This article discusses an HHHR (Handheld Hi Res) test with the M.Zuiko 150-600, and shares some handheld images captured at the Niagara Butterfly Conservatory.

My objective with this short test was simply to find out how well the Handheld Hi Res technology would work with the M.Zuiko 150-600 and its Sync-IS. All of the images featured in this article are full frame captures without any cropping… but resized for this website.

As regular readers know I’m not a pixel peeper. To me this is akin to looking at a painting brush stroke by brush stroke… but I added a few 100% crops for those folks who may be interested.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

Incredible becomes the ‘new normal’.

As I was driving to the Niagara Butterfly Conservatory I was reminded of the tasks I was asking my camera and lens to do when deciding to photograph some butterflies and flowers with Handheld Hi Res technology.

By using Handheld Hi Res I was expecting my camera to take 16 separate images in rapid succession after just a single shutter release on my part. Sense any movements with my body and adjust IS for each image. Combine all of those 16 images in camera. Create a RAW file about 2.5 times larger than the native resolution of my E-M1X’s sensor. And, give me a RAW file with improved dynamic range, with less noise, than a standard resolution file.

I had to give my head a shake. Camera gear being able to do all of that is nothing short of incredible. Especially when I remembered back 5 years ago with my own photographic journey… when none of that technology existed for me. And… here I was calmly driving to Niagara Falls realizing that something incredible had become a ‘new normal’ for me.

It is easy for those of us who use OM/Olympus camera gear to forget how powerful and unique the computational photography technology resident in our cameras really is.  Sometimes all of the noise and hype in the market place about other cameras that utilize larger format sensors is obfuscating.

My wife and I spent a little over an hour at the Niagara Butterfly Conservatory, which was sufficient time for me to capture all of the photographs featured in this article. During that time I was pleasantly surprised with what I was able to create with the new M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS zoom and my trusty (soon to be 5 years old) E-M1X. I hadn’t anticipated how easy it would be to create these photographs.

When everything becomes fair game.

It only took me a couple of minutes to appreciate that everything in the Niagara Butterfly Conservatory had become fair game for my camera gear. If I found an upside down butterfly in shade… hiding under a leaf… no problem.

I could fully extend my M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS to 600 mm (efov 1200 mm) to fill the frame of my composition from 3.6 metres away… and get a good HHHR capture with a shutter speed of 1/160.

From a distance of 1.2 metres away from a subject butterfly I could achieve shallow depth-of-field and get good subject separation in my images.

I could challenge my camera gear by putting a subject butterfly up against a windowed background in my composition… so that it looked almost black in my viewfinder. Then use Center Weighted Average metering to better balance the lighting, and take advantage of the increased dynamic range from HHHR in post.

I could photograph subject butterflies that were in dark areas of the conservatory, requiring the use of ISO-6400, and not having to give any thought to image noise.

I could photograph subjects at interesting angles and get pin point accuracy with my auto-focus my using a single, small AF point.

The incredible focal length range of the M.Zuiko 150-600, coupled with comparatively short minimum focusing distances, delivered a lot of compositional freedom. This was extremely helpful when trying to photograph butterflies in and around crowds of people at the facility.

The performance of the Sync-IS in my M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS was superb. I was able to shoot at relatively slow shutter speeds and successfully capture all but one of my HHHR attempts. That one failed because another butterfly flew through my composition during an HHHR capture.

I could be lazy in post… and loved it!

The quality of my HHHR files was such that I could be lazy in post… and I loved it! I don’t think I can remember spending so little time on processing RAW files than the ones used to create the photos for this article.

Within the first 5 minutes of shooting at the Niagara Butterfly Conservatory I had total confidence that I would get successful HHHR image captures with any butterfly that I picked as a subject… as long as it remained motionless of course.

Throughout my visit to the Niagara Butterfly Conservatory I never felt that my M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS was too big, or too heavy, to use effectively for this subject matter. It handled very well, with the ‘S’ push/pull focal length adjustment being a joy to use.

It was overcast and drizzly during our visit, so I didn’t bother trying to use the MC-14 or MC-20 as I didn’t feel I had enough light to do so. The Handheld Hi Res technology on my E-M1X is limited to a maximum of ISO-6400. So using teleconverters for more close up work is something for me to try in a future test.

Threading the needle.

The focal length range of the M.Zuiko 150-600 came in very handy when I had to shoot through small openings in trees/branches and past other types of foliage.

The image above is a good example of using the 600 mm (efov 1200 mm) reach of the M.Zuiko 150-600 to photograph past some leaves and branches. I really liked the potential for high contrast lighting in this composition. The trick was finding the right shooting angle to be able to put the butterfly’s wings up against very dark shade. Threading the needle through some foliage by using a 600 mm (efov 1200 mm) did the trick.

A few lessons learned.

While I often shoot my M.Zuiko lenses wide open, there are some situations where it may have been beneficial to stop the M.Zuiko 150-600 down a bit to produce deeper depth-of-field. The butterfly in the above image is a good example of where stopping down to f/8 or f/11 could have been helpful.

One has to pay a bit more attention to any movement of a butterfly’s proboscis when using Handheld Hi Res as some motion artifacts can be recorded on the image file. When using a macro lens it is obviously much easier to spot proboscis movement.

Summary

I found that the Handheld Hi Res (HHHR) technology resident in my E-M1X worked very well with the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS zoom.

The stability of the Sync-IS made capturing HHHR images with shutter speeds of 1/100 and higher quite easy to do… even at longer focal lengths.

The quality of the HHHR RAW files made post processing a breeze. I’m looking forward to doing additional testing with HHHR by incorporating teleconverters into the mix.

Technical Note

Photographs were captured handheld with the camera equipment noted in the EXIF data. All images were created from RAW using my standard process. All images were capturing using Handheld Hi Res technology. A single, small AF point was used for all of the photographs in this article. This is the 1,374 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.

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