South Africa Wildlife Shooting with Olympus M.Zuiko 300mm F4 IS PRO Lens

Last week I was at South Africa for a work trip, and the first few days were spent at Kruger National Park, where we had a few sessions of "game drives", going out into the wild to see the animals. I thought this would have been the perfect opportunity to test out the M.Zuiko 300mm F4 IS PRO lens. I have mentioned previously that my review images (read my review of 300mm F4 PRO lens here if you have not) were taken from an ordinary user perspective, as I did not have the chance to travel far into the wild to do any meaningful wildlife shooting. Many people have pointed out that my photographs of the birds in particular may not be applicable in practical shooting situations since I got ridiculously close to the birds, which does not happen in real life. Therefore, having the chance to go to South Africa and shoot the wild animals there, I must do my best to test the 300mm F4 PRO lens again!

There were a few obstacles standing between me and my imagined ideal shooting conditions. 

There were about 8 of us in a jeep, and in each jeep we only had ONE M.Zuiko 300mm F4 IS PRO lens to be shared. So while you are looking at the photographs shown in this blog entry, take note that I did not have the 300mm lens at all times. However, I am only showing photographs taken with the 300mm PRO lens. 

The lighting condition was horrendous. I was told by the locals that at this particular time of the year, Hoedspruit, Limpopo area has the best lighting any photographer/cinematographer could hope for. In my mind I was visualizing the golden, warm, "national geographic" light quality when shooting during early morning or near sunset, having that magical glow on the wild animals. Over the course of three days, the sky was constantly cloudy, with a few threats of thunderstorm (though the rain was light and quick, nothing serious). The lighting was soft, dull, uninteresting, creating undramatic images, which I often would describe as uninspiring. Experienced photographers would have put away their camera, since lighting is almost everything in photography!

For this particular "game drive" session, the M.Zuiko 300mm F4 IS PRO was NOT the ideal lens to use. We often had the chance to get super close to the animals, at times, about 5 meters away only. The 300mm was just too tight for proper framing. I understand that communicating with the ranger (driver of the jeep) to coordinate locations stopped would have helped with better compositions but remember the jeep had 8 people with cameras and there was only one 300mm lens? It would have been selfish to ask the ranger to relocate the jeep further just for myself to shoot, while others without telephoto zoom lens would treasure the every bit nearer distance that we could get. The better lens in this situation would have been the amazing M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 PRO lens. 

All complains aside, lets look at some photographs.

All images were taken with Olympus M.Zuiko 300mm F4 IS PRO lens

My first time seeing a live chameleon. Quite a charming creature! And this one was pregnant. 

F6.3, 1/500sec, ISO250

I stopped down to F6.3 instead of shooting wide open at F4 to get abit more depth of field so I can have the entire eye in focus. This particular image shows off the incredible close up shooting capability of the 300mm lens. I was approximately less than 2 meters away from the chameleon, and having the pseudo macro feature allowed me to shoot this without having to change lens. I acknowledge that the shot would have been better if I was maybe a meter or two away but we were not allowed to get out of the car. We were basically stuck at our seat positions. 

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F4, 1/320sec, ISO250

Since most of the birds I shot in my review entry were too close to the lens, this was one rather far away. 

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F4, 1/125sec, ISO6400

This was taken near the lodge we were staying in. It was early morning and the light was rather dim, hence the need to boost ISO to 6400 to achieve enough shutter speed. The monkey was not staying very still, hence the need of higher shutter speed. 

F8, 1/80sec, ISO640

Poor bird. Flew away too slowly I guess. 

F4, 1/160sec, ISO640

Baby Giraffe. Quite a cute fella. 

F4, 1/80sec, ISO200

A young cub. We found a pack of lions, all lying on the ground. We were quite close to them. 

F4, 1/250sec, ISO400

Reasons why not to slow down the shutter speed unnecessarily? To capture action shots like this lioness (I think female, I could be wrong) yawning.  

F4, 1/400sec, ISO320

F4, 1/15, ISO640

F4, 1/160sec, ISO1250

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F4, 1/800sec, ISO400

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F4, 1/160sec, ISO250

Another example of incredible macro shooting ability of the 300mm lens. I was about a meter and a half away from this lizard. Not sure why this lizard was not scared of me. I got closer and closer and it still stood there, looking at me. 

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F4, 1/400sec, ISO320

F4, 1/400sec, ISO320

F4, 1/640sec, ISO250

F4, 1/200sec, ISO640

F4, 1/30sec, ISO250

F4, 1/800sec, ISO400

F6.3, 1/640sec, ISO200

Shot a moon in the clear sky when I was in Cape Town, not at the national park. The image above was obviously heavily cropped. Nonetheless, it still shows the capability and sharpness of the 300mm lens. 

I would understand if you were to say that there was nothing really that outstanding looking at my wildlife images. I believe many other photographers can do much better than me. I only hoped I had much better lighting. 

Every single time I was using the M.Zuiko 300mm F4 IS PRO lens, I could not help but always be in awe of the incredible sharpness it delivers. Having the 5-Axis Sync IS (as I was shooting with the OM-D E-M1) helped mitigate the need to use a tripod, and I was getting sharp images throughout the game drives without any additional support (tripod, monopod, etc). Being able to hand-hold a 600mm equivalent lens with the confidence of high success rate in nailing the shot, is quite an amazing story to tell. After all, this 300mm F4 IS PRO lens is the BEST Olympus lens (optical design and superiority) at this moment, and I strongly believe the evidence is shown in the photos. 

In case some of you remembered, I also mentioned that I wanted to shoot a tennis tournament in Malaysia last weekend, which did not happen because I decided to catch up with some visiting friends instead. 

The 300mm F4 IS PRO lens is on sale now, and I am sure a few of you have added the lens into your arsenal. Do share your thoughts and experience with the lens, I am sure your sharing will help others who are still curious about what this lens can do!

Olympus M.Zuiko 300mm f4 IS PRO lens is available from B&H here. 

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