I did have one of these big zooms and would not recommend buying one. The
glass is not good and using the things is a pain. I have some comparison
slides someplace and it did not compare well with other long lenses I had.
/jmac
-----Original Message-----
From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Moose
Sent: Sunday, September 03, 2006 10:27 PM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OM] Re: OM mount
Tim Randles wrote:
> Would this mount on my E-500?
>
>
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=006&item=160025632616&rd=1&;
sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1
As others have pointed out, attaching camera and lens only requires a
simple adapter.
But that's when the trouble starts. This is a big long series of tubes
that move relative to each other, with decent lenses mounted in them.
Guess how rigid everything is for $260? I seem to recall a post about
how this lens sags a bit. Maybe it was jmac who built a sort of brace to
hold it straight, someone here, anyway, I seem to recall he did get some
good shots with it, but it took a great deal of special
effort/technique. I believe he used it on a large bag of sand/shot/??
placed on something really sturdy and with another bag on top; something
like that.
Getting sharp images from really long lenses is quite difficult. When
Gary tested the long Zuikos, 400, 600 and 1000 mm in his test series, he
went to extremes like freezing the legs of his tripod into the ice of a
skating rink. Still, the lenses don't look very good in his tests
<http://members.aol.com/olympusom/lenstests/default.htm>.
He later said that his tests were not representative of the sharpness of
the lenses, but of inadequate vibration control in his tests. He later
used them in the field with other techniques and found that they could
be very sharp, but it was really hard to get those kind of results.
So far, we've talked about results on 35mm film bodies. Because of the
sensor size of 4/3, any given image has to be magnified twice as much
for the same viewing size as for 35mm. And that magnifies the motion
blur twice as much. A 35mm eq. of 1300-2600 mm lens will require
extraordinary measures to be sharp. The little tripod set-up they show
on the ad is a joke for this lens. Even mounted on a concrete post set
deep in the ground, this thing will have sympathetic vibrations from
even mild breezes, the camera shutter/mirror mechanism and even those
that come up through the ground. People walking, traffic, machinery...
The E-500 is also not the ideal body for such a use, as it's noise goes
up pretty rapidly past iso 400. I'll bet this lens isn't sharp at all
wide open, so you would be shooting at f11 or f16. Sunny-16 says the
exposure for f16 in bright sun at iso 400 is 1/400. That just isn't
going to cut it at these focal lengths, so you would need to experiment
with higher isos to determine where the trade off is of motion blur vs.
sensor noise. This is one of the places where cameras with lower noise
at high isos have an advantage. High shutter speeds cure many long lens
ills.
I'm with Jeff in suggesting more modest long lens(s) to begin with. 300
mm on 4/3 is like 600 mm on 35mm and gives a lot of reach. Here are a
couple of 260-300 mm shots on the 300D, which is only a 1.6 factor so
the area covered would be significantly less on 4/3
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/Lenses/Tam28-300a/>. That's
quite a lot of reach.
If you still want something longer and with zoom for framing, you might
consider the Tokina AT-X SD 150-500/5.6 or the Tamron SP 200-500/5.6.
These will be much more rigid, solidly built lenses with better glass
and are fast enough to be much easier to focus than the lens you are
looking at. And at the 35mm equivalent of 1,000 mm on 4/3, they have
real reach. Like the 650-1300, of course, they will require manual focus
and aperture operation. These are all big, heavy lenses and require a
serious tripod. The various 5-600 mm mirror lenses are much lighter, but
also slower and with other quirks.
Here's a shot with the Tokina at 500 mm with sample portions that
represent what would be captured on a 4/3 sensor
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/MPhotos/Home/Towhee.htm>. Lens,
tripod, head and camera for this shot weighed over 21 lbs.
Moose
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