Could anyone recommend a fixed 300mm lens for an EP2 or OMD?

[Anthony-Wilkinson]

would anyone be able to recommend a fixed 300mm lens for an OMD or EP2?
thanks
Antony

[Bob Andersson]

Hi Anthony,

May I wish you a warm welcome to the CameraLabs forum. As a recent convert to m4/3rds I'm not really best placed to offer an answer but here goes...

With no native 300mm m4/3rds prime I'm assuming that manual focus is the order of the day and that opens up a whole world of legacy glass provided you can source a suitable adaptor. But, as I've already discovered, trying to sort the wheat from the chaff can be a problem as most such glass often doesn't benefit from Internet reviews. For example, the LCE currently has an Olympus ZUIKO 300mm OM 1:4.5 for sale for £190. The lens may be marked as in "Good Condition" but was it ever optically good enough for today's digital sensors?

Hugely cheaper than the f/2.8 alternatives so it might be worth a punt if you can find out any more about it?

Bob.

[Habanero]

I can't vouch for m4/3 but I've used a Contax Carl Zeiss Tele-Tessar T* 300mm F4.0 via an adapter on my E-3 with some excellent results.

[JD]

...LCE currently has an Olympus ZUIKO 300mm OM 1:4.5 for sale for £190. The lens may be marked as in "Good Condition" but was it ever optically good enough for today's digital sensors?

Of course it is but get the MC version in preference to the original.

Here's an interesting test:

http://www.bytesmiths.com/OM_Tele/

[Bob Andersson]

Hi JD,

I see that this is your first post in a couple of years so welcome back.

Nice link but I've also noticed that the thread is two years old and that the OP's account has been deleted!

Bob.

[JD]

Hi Bob,

Yeah, I noticed that but I just posted it because with the rise of M.4/3 and the lack of long glass, some of these old lenses might start reappearing on newer cameras. People might just be looking at some of these old Zuikos on places like eBay and start wondering whether they were worth having. Most good examples seem to go for around US $250-300 and while they are not of the optical quality of say a Canon FD 300 f/2.8, they aren't nearly as expensive.

I am fortunate in that I never sold my Olympus gear, even though I wanted to but never got around to it. I have seven primes between 16mm and 300, all Zuikos. I have to confess the 300 was a bit of a favourite and one of the things I liked about it was its resolution. I remember projecting a Kodachrome 64 slide from my enlarger* onto a wall about 2.5 metres away and being floored by the detail in the picture. Mine was the multi-coated version.

* It was fitted with a Schneider Kreutznach Componon S enlarger lens, which was frankly the best lens of any variety I have ever used and I have worked professionally for 30 years.