Olympus 70-300mm 1:4.0-5.6 ED Lens Review

Watch this item
4.5 stars
Average rating for this product is: 4.5 out of 5

From 0 ratings and 1 review

Thumb up 100% of users recommend this product

Rate it Now:

Click on the stars above to rate this product:

Tweet This Item


BobTech's Review of Olympus 70-300mm 1:4.0-5.6 ED Lens 35mm SLR Lens

26th Nov 2008

Overall Rating

4.5 stars
  • Value for money
    4.5 stars
  • Sharpness
    4.5 stars
  • Time Lense Owned
    1 - 6 Months
Good Points

It produces very clean sharp images with negligible coloured fringing around high-contrast edges. Zooms out to the equivalent of 600mm in 35mm film terms - great for bringing birds in trees etc up really close. For such a long focal length lens, it's very compact and light. It's made in Japan and a quality product.


Bad Points

The only downside I can think of is that the front section of the lens rotates as it focusses, making it tricky to use a polarising filter.


General Comments

I got this lens with my Olympus E-520 kit and I'm very happy with it. Not only is it a great telephoto zoom lens for distant subjects, but it's just as useful as a macro lens. In manual focus mode, it can focus down to 960mm (from subject to camera's focal plane), making it possible to get excellent photos of insects etc while still being far enough away to not scare the subject. Of course it helps a lot to use a tripod and a camera with an image stabiliser because camera shake can blur the photos, which applies to all lenses of this kind. I certainly recommend this lens!

Tweet This Review

BobTech's review has yet to be rated - Be the first!

How helpful did you find this review?


Members' Comments onBobTech's Review

  • BobTech Rank: Major on 29th Nov 2008

    I just noticed that this review is supposed to be for a 70-300mm 35mm *film* lens. Can you even buy such a thing now?
    The review I did is for the 4/3 format *digital* lens with exactly those specifications.

  • BobTech Rank: Major on 3rd Dec 2008

    The lens I own and wrote a review of is a specifically *digital* lens for the Four Thirds format used by Olympus, Leica and Panasonic. It is *not* a 35mm film format lens as described by Review Centre.