Olympus EZ-M7530 M.Zuiko Digital 75-300mm 1:4.8-6.7 Lens II, suitable for all MFT cameras (Olympus OM-D & PEN models, Panasonic G series), black

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This is one area in which Olympus 75-100 wins hands down with no noticeable CA around hard, high-contrast edges (e.g. tree branches against the sky) compared to my Panasonic 100-300. if you're on a tripod and using AFS with an oly body, i would get the oly. i don't know how AFC is with oly bodies.

Distortion is well controlled and consistent throughout the zoom range with Imatest detecting between 0.35% and 0.46% pincushion distortion. This low level shouldn't pose many issues, but if absolutely straight lines are paramount what little distortion there is should be relatively straightforward to correct as it is uniform across the frame. After numerous requests, finally I managed to get my hands on a loaner Olympus M.Zuiko 75-300mm F4.8-6.7 Mark II from Olympus Malaysia, and I thought why not shoot some cute animals at the National Zoo? Do come along with me as I test the Olympus 75-300mm lens in this mini review, is the lens really soft as many have complained? Is 300mm full zoom that bad? Be warned – many photographs of cute cats in this video. I personally think the Olympus 75-300mm is a budget-friendly lens that is a great starter for wildlife, sports and bird shooters, having compact and lightweight build yet delivering surprisingly sharp images, in contrast with the popular reports out there.If you use a wide-angle lens, objects that are close to you look larger – far away objects look smaller. Standard lens (50mm full-frame, 25mm micro 4/3) keeps proportions the same as the human eye can see. Zoom lenses shrink proportions and make the objects look close to each other.

When it comes to stabilization, you'll definitely get the most out of this lens when used on bodies with more robust IBIS, like the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III, along with an electronic viewfinder so that you can steady the camera against your face. In the end I found 300mm too hard to handhold and f/6.7 too slow so I moved on to the 40-150 f/2.8. At the 300mm end, the angle of view narrows to 4.1 degrees, which is the same as that of a 600mm lens on a 35mm full-frame camera. Diffraction limiting sets in at ƒ/11, though the results at the shorter focal lengths aren't immediately obvious until ƒ/16 or ƒ/22, where we note very soft results across the frame (especially at 300mm).Both lenses are sharpest stopped down to F7.1-8, but the differences between them are negligible in the center of the frame and become noticeable away from the center, especially at 300mm, with Olympus being ever so slightly sharper in the center in some frames and Panasonic being sharper overall at the edges. The Olympus is too small and light for me to hold still easily on an Olympus E-M5. That might sound weird, but for a lens with this range I like some more weight; the Panasonic is about perfect for me to hold still with slower shutter speeds, whereas I struggled somewhat with the Olympus. As I have mentioned in the post, sample variation has not been taken in to consideration. Having said that, I did produce images that were sharp enough with the Olympus, so I didn’t think my sample was a ‘lemon’.