Lens Help for Olympus user

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KevinO

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Kevin
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Hi all

I have an Olympus E420 camera, and i am looking to expand my range of lenses, currently i have 14-42mm and 40-150mm both of which came with the camera.
I am wanting to buy a telephoto lens, mostly for use at air displays and sports events, however i dont know what best to go for, i am on a limited budget of £200, i have seen one on ebay, but no idea if it will be any good. its a Samyang 650-1300mm lens

Any suggestions welcome
 
Have a look and see if you can find a manual focus sigma 400mm F5.6 APO, then get a 4/3 rds to whatever mount the sigma is adaptor, that will give you a much better lens than the samyang with a focal length of around 800mm on your camera.

There's an OM fit one on ebay at present that would be ideal with a 4/3rds to OM adaptor.
 
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That manual focus Samyang will be very difficult to control on your 4/3 camera...it will have an effective range of 1300-2600mm which will be mean shakey shots handheld :D

If you are looking for something manual focus, grab a 2nd hand 200/4 something or other and an adapter e.g. Ffordes have a Nikon 200/4 for £79.00 (plus you'd need an adapter) - this would give you a slightly longer effective focal distance of 300mm, or you could get an Olympus OM Zuiko 300/4.5 for £139.00 (plus you'd need to buy an OM->4/3rds adapter for £10.00 or so). This would give you an effective 600mm range, although I would suggest this will be very difficult to hand hold.
 
It's probably better to go for a native lens at that range. If your budget can stretch go for the Olympus 70-300mm lens, good quality lens and good range which will AF on your body. Can be had for around £250 on ebay or try Kerso as he sell Olympus goods.
 
Thanks for the help, i've had another look around ebay and found a few that seem reasonable.

quick question: would it be worth, purchasing a canon or sony etc camera, as they seem to have a larger selection of cheaper lenses to fit?
 
KevinO said:
quick question: would it be worth, purchasing a canon or sony etc camera, as they seem to have a larger selection of cheaper lenses to fit?
Click to expand...

You have to ask yourself how much your prepared to spend in order to switch systems, yes they may have a larger selection of cheaper lens, but are they going to be better and suit your needs?
 
The main draw back with the 4/3rds system is the major third party lens companies such as sigma and tamron have either been very slow to support it or havent bothered at all so far.

I have only seen a very limited selection of sigma lenses for 4/3rds mount so far.
Given that and the relatively low cost of something like a canon 500D I would personally make the change, oh wait.... I did lol.. from micro 4/3rds to the 500D and have never regretted it, the IQ is much better, the range of lenses both new and second hand superb and even the flash guns are better, in fact there are more options all round.

I started with just a new body, the 50mm and the 85mm then have gradually added lenses and flash guns as and when I could afford them.
I'll give some cost examples.

500D body new £469
Canon 50mm F1.8 £ 90
Tamron 17-50 F2.8 £299
Tamron 55-200 £99
Canon 85mm F1.8 £299
Second hand Sigma 170-500m £250

Now when compared to the cost of lenses for the 4/3rds system there is a difference, especially when you are looking at faster lenses of F2.8 or faster.
 
True, there aren't many third party lens for the 4/3 system. But ignoring the Canon 50mm & 85mm for the minute, the equivalent Canon lens in your list are going to cost quite abit.

Admittedly Olympus do have a gap in their line up for primes.

The micro 4/3 system doesn't have a large range of lens but then again it is still a relatively new system. Judging by the GF1 forum I think most people are happy with the range lens at the moment. BTW, have you used the Olympus High Grade optics?
 
KevinO said:
quick question: would it be worth, purchasing a canon or sony etc camera, as they seem to have a larger selection of cheaper lenses to fit?
Click to expand...

Trouble is glass cheaper usually equates to not as good. I have the Oly 70-300 mentioned and also the 50-200.
The 70-300 is cheap but I rarely use it in the UK as it needs plenty of light and focus is (relatively) slow. For air displays it may be fine as auto focus of a plane against a sky it could manage, sports it may struggle. It certainly would be no good for indoor sports. I keep that one for travel as it is lightweight and perfectly acceptable once in a sunny place :)
The 50-200 is around 4-5x the cost but it's performance over the 70-300 is easily 10x.

Going for cheaper glass elsewhere you will most likely find that you have to stop the lens down to get optimum sharpness which again means more light required. There is some ISO advantage with APS sensors to help there but it is not that much in reality. When going through my E3 and a friends D90 shots after an event I often find the ISO on the D90 is higher for late afternoon/evening shots. The D90 with a Sigma 70-200 needed a higher ISO to maintain shutter speeds at it's owners favoured F stop while the 50-200 can go wide open and remains sharp.
 
Thanks for all your help, being a student i was just going to go out and buy what looked decent, but your help has really allowed me to reconsider my options of camera and lens.
 
This is the worst part about photography as a hobby - it is not cheap :)
In one respect your choice of Oly with the kit lenses was good because the Zuiko lenses are of a high quality, even the kit lenses. On the other hand their higher grade lenses while being much better than their kit lenses reflect their quality in their price.
It's not that they are mega expensive for what they are but rather they are on par with say L series from Canon for example and they don't make any comparable to a standard 3rd party Canon fit lens.
Third parties are not making 4/3 mount lenses because the market is too small.

As a student with I assume a few years worth of studying and then paying off loans ahead it may be worth looking into second hand as there is some good quality stuff around with some savings. However, going back to market size you would probably benefit by looking at Nikon/Canon simply for the quantity/availability of kit. That doesn't mean you have to, after all if you find some fool(s) selling a 12-60SWD and 50-200SWD for good prices then unless you are into wide angle (probably wouldn't use 4/3 if so) then you would not need any more lenses.

With any luck Oly will fail to bring out an E3 replacement next month and you will find a glut of Oly users on dpreview all selling their Oly kit ... if their threats are to be believed :)

Hope you find something that at least makes it fun til you then find the next kit you want - it can be a never ending lust list this game if you let it!
 
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