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 Performance

Sharpness delivered by this lens at 75mm and maximum aperture is outstanding across the frame. Stopping down the aperture actually results in a gradual reduction in clarity as the diffraction limit of the sensor is reached. Performance across the frame is very similar at 150mm, albeit with slightly reduced clarity when compared to 75mm.

Finally, at 300mm, as you might expect from a 4x zoom lens, overall sharpness across the frame is reduced compared to results at shorter focal lengths. At f/6.7 sharpness is good in the centre of the frame, but can only be considered fairly good towards the edges of the frame. Peak sharpness across the frame for this focal length is achieved at f/8. Here sharpness in the centre of the frame is very good, but the clarity recorded towards the edges of the frame is still only fairly good.

Resolution at @ 75mm		Resolution at @ 150mm
Resolution at @ 300mm		How to read our charts The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column. The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. For this review, the lens was tested on a Panasonic Lumix DMC-G3 using Imatest.

Chromatic aberrations towards the edges of the frame are very well controlled between 75mm and 150mm. There is a noticeable increase in colour fringing towards the edges of the frame at 300mm. The increase in CA levels is such that it may become an issue, especially when photographing images with high contrast towards the edges of the frame.

Chromatic aberration @ 75mm		Chromatic aberration @ 150mm
Chromatic aberration @ 300mm		How to read our charts Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. For this review, the lens was tested on a Panasonic Lumix DMC-G3 using Imatest.

Falloff of illumination towards the corners of the frame reasonably well controlled. Corners are roughly one stop darker than the image centre at maximum aperture throughout the zoom range and visually uniform illumination is achieved by f/8 at 75mm and f/11 at 300mm.

Distortion is well controlled and very consistent through the entire zoom range. Imatest detected between 0.266% and 0.216% pincushion distortion. This low level shouldn't be too visible in normal photography. The distortion pattern is uniform across the frame, which should make applying corrections in image editing software afterwards straightforward if absolutely straight lines are paramount.

No lens hood is supplied as standard with this lens, but as this lens is equipped with Olympus' ZERO optical coatings, it is also very resistant to flare and contrast remains good, even when shooting into the light.

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