LAS VEGAS—Hands-on product testing at CES is usually limited to picking up a device in a meeting room, which doesn't tell us much about cameras and lenses. Sure, I was able to hear the machine gun shutter of the new Nikon D5 rattle off shots at 12fps in a press room, but that doesn't tell me much about how it's going to perform in real-world conditions.

Olympus put together a short shooting expedition with its new M.Zuiko ED 300mm f4.0 IS PRO telephoto lens. The logistics of CES made for a difficult shoot. An offsite location was picked—Nelson, Nevada, a ghost town that played a role in the Kurt Russell/Kevin Costner opus 3000 Miles to Graceland, about 40 minutes outside of the city. The only feasible time for myself (and other journalists on the expedition) to get out of town is after the show floor closes, and since it's January, that means pitch black conditions.

Normally, that wouldn't be too big of a problem. Olympus supplied some continuous lighting to illuminate scenes, and moving outside of Vegas would allow for some great astrophotography opportunities along with the 300mm. I was planning on shooting some cool star trail shots along with the Live Composite function found in the company's Micro Four Thirds camera line.

But mother nature played a cruel trick. Somehow, on a January night in the middle of the arid desert, I was greeted with heavy, pouring rain. I'm happy to say that the weather-sealed lens, paired with the E-M1, worked absolutely perfectly. They got soaked (I did too) but the lens hood kept water droplets off of the front element. But shooting through rain diminishes the quality of an image. A crashed plane was dramatically lit, with a tripod setup ready for a long exposure, but shooting through the torrent blurred the image.

That's fine. There were other shots. An exotic animal dealer (who told us he was a close personal friend of Nicolas Cage—a claim which is at the same time utterly absurd and completely believable) brought a scorpion, snake, and tarantula. The scorpion proved to be a very cooperative photo subject, moving in a slow, lumbering manner and stopping long enough for motion blur not to play a part in photos. The 300mm has a 1:2.1 macro magnification, which lets you get up close and personal with the stinging beast, without having to get close enough to get scared. Focus was quick and accurate, even in lighting where I was pushing the camera to ISO 1600 to get a 1/80-second exposure at f/4. But both the snake and the tarantula proved to be a bit too speedy to capture a sharp shot. Kids and animal acts, you just can't work with them.

The front porch of the general store of the forgotten town was lit up as well, and provided another opportunity to test out the lens's macro capabilities. I found good frames in a vintage, rusty 7-Up vending machine, and—if you don't mind the creep factor—in a mummified cat that was sitting in a basket on the porch. And the covered area provided welcome shelter for photographing a modern day cowboy who was there to spin his gun, show off his skills with a lasso, and go full Indiana Jones with a bullwhip.

The working distance for shooting portraits that captured this action was pretty extreme, and with other photographers working in the area, I was also dealing with folks walking in front of my lens. But I got a few solid shots of the cowboy. He was well lit, but in order to keep the shutter speed quick enough to freeze motion, I was still pushing the E-M1 to ISO 1600.

I also tried some handheld shots. The weather and limited time didn't give me the opportunity to light some of the scenes I wanted to (an old Texaco sign was just screaming to be photographed, as well as a battered green pick-up). I did shoot the truck, hand-held at 1/6-second, just to see how far I could push the IS. I was shivering at that point from the cold rain, which didn't do much for my ability to keep the camera steady. Still, the shot did a fine job showing the weathered texture of the green paint. There's some blur visible, but I was pushing the IS to about 6 stops, beyond its stated capabilities, and you do have to do some pixel peeping to really see the movement.

It's a little early to render a verdict on the lens. I need more than one cold, dark night to inform readers if I think it's worth a hefty $2,500 purchase. When it comes in for review (which should be soon, according to Olympus), I'm going to give it a more extensive real-world test, and see what kind of resolution it puts out in the lab. Olympus claims that it's the sharpest optic it's developed to date, and when you couple in a weather-sealed design, the ability to pair it with a 1.4x teleconverter, excellent close focus capability, and a stabilization system that's rated for five stops of compensation, you have a lens that a lot of Micro Four Thirds photographers are going to lust after, especially those who love to capture wildlife and sports action.