Estimated dimensions for the PanaLeica 100-400

OzRay wrote:

Martin.au wrote:

Not extended, obviously (as you can see in my picture). Who cares about it when it's extended, and why?

How the lens extends and by how much, for the focal length range, may well be of interest to some people.

The only reason for worrying about this would be for hand-held shooting balance. Without knowing how much of the lens' weight moves during zooming, just knowing the length does not help much. This is a question that everyone must answer for themselves after some handling.

It's only now that we actually see by how much it extends at 400mm, but we still don't know anything about the in-between. In a sense, you can't say how long the lens is unless you qualify at what focal length.

You can say something about the storage length, which is the most important when considering bag dimensions etc.

There can be issues with lenses like this, as I can attest from owning an Olympus 50-200mm lens. For example, will the lens remain firmly in the selected zoom position if you happen to move about or reposition yourself, or if you are pointing the lens up or down. Will it start to loosen up with use? How solid is the barrel alignment when fully extended. Will it start to wobble somewhat with use?

This lens is supposedly weather sealed. If it wobbles badly it probably would have been hard to weather seal it.

This lens has an FL lock, which seems to indicate at least some zoom creep. It's unknown if the lock is for stowage only, i.e. only works at the shortest zoom point, or can be used at any FL. If it's the first case, bang goes shooting up or down on a tripod without hand touching. Fancy dynamic zooming shots ahead.

The other question is how quickly does the lens go from f4 to f6.3.

The worst case is F4 for 100 and F6.3 for everywhere else