Olympus 75-300 F4.8-6.7 II vs Panasonic Lumix 100-300 F4.0-5.6 lens comparison

After putting up for a few years with the disappointing results of shooting using my Panasonic 100-300 F4.0-5.6 (original, not Mark II) in combination with my Olympus bodies (see my previous discussion in this forum) I recently decided to take advantage of a price drop and buy an Olympus F4.8-6.7 II.

First impressions

The Olympus lens is noticeably smaller and a lot lighter than the Panasonic, which is not surprising given it lacks the optical image stabilization of the latter. The overall build feels tight and solid but not quite as substantial as my Olympus 12-100 Pro (which also happens to be quite a bit wider and heavier).

The zoom ring on my model is somewhat stiff compared to the other Olympus lenses I own. But the focus ring is smooth and easy to rotate as opposed to the focus ring on my copy of the Panasonic which is really stiff, especially in cold weather.

Disappointingly enough, it comes without a hood, but it's no big deal as there is an after-market hood available for $10 on Amazon.

Focusing

Focusing speed is considerably higher than on the Panasonic lens. The lens also supports the focus peaking/magnification feature of my Olympus bodies which comes in so handy when you have to focus on a subject partly obscured by branches.

Image quality

I have to do a side-by-side comparison of the two lenses shooting off the tripod with the OIS turned off, but the limited hand-held tests I've done so far seem to indicate that their optical quality is roughly on par with each other. However, the Olympus lens seems to deliver much more consistent quality resulting in a much higher keeper rate than the Panasonic.

I shot a series of test frames in the "low-silent" (electronic shutter) mode with the two lenses mounted on Olympus E-M5II and E-M1III bodies with the IBIS set to the lens priority mode and the Panasonic's OIS enabled. I then selected the best (sharpest) frame in each series for comparison.

Sharpness

Both lenses are sharpest stopped down to F7.1-8, but the differences between them are negligible in the center of the frame and become noticeable away from the center, especially at 300mm, with Olympus being ever so slightly sharper in the center in some frames and Panasonic being sharper overall at the edges.

However, where the Olympus shines is in its consistency. Unlike my Panasonic which can be all over the map by randomly turning scenes into a mush of fuzziness or creating strange floating blobs of blur (all likely artefacts of OIS thrashing), the multiple frames shot with the Olympus 75-300 are much closer to one another in terms of IQ. So I suspect my overall keeper rate is going to be much higher with the Olympus than with the Panasonic (which at times was dismal).

Bokeh

Olympus 75-300 creates a crisper, more pleasant (to my eye) bokeh than Panasonic 100-300 whose bokeh can be mushy and dull looking.

Chromatic aberrations

This is one area in which Olympus 75-100 wins hands down with no noticeable CA around hard, high-contrast edges (e.g. tree branches against the sky) compared to my Panasonic 100-300.

I will update this post once I get the chance to thoroughly test both lenses on a tripod with the Panasonic's OIS turned off. To be continued...