Recently I posted how my favorite walk about lens is the Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8.
If I am wanting to target smaller wildlife such as birds, then the more focal length reach the better, and the Olympus micro ZD 300mm f/4 OIS lens is a perfect lens for such ventures.
Matched with the Olympus OM-D E-M1II Micro Four Thirds camera, it becomes a unique kit which is:
- incredibly sharp 600mm focal length reach in full frame terms
- excellent weathersealing
- fast and accurate auto focus
- perhaps the heaviest kit I am prepared to carry in my hand for 1-2 hours on my short walks coming in at under 2kg – no other kit can give that telephoto reach at that image quality for under 2kg!
- awesome level of image stabilisation (although the E-M1X will give even more image stabilisation)
- ability to shoot at up to 18fps silently with continuous AF
- ability to capture a burst of shots BEFORE you release the shutter button which is great for capturing birds taking off
- ability to program the camera to ignore foreground or background when focusing by dialing in a focus range limiter – not just the one that is on the lens.
- ability to shoot hand held 4K 30p video (although you do need to take some care in this to avoid too much camera shake as I had in my video below)
The down-side is that it is still quite heavy and the focal length is fixed so when you are about to step on a snake as I almost did, the lens to too long to capture it – and even larger animals such as kangaroos can be too close to capture.
Here are a selection of shots from yesterday:
The snake I almost stepped on was near the entrance to the nearby Kings Flat Reserve. It was a shiny deep black colour and although I only saw the tail end as it slithered into the undergrowth, it looked to be about 1m long or so and I suspect it was probably a Red-bellied Black Snake.
None of the above would have been possible had I used my full frame camera – they just don’t make a lens with the same capabilities in that weight range – as discussed in my earlier blog post here.
If I was a birder with plenty of patience and sitting in a hide with a tripod, then sure, the full frame camera with a 600mm f/4 lens may get better image quality – but at what price in terms of money and burden?
