> Overpriced, as mentioned, and even back in the day these lenses were not
> really competitive against the same-era Canon teles. Now, they are even more
> left behind, sadly.
The lenses were competitive--the rest of the system was behind. While
Canon and Nikon were adding significant new features and capabilities
to their cameras, Olympus doubled down on "OM-4Ti Forever". But the
real clincher was flash-sync speeds. You couldn't do sports
photography or a lot of needed stuff with max 1/60 flash sync. (at
least with any semblance of power).
Zone-10's "Olympus Living History Farm" has the 200/4 and 300/4.5.
Both very good telephoto lenses, but lack one thing that N/C did which
were game changers. They went IF (internal focusing), which sped up
the operation of the lenses and made them MUCH more user-friendly.
It's far harder to manually track focus with an Olympus OM lens than
an IF equipped N/C lens. Once IN FOCUS, the OM lenses are brilliant,
but getting there is much harder. The 250/2 and 350/2.8 have IF, but
were sadly held back by a camera that lacked competitive basics. The
traditional lens-extension design of the 200/4 and 300/4.5 contribute
to the unique image characteristics these lenses offer, but the
sans-IF configuration limits their usefulness.
Another issue, which was specific to a comparative with Nikon. Nikons
have a far better focus screen for use with telephotos. The OM
2-series screen addressed most of this weakness, but the
deformed-microprism design of the Nikon screens provided brightness
AND a distinct "snap" when the subject came into focus. While I
absolutely love my OM viewfinders, I will say that Nikons are MUCH
better in some applications.
Finally, the big problem is that these lenses came along right before
Auto-Focus became available. While it is very true that the early
generations of auto-focus were anything but usable, they were at least
what the market demanded. Olympus failed to correctly respond to this
and instead of paying money to Honeywell for licensing of the
technology, put that money into real-estate instead. By the time sales
of the 250/2 and 350/2.8 SHOULD have hit their stride, the market had
already turned to auto-focus and Canon ate everybody's lunch.
I'm looking at my IS3/G40 here. There is so much absolute brilliance
(as well as absolute mind-boggling stupidity) to this design that
makes me upset that Olympus didn't do an OM body with half the stuff
that camera has. Regardless, the 35-180 lens is exceptional and the
flash system is too. To this day, Olympus hasn't reimplemented many of
the best features of that camera in any camera since. (instant spot,
for example, focus-distance determined flash power, etc).
But, anyway, I digress. The three "great whites" remain in my dreams
for eventual acquisition, but the key there is "remain" and "dreams".
I doubt I would ever buy one, IF I COULD AFFORD TO, because,
dog-gone-it , I want auto-focus. And I want to be able to carry it.
With high-ISO settings in modern digital cameras, I have no need for
anything brighter than F4 in those focal lengths.
AG
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