A quick test of possibly the best bird/wildlife action photography combo

Ever since OM systems (erstwhile Olympus) launched the OM-1 and the Olympus 150-400mm f4.5 lens, it has been garnering a lot of interest. And me being a nature lover and photographer, wanted to give it a try! Some calls to the ever helpful Mr. Ravindra from OlympusPro India got that combo in my hands for some tests. Wanted to see what the setup was capable of. A quick dash to a nearby biodiverse location on a winter morning to set the ball rolling. The OM systems OM-1 is a true flagship camera

• AF modes and zones with varying sensitivity to cater to various styles of wildlife shooting
• Customizable burst rates
• Top of the line AF AI-based tracking. It blew my socks off!
• Extremely customizable and priceless ProCapture mode for people who enjoy action photography
• Ergonomic and thoughtful button placement across the body and lens

The lens at 400mm stays open at f4.5, using the built-in 1.25x TC at the telephoto end makes it a very impressive 500mm f5.6 - this being the FF equivalent of 1000mm f5.6 Right off the bat, the reach easily outweighs the weight of the setup. Compared to anything else in it's class, the lack of weight is phenomenal.

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Trying this on birds, the AF lock was precise with a ton of detail to show!

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Shooting birds in-flight was a breeze, Continuous AF coupled with Bird AI tracking ensured the keeper rate was through the roof. A shot I had struggled with so far, not perfect, but I'll gladly take this

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A lot of non-MFT photographers often talk about the Bokeh being not so smooth, this lens design has taken that into consideration and the Bokeh quality has gotten better. Putting distance between the subject and the background is always key, making it work right brings out the best isolation.

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Isolation isn't the end-all for wildlife, using the environs does make frames a lot more appealing.

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A shot of the full moon, handheld @ 1/4th of a second!:O

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With a pretty close minimum focusing distance of 1.3m it doubles up as a lovely close-up lens too.

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Some of the third party applications such as Fastone aren't equipped to handle the brand new .orf files, they'll catch up soon. Used IrfanView with the latest set of plugins to cull and manage the huge buckets of burst images.
Thoroughly impressed by the capabilities of this setup, arguably one of the best money can buy. Should pick this up again with a visit to another location!
Cheers!
Hayath