{"id":6479,"date":"2014-08-16T20:02:14","date_gmt":"2014-08-16T10:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=6479"},"modified":"2014-08-16T20:02:14","modified_gmt":"2014-08-16T10:02:14","slug":"cradle-mountain-in-the-snow-with-the-olympus-zd-50-200mm-lens-on-micro-four-thirds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=6479","title":{"rendered":"Cradle Mountain in the snow with the Olympus ZD 50-200mm lens on Micro Four Thirds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>I have always loved the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wiki\/doku.php?id=photo:olympuszd50-200mm\" target=\"_blank\">Olympus ZD 50-200mm f\/2.8-3.5 SWD lens<\/a> for Four Thirds as it is quite a unique lens:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>it is the most compact, and light premium quality lens of 100-400mm field of view<\/strong> (in 35mm terms) and the only one of its main competitors to be able to fit into a 24cm deep camera bag whilst fitted to a camera<\/li>\n<li>it weighs just 1.07kg with tripod plate and is only 157mm long with a 67mm filter thread and close focus is an amazingly short 1.2m\n<ul>\n<li>the longer, far more expensive Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L weighs 1.36kg, attracts internal dust, uses 77mm filters,\u00a0 and lets in only just over half the light, while close focus is 1.8m<\/li>\n<li>the heavier, longer, much more expensive Nikon Nikkor 80-400mm f\/4.5-5.6 VR weighs 1,36kg, is 171mm long, uses 77mm filters, lets in only just over half the light, while close focus is a poor 2.3m<\/li>\n<li>the much heavier, far more expensive Nikon Nikkor 200-400mm f\/4 VR weighs 3.3kg and is more than twice as long at 358mm, and you need to resort to 52mm rear filters while close focus is 2m<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>it is weatherproof, and the long lens hood further reduces risk of rain landing on the front element<\/li>\n<li>it has lovely bokeh for a zoom lens<\/li>\n<li>it is relatively affordable<\/li>\n<li>when used on an Olympus camera, you get 3-5 EV of image stabilisation<\/li>\n<li>it can be used with either 1.4x or 2.0x tele-converters (allowing hand holdable 800mm super telephoto capability with AF as well as 1:2 macro!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is one of the lenses I like when I am a passenger in a car on a road trip and only get to shoot out the window.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HOWEVER, it has a couple of problems:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>you need to use it on a Four Thirds dSLR or the Olympus OM-D E-M1 if you want fast AF<\/li>\n<li>it is a touch big and heavy on most Micro Four Thirds cameras, and on most, AF will be slow if there is only CDAF available.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Personally, I cannot wait until Olympus bring out their even more compact <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wiki\/doku.php?id=photo:mft40-150mm\" target=\"_blank\">Olympus mZD 40-150mm f\/2.8 PRO lens later this year<\/a>, although I would like to see a 100-200mm f\/2.8 or at least a 200mm f\/2.8 weatherproof prime lens as well.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, I took this lens with me on my cabin luggage to Cradle Mountain, and despite having this in my backpack, plus a fisheye lens, a 12mm lens, a 20mm lens, a 45mm lens, a 60mm macro lens and my 75mm f\/1.8 lens with my Olympus OM-D E-M5, and a few extras, the weight still was under 5kg! This would be impossible to achieve with any other system, and sure made life bushwalking that much more pleasurable.<\/p>\n<p>So here are a few shots taken with this lens mounted on my E-M5 Micro Four Thirds camera:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusEM5\/OlympusZD50-200mm\/GA116793-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cradle Mountain region in the snow\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusEM5\/OlympusZD50-200mm\/GA116793-1.jpg\" width=\"600\/\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The threatened Tasmanian Devil:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusEM5\/OlympusZD50-200mm\/GA116799-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cradle Mountain region in the snow\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusEM5\/OlympusZD50-200mm\/GA116799-1.jpg\" width=\"600\/\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cradle mountain region with fresh snow after the overnight snow storm which converted the beautiful green national park into a white wonderland:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusEM5\/OlympusZD50-200mm\/GA116802-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cradle Mountain region in the snow\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusEM5\/OlympusZD50-200mm\/GA116802-1.jpg\" width=\"600\/\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusEM5\/OlympusZD50-200mm\/GA116808-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cradle Mountain region in the snow\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusEM5\/OlympusZD50-200mm\/GA116808-1.jpg\" width=\"600\/\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusEM5\/OlympusZD50-200mm\/GA116816-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cradle Mountain region in the snow\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusEM5\/OlympusZD50-200mm\/GA116816-1.jpg\" width=\"600\/\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusEM5\/OlympusZD50-200mm\/GA116795-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cradle Mountain region in the snow\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusEM5\/OlympusZD50-200mm\/GA116795-1.jpg\" width=\"600\/\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have always loved the Olympus ZD 50-200mm f\/2.8-3.5 SWD lens for Four Thirds as it is quite a unique lens: it is the most compact, and light premium quality lens of 100-400mm field of view (in 35mm terms) and the only one of its main competitors to be able to fit into a 24cm [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,3],"tags":[320,17,18,241,14,319,37],"class_list":["post-6479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lenses","category-photography","tag-cradle-mountain","tag-four-thirds","tag-four-thirds-micro","tag-micro-four-thirds","tag-olympus","tag-tasmania","tag-zd-50-200mm"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}