Recently I did some HHHR flower photography with the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm IS zoom, during a visit to the Royal Botanical Gardens.

I concentrated my test efforts on close-up photography as the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS zoom has a minimum focusing distance of 560 mm (~ 22 inches) on the wide end. The maximum magnification of the lens is 0.35 X on the wide end and 0.20 X on the telephoto end. Using teleconverters obviously extends the magnification further.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

This super telephoto lens isn’t a piece of gear that we would typically select for flower photography, given its size and weight. However, the relatively short minimum focusing distance of the M.Zuiko 150-600 zoom does make it extremely flexible when in the field. I’m looking forward to testing this lens further with insects and other small critters as we get warmer weather in Southern Ontario.

I began by locking the focal length of the M.Zuiko 150-600 at 150 mm. I then moved in physically to get as close to the blossoms/foliage as I could. Depending on their position in the planting areas I wasn’t able to shoot at a subject distance of 560 mm as often as I would have liked… but I still managed to capture a reasonable selection of images at this minimum subject distance.

I decided to increase the challenge of this test by photographing everything using HHHR (Handheld Hi Res) technology. As regular readers know, I’m not a pixel peeper. I do appreciate that some  folks like to view this amount of detail… so I’ve included a wide selection of 100% crops.

There are some practical considerations when using HHHR technology for flower photography. Often individual blossoms can be in lower light which may require the use of higher ISO values. Using HHHR increases the available dynamic range and colour depth, while helping to minimum image noise.

Using Handheld Hi Res also creates a significantly larger RAW file as the standard resolution increases from 5184 x 3888 to 8160 x 6120. This provides some additional cropping potential when needed.

For some of the photographs I stopped my lens down to create additional depth-of-field. I used Auto-ISO and a single, small AF point for all of the photographs featured in this article.

Being able to dramatically crop photographs, while still getting a significant level of detail helps create macro-type photographs with the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS zoom lens.

It is always beneficial to push our camera gear to help establish our own personal shooting parameters when out in the field.

This helps us maximize the potential of our kit by uncovering some creative options that we may have otherwise overlooked.

It is reasonable to think that many photographers who have purchased the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS zoom would not have bought this lens specifically for close-up flower photography.

Their primary objective… like mine… would have been photographing birds and nature. Being able to capture ISO-6400 images of flower blossoms with a good amount of detail… as we can see in the above 100% crop of a test image… is not something that many of us would have top-of-mind when buying this zoom lens.

As discussed in a previous article, the Sync-IS performance of the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS is superb.

This makes using HHHR technology with this lens a very practical approach… one which further opens up our creative options when out in the field.

Let’s have a look at some additional HHHR flower photography with 150-600 test images, taken at various subject distances. Each is followed by a 100% crop.

I also took a few HHHR flower photography with 150-600 test images using the M.Zuiko MC-20 teleconverter.

The Sync-IS still worked quite well when the M.Zuiko MC-20 was affixed to the 150-600 mm zoom… even though it comes with a loss of 2 stops of stabilization.

I was pleasantly surprized with the amount of image detail that this combination produced. Using the MC-20 extends the magnification of the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm to 0.7 X at a 150 mm focal length, and 0.4 X at 600 mm.

When we factor in the increase in resolution when using HHHR technology, the resulting images can be in macro photography territory depending on the focal length used.

Using the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS zoom with the MC-20 teleconverter and HHHR technology, can also be useful when subjects are a bit more distant.

The blossom above was 2.7 metres (~8.9 feet) away from my shooting position. Using the MC-20 doubled my focal length to 948 mm giving me an equivalent field-of-view of 1896 mm. This image was captured handheld at a shutter speed of 1/160.

The 100% crop above demonstrates that a reasonable amount of detail can be captured when using this approach with HHHR technology.

Most photographers who purchase the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS zoom lens are likely not going to photograph many flowers with it. This test session could help demonstrate how this lens could be used in conjunction with HHHR technology to photograph small, stationary subjects like beetles, spiders and other critters.

For whatever reason there are M4/3 naysayers, and OM/Olympus haters, out there. Quite predictably the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS zoom is criticized by online trolls who spread misinformation  and falsehoods about this lens and its capabilities. I suspect that very few of them, if any, have any real, hands-on experience using this camera gear. *rolls eyes and shrugs* That’s life.

Technical Note

Photographs were captured handheld with the camera equipment and technology noted in the EXIF data. All images were created from RAW files using my standard process in post. This is the 1,382 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.

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