Panasonic 100-300?

I bought one on eBay a few months a go and for the money I have no complaints

jess81621 said:

Folks, I can't afford Olympus' 300mm prime telephoto nor Panasonic's 100-400mm. Was thinking of buying Panasonic's Lumix G Vario 100-300mm F/4.0-5.6 OIS Lens as a compromise.

Anyone hear of any new lenses that would go up to 300mm that are being released soon? I want autofocus and I don't want to spend much more than $500-$600. That's why Pany's 100-300 seems like the best option, unless I'm missing something.

THANKS!

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In answer to your question, no, have not heard of anything coming in the near future.

The other thing to remember, if you use a Panasonic camera, newer bodies that use DFD will still work with the 100-300, but if the body also does dual IS, three lenses are excluded from dual IS due to hardware incompatibility...14-45, 45-200 and 100-300. Needless to say, the new Oly dual IS does not work with any Panny lenses.

In addition, whether Panny or Oly bodies, the same hardware limitations can apparently slow your max burst speed. Let's say max burst is 6 fps, you may only get around 4 fps.

Does not make the lenses less optically functional, just something to be aware of.

jess81621 said:

Folks, I can't afford Olympus' 300mm prime telephoto nor Panasonic's 100-400mm. Was thinking of buying Panasonic's Lumix G Vario 100-300mm F/4.0-5.6 OIS Lens as a compromise.

Anyone hear of any new lenses that would go up to 300mm that are being released soon? I want autofocus and I don't want to spend much more than $500-$600. That's why Pany's 100-300 seems like the best option, unless I'm missing something.

THANKS!

Click to expand...

No, there is absolutely no chance that either Panasonic or Olympus will release another *-300mm lens any time soon when they both have solid offerings already (for the price) and anything better would cut into the sales of their newly released high priced lenses.

If you can't afford the 300/4 or 100-400, both the 100-300 and (if you're using an Oly body) the 75-300 are nice lenses. Not perfect, but produce good quality images, are small and light and generally easy to cary around, and won't break the bank.

I have Olympus' EM-10, so I was just going to turn off the the Pany lens' stabilization and use the Olympus body stabilization system.

Are you saying in this situation I will lose burst speed?

Thanks!

jess81621 said:

Folks, I can't afford Olympus' 300mm prime telephoto nor Panasonic's 100-400mm. Was thinking of buying Panasonic's Lumix G Vario 100-300mm F/4.0-5.6 OIS Lens as a compromise.

Anyone hear of any new lenses that would go up to 300mm that are being released soon? I want autofocus and I don't want to spend much more than $500-$600. That's why Pany's 100-300 seems like the best option, unless I'm missing something.

THANKS!

Click to expand...

I don't think they are going to be coming out with another 300mm lens soon since both oly and Pan just out out new lenses in that range.

I have the 100-300, it's a great lens. A little on the big side for m43, but it is a 300 zoom. I picked it up for my son to use on my camera he likes to go birding and taking a picture helps him identify birds later. turned out to be better then I expected.

The IS works well on this lens. That is good, because it is a slow lens, at f5.6 at 300, it needs some light. I think the Oly 75-300 is even slower then 5.6

jess81621 said:

I have Olympus' EM-10, so I was just going to turn off the the Pany lens' stabilization and use the Olympus body stabilization system.

Click to expand...

Yes, I do that with my EP5.

jess81621 said:

Are you saying in this situation I will lose burst speed?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

The issue is with the aperture mechanism in the 100-300. It does not work well at higher frame rates and, therefore, slows the camera down. This is also camera dependant.

This is not an issue if shooting wide open at f5.6.

It is not a major issue as burst rate and CAF are not m4/3's forte anyway.

I use my 100-300 on a regular basis and have not found this issue to be a problem.

Allan

jess81621 said:

Folks, I can't afford Olympus' 300mm prime telephoto nor Panasonic's 100-400mm. Was thinking of buying Panasonic's Lumix G Vario 100-300mm F/4.0-5.6 OIS Lens as a compromise.

Anyone hear of any new lenses that would go up to 300mm that are being released soon? I want autofocus and I don't want to spend much more than $500-$600. That's why Pany's 100-300 seems like the best option, unless I'm missing something.

THANKS!

Click to expand...

great lens and blows away the new 100-400mm for value.

I took this last summer. both shot on a em5 and around 500-600mm. The 2nd actually shot at 600mm and iso 500 (just checked).

jess81621 said:

I have Olympus' EM-10, so I was just going to turn off the the Pany lens' stabilization and use the Olympus body stabilization system.

Are you saying in this situation I will lose burst speed?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

If you do end up with the 100-300mm, you'll want to test whether lens or body stabilization works better for you. On my E-M1 or E-P5, both of which feature 5-axis stabilization, I use body stabilization, but on my GX7 with 2-axis IBIS, I use the 100-300mm's OIS. On an E-M10, which I believe is 3-axis IBIS, you should experiment, because OIS might work better, especially at the 300mm end.

I find the 100-300 Panasonic to be a great lens. Small enough to be chucked into the camera bag with the rest of my kit.

The optical quality is more than good enough.

Here are some shots I have made with this lens.









--
NIGEL'S RAMBLES

Panasonic 100- 300 on GH2 F 5.6 1/1000 iso 800

FL 300 (600 mm equivalent)



Doesn't get much better than this.

--
3pin

I love the Panny 100-300. One of my most used lenses on both Panny and Oly bodies. No worries.

Peace.

John

It is a good consumer grade lens. Definitely not as good as the Olympus 300 or the Panasonic Leica 100-400mm. However the cost of a new 100-300 is far less than the other two lenses. I have gotten some very good photos with the 100-300 and a number of so-so photos. For the price it is a good lens.

Look for a used 100-300 on Craigslist, ebay or Amazon. There may be a deal out there.

The 100-300 works better with my GH4(Panasonic), with the E-M1(Oly) it is not so reliable. I shoot even "birds in flight"-sequences with it, not only wide open. Max fps seems to become 3fps, what is sufficient for me in most of the cases.

Examples with birds flying towards the lens:

jess81621 said:

Folks, I can't afford Olympus' 300mm prime telephoto nor Panasonic's 100-400mm. Was thinking of buying Panasonic's Lumix G Vario 100-300mm F/4.0-5.6 OIS Lens as a compromise.

Click to expand...

For the same reason, I bought a used Panasonic 100-300 for my em-10. I think it's really good value for money. It feels slightly bigger in hands on my em-10 but not an issue for me. It has a considerably good sharpness even at the telephoto end. Here are some of the bird shots taken recently-













So I think if you are looking for a budget alternative, you can surely go for this. (or even oly 75-300 II)



Regards,

~Bhushan

I have been very pleased with my Panasonic 100-300 so far. I was able to buy mine new through work for $389 (lots of big company's have employee benefit agreements with other company not just their own products).

jess81621 said:

Folks, I can't afford Olympus' 300mm prime telephoto nor Panasonic's 100-400mm. Was thinking of buying Panasonic's Lumix G Vario 100-300mm F/4.0-5.6 OIS Lens as a compromise.

Anyone hear of any new lenses that would go up to 300mm that are being released soon? I want autofocus and I don't want to spend much more than $500-$600. That's why Pany's 100-300 seems like the best option, unless I'm missing something.

THANKS!

Click to expand...

The 100-300mm is my most used M43 lens. Some advice:

This lens can give you great results IF you remember that you are using a very long lens, and treat it as such.

1) First, use good holding technique. Brace your body and arms well as you shoot. Small body motion contributes to less sharpness, even with the OIS (or IBIS) on.

2) Use either all electronic shutter or electronic first curtain shutter. This lens does much better with fewer camera body vibrations to cope with.

3) Try and stop down a bit if you can. Wide open it's a bit mushier, especially at the long end. If you can shoot at f7.1, you are at the optimal sharpness, esp at the long end. (It's pretty good even wide open down at 100mm).

4) Keep your shutter speed up. I have best results over 1/640s as a rule. That's not to say that I haven't been able to get shots as low as 1/30s hand held if I am sitting down and bracing myself well, but in normal usage, the faster the better.

5) Have patience while learning. It takes a little while to adjust your technique to get the most out of this lens. Once you do, you can do anything with it, but before you get to that point, you will have some fuzzy shots .

6) Don't expect perfection on your first day out, as you gleefully hand-hold the setup and shoot everything you come across. Your keeper rate will be dreadful that day .

7) Even the slightly softer shots from this lens will sharpen up very nicely in PP. Keep that in mind, and use RAW+JPG settings so you have more leeway in your files should you decide you have a shot that's a keeper, but needs a bit more work to make it just right.

8) And, last, but definitely not least, go out and ENJOY IT!

-J

I had the Panasonic 100-300 since coming to M4/3 almost 2 years ago. It served me well on my first camera, a GX7, and for all of the Olympus bodies that followed, E-M10 I&II, E-M5 II and E-M1. Has now been replaced with the 100-400, but does not diminish that the 100-300 does very well.

I suggest you not worry about the OIS. VS IBIS issue, the Panny OIS is all I used and found it to be the equal of even the 5 axis IBIS of the E-M5 II. Mine was sharp up to 286mm, which is where I normally shot it for birds. It also makes a nice close-up lens, but does have a tendency to hunt in the brush. The poster that said the slow focus motors sloe the CAF speed is correct, but even then you will get about 5fps out of it.

Here's a couple of pics with the P100-300

Eagles nesting- check out the eye shot of the mother in the nest.....





Pelican shot with E-M10 using the in-camera 2x tele-converter, handheld with lens OIS

Jess, my Panasonic 100-300mm arrived today, new from eBay at a considerable saving. Value for money wise there's nothing to touch it. The new 100-400mm is simply too expensive. See my post querying around a little inconsistency in smoothness of the zoom action. http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/57796155

It does seem there is some variance but nothing to worry about if the stiffness is mild.

tried a few test shots and quite pleased. A good choice IMO, certainly for a Panny user.

No one has posted any inspiring, highly detailed photos taken with this lens yet. To be honest, I've seen much better photos taken with the Nikon P900, which has a fraction of the sensor size of MFT. It's a pity, I was considering this lens as it goes cheap second hand.