Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 II Lens Review

Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 II Handling and features

This lens is extremely light weight, weighing only 430g, especially when you consider the telephoto reach it offers. The lens barrel is constructed from decent quality plastics and the lens mount is made of metal. The lens balances well with the Panasonic G3 used for testing, although it may be a little large for use on some of the more compact Micro Four Thirds system cameras available.

Focusing is performed internally and the 58mm filter thread does not rotate during use, making this lens ideal for use with graduated and polarising filters.  In good light focusing speeds are reasonably quick and the manual focus ring offers a decent amount of resistance, which makes applying fine adjustments fairly straightforward. However, in poor lighting the lens can struggle to achieve focus, especially when using the telephoto end of the range. The lens has a silent focusing motor and is labelled as one of Olympus' MSC lenses, suitable for movies and stills.

The minimum focus distance of 90cm is only available with the lens set to 75mm and the minimum focus distance increases as the lens is zoomed in, which may cause issues when composing close up shots. Care needs to be taken when using this lens in all but the brightest lighting conditions as the modest maximum aperture makes it difficult to achieve a shutter speed suitable for hand holding the camera. As Olympus cameras have stabilisation built into the camera body, this will help to increase the usability of this lens.

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