motionstills
New Member
Nice! Was contemplating getting a used 80-200 for the E-M5. How's the handling?
Thanks bro, have this lens for a few years on Nikon system, AF is slow but IQ is great, a little soft at f/2.8 but usable. Manual focus is very smooth, throw is short and the ring is well damped for accurate fine focusing. On E-M5, I use x5 to x7 magnification during MF, easily done for still subjects but not so for moving ones. There is no IS, but not an issue with E-M5 since there is IBIS (so not recommended for lumix m43 bodies). Lens is heavy, can't hang it over neck, have to be on tripod all the time supported by lens collar, walking with tripod and lens over shoulder limits your movement and can be stressful after a while. Tripod ballhead must also be powerful enough to hold the entire assembly, the last thing you want is to have everything crashed to the ground. I do not recommend using HLD-6 battery holder as the extra weight adds stress to lens mount, the hand grip part is fine though.
My preferred birding gear is still E-M5 + 75-300mm on a monopod, use this 80-200mm setup only when i really need that extra 200mm to get closer

