant when used on the old E-M1.

I must go and play with it a bit more.

I think I did well with mine. I seem to remember Sigma having two models similar & one more expensive than the other & they had a similar optic formula. I can't remember what their differences were & besides, I was still at my early stage in DSLR knowledge then to fully understand it all. The Olympus 70-300 gets closer focus with MF too.

Closest Focusing Distance

0.96m (MF) and 1.2m (AF)

EDIT:
I found the two Sigma lenses & maybe the Olympus was similar optically to the one on the left, the Olympus being, 14 elements in 10 groups, including 3 ED glass lens elements.

[Ian]

CAF while shooting multiple frames is always going to be a problem for the DSLR lenses on MFT bodies.

Ian

[Ross the fiddler]

CAF while shooting multiple frames is always going to be a problem for the DSLR lenses on MFT bodies.

Ian

I wouldn't even consider trying that with this lens, if in fact it could even do it.

[Ross the fiddler]

In 'my archives'

A small quote,


by J. Andrzej Wrotniak

[Phill D]

I've still got one of them somewhere. Maybe I'll dig mine out too. I do remember it was quite good at macro as well.

[OM USer]

Ummm, maybe I should dust off my 75-300 MFT instead of using the 40-150+1.4X. The latter clearly has the advatage in aperture and sharpness but that 300mm reach for the garden birds may prove a better bet. I would really like the 2X but have other priorities at the moment.

[Ian]

My 75-300 is brilliant - super small and light and mine is still sharp enough for me at 300 (and mine is one of the really early examples, too).

[Ross the fiddler]

The 75-300 MFT lens is certainly worthwhile when needing to go light, but is slower in focussing.

[blackfox]

Having just aquired one thanks to a kind friend , I have yet to give it a proper airing ,it’s currently on my E620 but as I now once again have a MMF-2 adaptor I can mix and match all my four thirds lenses as required . . Will update once some pics taken

[Ross the fiddler]

Be careful not to drive the focussing motor by rotating the lens when removing or fitting the lens hood. It can damage the drive circuitry.

[Melaka]

Andrzej Wrotniak was a prolific and valuable commentator on Oly cameras but he doesn't seem to have posted in recent years.

[Ian]

The 70-300 is reasonably sharp, but I had problems with ghosting with my one when it was used in bright sunny conditions. The focusing is very slow because it's also a macro lens. It has to focus a l o o o n g way

Ian