It was a sunny day (the last for a week) so I decided to take the 75-300 to photograph the foxes. I learned a lesson a long time ago while testing the Sigma 50-500 to make sure I have my good lens with me at all times in case something spectacular happens. So I had the other EM1 in the backpack with the 300/4 attached, I actually switched from the 150/2 to the 300/4 at the last second. I got there at 14:30 and she was out for a few minutes but went into this pipe that runs under the trail. She likes to hide in there and it was 2 hours before she poked her head out again. When she came out I sat there for about 2 minutes photographing her before I got the idea of pulling the 300/4 out of the back and shoot some comparison shots.
These images were shot 25 seconds apart and there is a bit different perspective and framing. I really wish I had framed the 75-300 differently to compare the bokeh of the branches on the left. I have learned that trying to do my in the field lens comparisons is not as easy when sitting in a few feet of snow. It makes setting the camera/s not in use a lot harder than I am use to back in the swamps without snow. This is what led to the change in perspective between the images, hopefully I get a bit better at doing this in the snow. They were both shot handheld while sitting on the ground with my elbows braced on my knees. She was eating snow (guess because the river is frozen over) and would lick the remaining snow from her face. Which enabled me to capture two very close to identical tongue out images. They are both purposely composed with her looking into the short side of the image. Yes, I know that is “against the rules” but I like to do compositions like that on occasion to give me a more varied portfolio and I like how it adds a bit of tension to the image.
My copy of the 75-300 starts getting soft at about 280mm. The image in this comparison was actually taken at 270mm, which puts it before the softness starts. I have to admit that it was by accident as I intended to shoot at 300mm. I was switching between the cameras as I sat there taking photos and the 75-300 moved to 270mm without me noticing. At least this comparison is done in the sharper range of my 75-300, which is where I tended to use it when it was my wildlife lens. Now, the photo with the 75-300 does have about a 400px crop on the long side. This was done to tighten up the composition, but also is about what it would take to get the 300mm FoV.
Both photos are processed the same using a preset I have setup for my fox photos, which includes the settings I apply to all my photos.
I will post the images then give my impression/comparison/thoughts on the two lenses.
I highly recommend clicking through to Flickr to get a much better look at the images.
EM1 w/ MZ 75-300mm f4.8-6.7, ISO 200, 1/640 @ f6.7
Gorgeous 043 by Phocal Art, on Flickr
EM1 w/ MZ 300mm f4.0 IS Pro, ISO 200, 1/1250 @ f4.0
Gorgeous 042 by Phocal Art, on Flickr
Sharpness/Resolution: There is no debate about which one is sharper and has better resolution. There are enough test sites out there that have shown over and over again that the 300/4 has more resolution than the 75-300. But how much difference does that extra resolution make in real world shooting. When you zoom in the 300/4 did capture more fine detail and does a better job distinguishing between individual hairs. For typical web display or small prints there is probably not going to be much difference that are noticeable. When printing large or zooming in on the full resolution image the 300/4 is just going to hold up a lot better and provide great detail even when viewing say a 40x30 image from a foot away (have a 40x30 hanging in my house to prove it). The 75-300 is just not going to hold up to really large prints or 100% viewing of the original.
Bokeh: This is going to be one area that the 300/4 is just going to dominate in. When looking at the focus falloff on the fox the 75-300 actually looks pretty good, there are no glaring deficiencies. The background is another story all together. The transitions from one color to the next in the background is just so much smoother with the 300/4. The 75-300 has hard lines betweens the colors where the 300/4 has a much nicer and smoother flow from color to color. While I find the detail from the 75-300 right at the line of being acceptable, the background bokeh is basically a deal killer for me. I don’t have images from the 300/4 at f6.7 but I am pretty confident in saying the bokeh difference has a lot to do with the slower aperture of the 75-300. Would love to get some head filling images with the 75-300 to see how background bokeh would look like in my images of Gorgeous on that snowy day. I am pretty sure in that situation there would be little difference in the background bokeh, but that is an unusual situation that you can’t always count on when photographing wildlife. I am working on a review post of the 75-300 and I have images where the backgrounds are acceptable and some that are right at the edge of being acceptable. So when the conditions are right and the background is just the right distance away the 75-300 can create decent bokeh (it is never as beautiful as what the 300/4 can do in the same situations), but it does struggle when the background is closer like in these images.
Depth of Field: First I want to say that I am also working on a post about DoF and telephoto lenses, hope to have that post done in the next week or so. These images were take from approximately 30 feet away with the 300/4 having a DoF of 4.2 inches and the 75-300 8.8 inches. If you look at the 300/4 photo you will see that the nose/tongue are in focus as are the eyes, the DoF extends back to just before the right ear. The right ear still retains enough detail and sharpness to not be a blurry mess and gives a good impression of being in focus. The photo also holds good detail in the fur under the chin and down a bit on the chest before starting to falloff. The 75-300 has, well just over 2x the DoF with good focus all the way down the chest. While the extra DoF does add a bit to the image I don’t think it is enough added in detail to offset the much worse background bokeh. Just like I have found that the 300/4 is sharper at f5.6 vs f4.0 the difference in background bokeh just never makes it worth stopping down.
Overall: The 300/4 shot is noticeably better to me. I use LightRoom and I put all the images from the shoot into the Quick Selection Catalog and organized it by time taken. Going through that folder I could instantly tell which lens took which photograph, the 300/4 is just noticeably better in every way. It’s also why I would have a hard time going out with just the 75-300, with my luck I would come across the most amazing thing every and be cussing the entire time that I didn’t have the 300/4 with me. That said, the 75-300 is capable of making great images when used within it’s limits and honestly is just as good as most of those 150-600mm lenses,which says a lot about the m4/3 xx-300 zooms. An update of the lens with IS would go a long way to making this a much better lens and would help with my biggest complaint of it being too light for it’s focal length. In the 75-300 review I am working on I will go into a lot more about how I feel the lens performs as well as it’s strengths/weaknesses.
I hope some find this helpful/useful. It was fun watching Gorgeous and seeing what the lowly 75-300 is capable of, which honestly surprised me to some degree.
As always, any/all comments are welcome.
Phocal
Edit - I need to add something about distance. The 75-300 is really helped in these images by being 30 feet away. If the distance was closer to 50 feet or farther the differences would be a lot different, the 75-300 just doesn't have the resolution to compete with the 300/4 when the subject fills less of the frame.
These images were shot 25 seconds apart and there is a bit different perspective and framing. I really wish I had framed the 75-300 differently to compare the bokeh of the branches on the left. I have learned that trying to do my in the field lens comparisons is not as easy when sitting in a few feet of snow. It makes setting the camera/s not in use a lot harder than I am use to back in the swamps without snow. This is what led to the change in perspective between the images, hopefully I get a bit better at doing this in the snow. They were both shot handheld while sitting on the ground with my elbows braced on my knees. She was eating snow (guess because the river is frozen over) and would lick the remaining snow from her face. Which enabled me to capture two very close to identical tongue out images. They are both purposely composed with her looking into the short side of the image. Yes, I know that is “against the rules” but I like to do compositions like that on occasion to give me a more varied portfolio and I like how it adds a bit of tension to the image.
My copy of the 75-300 starts getting soft at about 280mm. The image in this comparison was actually taken at 270mm, which puts it before the softness starts. I have to admit that it was by accident as I intended to shoot at 300mm. I was switching between the cameras as I sat there taking photos and the 75-300 moved to 270mm without me noticing. At least this comparison is done in the sharper range of my 75-300, which is where I tended to use it when it was my wildlife lens. Now, the photo with the 75-300 does have about a 400px crop on the long side. This was done to tighten up the composition, but also is about what it would take to get the 300mm FoV.
Both photos are processed the same using a preset I have setup for my fox photos, which includes the settings I apply to all my photos.
I will post the images then give my impression/comparison/thoughts on the two lenses.
I highly recommend clicking through to Flickr to get a much better look at the images.
EM1 w/ MZ 75-300mm f4.8-6.7, ISO 200, 1/640 @ f6.7
EM1 w/ MZ 300mm f4.0 IS Pro, ISO 200, 1/1250 @ f4.0
Sharpness/Resolution: There is no debate about which one is sharper and has better resolution. There are enough test sites out there that have shown over and over again that the 300/4 has more resolution than the 75-300. But how much difference does that extra resolution make in real world shooting. When you zoom in the 300/4 did capture more fine detail and does a better job distinguishing between individual hairs. For typical web display or small prints there is probably not going to be much difference that are noticeable. When printing large or zooming in on the full resolution image the 300/4 is just going to hold up a lot better and provide great detail even when viewing say a 40x30 image from a foot away (have a 40x30 hanging in my house to prove it). The 75-300 is just not going to hold up to really large prints or 100% viewing of the original.
Bokeh: This is going to be one area that the 300/4 is just going to dominate in. When looking at the focus falloff on the fox the 75-300 actually looks pretty good, there are no glaring deficiencies. The background is another story all together. The transitions from one color to the next in the background is just so much smoother with the 300/4. The 75-300 has hard lines betweens the colors where the 300/4 has a much nicer and smoother flow from color to color. While I find the detail from the 75-300 right at the line of being acceptable, the background bokeh is basically a deal killer for me. I don’t have images from the 300/4 at f6.7 but I am pretty confident in saying the bokeh difference has a lot to do with the slower aperture of the 75-300. Would love to get some head filling images with the 75-300 to see how background bokeh would look like in my images of Gorgeous on that snowy day. I am pretty sure in that situation there would be little difference in the background bokeh, but that is an unusual situation that you can’t always count on when photographing wildlife. I am working on a review post of the 75-300 and I have images where the backgrounds are acceptable and some that are right at the edge of being acceptable. So when the conditions are right and the background is just the right distance away the 75-300 can create decent bokeh (it is never as beautiful as what the 300/4 can do in the same situations), but it does struggle when the background is closer like in these images.
Depth of Field: First I want to say that I am also working on a post about DoF and telephoto lenses, hope to have that post done in the next week or so. These images were take from approximately 30 feet away with the 300/4 having a DoF of 4.2 inches and the 75-300 8.8 inches. If you look at the 300/4 photo you will see that the nose/tongue are in focus as are the eyes, the DoF extends back to just before the right ear. The right ear still retains enough detail and sharpness to not be a blurry mess and gives a good impression of being in focus. The photo also holds good detail in the fur under the chin and down a bit on the chest before starting to falloff. The 75-300 has, well just over 2x the DoF with good focus all the way down the chest. While the extra DoF does add a bit to the image I don’t think it is enough added in detail to offset the much worse background bokeh. Just like I have found that the 300/4 is sharper at f5.6 vs f4.0 the difference in background bokeh just never makes it worth stopping down.
Overall: The 300/4 shot is noticeably better to me. I use LightRoom and I put all the images from the shoot into the Quick Selection Catalog and organized it by time taken. Going through that folder I could instantly tell which lens took which photograph, the 300/4 is just noticeably better in every way. It’s also why I would have a hard time going out with just the 75-300, with my luck I would come across the most amazing thing every and be cussing the entire time that I didn’t have the 300/4 with me. That said, the 75-300 is capable of making great images when used within it’s limits and honestly is just as good as most of those 150-600mm lenses,which says a lot about the m4/3 xx-300 zooms. An update of the lens with IS would go a long way to making this a much better lens and would help with my biggest complaint of it being too light for it’s focal length. In the 75-300 review I am working on I will go into a lot more about how I feel the lens performs as well as it’s strengths/weaknesses.
I hope some find this helpful/useful. It was fun watching Gorgeous and seeing what the lowly 75-300 is capable of, which honestly surprised me to some degree.
As always, any/all comments are welcome.
Phocal
Edit - I need to add something about distance. The 75-300 is really helped in these images by being 30 feet away. If the distance was closer to 50 feet or farther the differences would be a lot different, the 75-300 just doesn't have the resolution to compete with the 300/4 when the subject fills less of the frame.
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However, I am VERY anxious to see what the new 100-400 has to offer. I hope it is at least somewhat better than the P100-400! Can't wait!
