So, they say, use a prime lens. Stretch yourself. No zoom. Make it work.

[AndyS]

So I chose 1600 mm. Sat on my balcony and used what I had.

What cha' think?







All with the one lens from the same chair in about an hour. Who woulda' thought a super telephoto would make a fair to middlin' macro?

[onecaliberal]

1. Great photos.

[dchill]

2. Nice work!

[3Hotdogs]

3. Nikon? Canon?

[AndyS]

5. Olympus OMD EM 1 mark II with

the 300mm f4, 1.4 x and using the in-camera digital 2x. Full frame equivalent of 1,680 mm. All hand held, no tripod.

This thing works magic . . .

[Gato Moteado]

21. great shots...

...nice and sharp, esp considering the teleconverter and extra crop. i'm guessing the in-camera 2x crop just crops out the middle of the sensor and turns the m43 into an m23.

[AndyS]

23. Yep. It makes a 5 meg image and resizes it to 20.

I can't see the difference in IQ. The camera works all sorts of computational magic, interpolating the content of all those empty pixels from the surrounding information.

As to the optical 1.4x, it's integrated into the lens formula and has no effect on IQ at all. The front element of the extender actually fits inside the rear of the lens and is effectively an additional element in the design. Mirrorless lenses all have an advanced design that columbates the light leaving the lens. That's necessary because the rear element is so close to the sensor.

[Gato Moteado]

24. wow...amazing!

[Phoenix61]

4. Those are great, especially the cardinal. nt

[spooky3]

6. Fabulous! Nt

[Ziggysmom]

7. You shot all those with the same lens from the same vantage point within an hour? WOW!

I love the fly best, I can make out the texture of his compound eyes. I admit it, I am an entomophile.

A bug joke for you 😉

Daddy Cricket: Junior, why on earth didn’t you answer me??
Junior: Poppa, Were you calling me?
Daddy Cricket: Was I calling? Don’t you see how hoarse my wings are?

[AndyS]

9. 😜

[soldierant]

14. So junior heard ... crickets?

[Ziggysmom]

25. Hee hee good one...... I love insects 🐞❤️

[Sucha NastyWoman]

8. Very Nice!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

10. What do *I* think??? How about WOW!

I am so very impressed with your work and your skills.

These are just simply gorgeous, Andy.

[MLAA]

11. Whatever you did and used, it worked! Excellent. I look forward to your posts.

[LoisB]

12. Wonderful.

[usonian]

13. You're having a boatload of fun!

The ability of a telephoto to focus close and deliver good results is the answer to many prayers (to lens designers). Most welcome, as is the high degree of vibration reduction. Being an old-time photographer, I like these features the most.

[xocetaceans]

15. Those are very nice photos!

I think that your(?) dog might be attempting a hypnotic stare: ( "I am a good dog - you will do my bidding." ).

If I may please ask, were you maybe using a mode that allowed you to select an ISO setting? If so, how high is the ISO in the photo of the cardinal?

I've been using a Canon SX50 HS superzoom camera and find that I need to keep to about ISO 200 if I want to exploit the lens to its fullest extent (the aperture usually ends up at roughly f7.1) without creating a lot of visible noise when I crop the image. (If I were to obtain a newer camera, its capabilities would undoubtedly be an improvement over the SX50 HS. I am just curious how your Olympus performs.)

[AndyS]

18. I keep the ISO as low as possible.

Base ISO is 200 but I get acceptable results up to 6500 and I even got an entirely useable portrait at 12600. The Cardinal was shot at ISO 200.

There is also some amazing software to remove noise.

[xocetaceans]

19. Thank you for that information.

It sounds great to be able to use up to ISO 6500 and higher.

[StarryNite]

16. Wonderful photos!

[HAB911]

17. the new optics are unbelievable

nice shots!

[AndyS]

20. They really are. And they have to be because the sensors can hold so much detail.

In the days of film Kodachrome 64 (and before that Kodachrome 25) was as good as you could get for resolution. Back then you had to do everything right and use every mm of negative to make a good 16 x 20.

I have a 20 x 40 inch picture made from a 16 meg 4/3 sensor from 10 years ago and it passes the sniff test - that's when you stick your nose against the paper so close you can smell the ink - and that's from some old technology!

[George McGovern]

22. Really nice Olympus images AndyS!