I will also take the heretical tack on this one. While I do lots of wildlife
stuff with OM myself, if I were switching or starting from scratch I would go
with Nikon or Canon AF and long fast glass. I have used the Zuiko 300/4.5 and
Tokina 400 ATX SD with and without the Zuiko 1.4x teleconverter with some
success, so you can use Olympus for this work. After all, manual focus was used
for decades by wildlife photogs.
However, there's little doubt that modern AF rules this roost, especially if
you want to get those on-the-wing and feeding-the-chicks shots that win
contests and adorn periodicals these days. The number of keepers is just
exponentially higher. Also, the faster flash sync speeds of modern equipment
are highly valuable for tele-fill-flash. And then there's wireless multiflash
TTL for yer hummers and other small twitters. Since this equipment is commonly
available, I'd STRONGLY suggest you rent a kit over a weekend and try before
you buy. BTW, because Canon and Nikon ARE readily available, you can simply
RENT the super-expensive fast long glass on the occasions when you need it.
Consequently, you can also actually own a late model SPEWT! And let's not
forget that, when going on location, you can bring your bodies and smaller
stuff on the airplane and rent that big Bertha near the shoot. Furthermore, if
a body fails, you can rent or FedEx in another one. Try that with an OM-4t and
a 350/2.8.
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