What Is The Longest Manual Focus Focal Length You Can Hand Hold With M4/3 ?

[ruben_bittermann]

<p>A decade ago, with film, the limit focal length I could hand hold was a 500 mm mirror lens. By then the image was 'dancing' in my hands but still could be focused with some pain.<br />Now with my G-1 I cannot manual focus without tripod the equivalent of 300mm as the image dances too much for me. Perhaps it is my eyes or/and hands stability and I have reasons to believe both have deteriorated, perhaps there is more than that.<br />Your experiences please, comparing film cameras and M4/3 for the same equiv.</p>

[godfrey]

<p>Personally, I use a tripod for most work at focal lengths beyond 50mm, certainly for 70-100mm and above, although I've hand-held 135-200 mm non-stabilized lenses occasionally.</p>

<p>The Panasonic 45-200 OIS lens is pretty easy to hand-hold at 200mm setting with Mode 1 OIS enabled. Jitter does become troublesome with non-stabilized long lenses. </p>

<p>200mm constitutes 8x normal focal length magnification, so it should be no surprise that it is challenging to hold steadily. The diagonal FoV at 300mm is equivalent to a 600mm lens on 35mm Film format ... that's a very long lens with 12x normal magnification. I never hand-held that long a lens with anything approaching satisfactory results even when I was in my twenties. The upcoming 100-300 OIS lens should make some hand-holdable operation possible. </p>

[bob_sunley]

<p>Part of the problem is the lack of mass/weight of the camera. I've always found it easier to get sharper pics from a heavier camera/lens combo than a lightweight one.</p>

[kevin_dixey2]

<p>I've hand held the Olympus 200 f4 on an E500 successfully.</p>

[yoshio]

<p>with good daylight I regularly use my 300mm f4</p>

[adam_bliss]

<p>I've hand held my E-P2 with a <a href="http://www.knowphoto.com/2010/02/canon-eos-lenses-on-olympus-ep2-tip/">Canon 70-200 f2.8</a> with good results in bright daylight. The balance of the camera is obviosuly way off with this setup though so you have to keep your shutter speed up.<br>

Adam</p>