100-300: is the OIS this bad??

[luisflorit]

OK, non-system lenses won't AF for you, so that's that.

How about using some support with the 100-300? I know you don't want to drag a tripod along, but would a monopod work for you?

Yes, when using the 2xTC (800mm EFL) I always use monopod + monopod head.

The problem with monopods is no longer the weight (mine is quite light), but that it restricts your movements a lot. For small birds jumping constantly from leaf to leaf a monopod is not an option. For more calm birds/wildlife, is perfectly fine, though.

For example, I added a MagMount mini-ball head to a trekking pole (the grip is a self-arresting device).

Consider trying a monopod head. They are much better suited for monopods than ballheads (much more stable and practical), cheaper and lighter. Something like this:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/554098-REG/Manfrotto_234RC_234RC_Swivel_Tilt_Head_for.html

Thanks for the suggestion,

L.

--
My gallery: http://luis.impa.br/photos



Oly E5 + E3 + 12-60 + 50-200 + EC14 + FL50R
Pany FZ50 + Oly FL50 + TCON17 + Raynox 150 & 250

 

[pannumon]

Your logic totally ignores the fact that camera shake is not the only thing that causes blurry photos. Subject movement is the culprit more times than not. IS does nothing for subject movement. Sometimes even 1/4000 of a second isn't enough at the extreme telephoto lengths the GH2 can obtain.

Subject-movement is independent of the focal-length. If 1/200s will be enough to freeze subject-movement it will be enough at 100mm and at 300mm. (Of course always assuming your subject will be the same size on the final picture.

First, I want to thank you for your excellent post earlier in this thread. It explains the most of it. I also agree on your point. However, usually the subject size is not the same on different focal lengths. This is the main reason why people buy long telephoto lenses in the first place. I would say that in practice motion blur is a bigger problem with long telephoto lenses than with shorter ones.

What really affects the motion blur is the velocity of the object, the distance of the object and the shutter speed.

 

[EXR]

Based on personal observations, longer FLs magnify the image and the subject's perceived movement, which is why it can be difficult to keep a shot framed properly at long FL. The true distance between the sensor and subject may not change, but as FL increases, the relative, observed movement, and the speed of the subject's movement, does change.

Did you read my last sentence?

Of course I´m assuming the subject is shot at the same magnification

 

[lester11]

Hi L

I find my 100-300 works well, very happy with its OIS. I'm posting because I find the Panny lenses can vary significantly from copy to copy. I think I have an excellent copy of the 100-300. I had much poorer luck with my 45-200 copy. No matter what I did, it gave me soft pictures. Being new to MFT, I just shrugged my shoulders, figured my technique was poor, and hardly used it. When I got the 100-300 and outstanding sharpness, I realised there was something wrong with the 45-200 and not with my technique, and did some systematic tests with LensAlign. I then sent the lens off the Panasonic UK with the printouts of my tests. They kindly replied, saying the lens was 'unrepairable' and suggesting I buy a new copy. It was 13 months old and had worked badly right out of the box from day 1...

--
Lester

 

[Anders W]

I get the feeling you do not understand the properties of a telephoto lens judging by your last question below.

"BTW: Why would shorter shutter speeds (even shorter than 1/4000) be required to stop subject motion with "extreme telephoto lengths" than with shorter focal lengths?"

So here is something I'm sure you will understand.

If you hand hold your camera/lens combo and take a photo of a small bird imobile at 25 feet distance with a 24mm lens at f/5.6 and ISO 100 using shutter speed of 1/100 sec. lens you will not see blur.

Now switch out your lens to an 800mm f/5.6 supertelephoto (OIS set to off), have the camera settings the exact same, f/5.6, ISO 100, Tv 1/100 and take another picture of the same imobile bird still 25 feet away while hand holding the camera/lens combo. The entire image will show blur, the grass and the bird. Ask yourself how could this be?
Think on what changes you made and how that change effect image sharpness.

Hint: what are the properties of an supertelepho 800mm lens and what are the properties of a 24mm wide angle lens?
If you are unable to figure this out I suggest you read up on it.

I really hope you do some reading as it's no supprise to me how many uneducated in photography consumers belong to this web site.
You are not alone, you fit the dpr mold very well.
-Peter

Subject movement is the culprit more times than not. IS does nothing for subject movement. Sometimes even 1/4000 of a second isn't enough at the extreme telephoto lengths the GH2 can obtain.

IS is not a cure all. In fact most of the time it really isn't helping you at all.

I think most of us are already well aware that camera shake is not the only source of blur. Nevertheless, I strongly disagree with what you say. Unless you are a dedicated action shooter or carry a tripod wherever you go, camera shake is a very significant source of blur, and IS helps a lot (provided it works as intended). It is particularly helpful for long teles where camera shake rather than subject motion often determines how far down you can go in terms of shutter speed.

BTW: Why would shorter shutter speeds (even shorter than 1/4000) be required to stop subject motion with "extreme telephoto lengths" than with shorter focal lengths?

--
Life as an artist has had some unusual times to say the least.
visit my web site http://www.flickr.com/photos/artist_eyes/
Remember to click on 'All Sizes' for better viewing.
Artist Eyes

Peter,

I think you missed one important word in the question I asked mpgxsvcd, although I underlined it. I said subject motion. I did not say camera shake, or effects of camera shake, which will of course increase with increasing focal length. I let others judge which of us better fit this or that DPR stereotype.

Absolute subject motion will actually be more magnified with a telephoto as well. If a bird moves 1/8", this will translate to 33x the number of pixels of blur with an 800mm vs a 24mm lens FROM THE SAME DISTANCE. Of course, if you were able to move such that the subject subtends the same # of pixels with each lens, then you are of course correct.

Yes, as I have already made clear above (see previous posts), I of course mean at equal magnification. And when we shoot wild animals at long distances with a long tele we are often magnifying them less, not more, than when we are shooting portraits of cats or dogs or people in the living room. Moreover, unless we are talking about BIF, these wild animals are often about as static as our favorite living-room subjects.

Moreover, Peter, in his little private tutorial quoted above, speaks about the whole image showing blur, including entirely static parts, thus demonstrating without reasonable doubt that he had completely overlooked or misunderstood what I was talking about.

 

[EXR]

It is well-known that the mirror may induce a small amount of shake (unless you put it up in advance as you preferably should when working on a tripod). But that a focal-plane shatter would create the same kind of problems, and do so to a greater extent than a central (leaf) shutter is news to me. Do you have an authoritative source for this? If so, please let me know where I can find it.

Well it should be common sense that very quick acceleration and deceleration of mass will induce some vibrancy. And a focal-plane-shutter is much bigger and therefore must move much more mass than a central-shutter. Additionally the movement of the central-shutter is circular so the force-vectors will neutralize each other more or less, while the focal-plane-shutter moves up and down and therefore need a lot of force in the opposite direction to change the movement.

You can also feel the shutter working when shooting with a µ4/3-camera, so it is obvious that it will induce some kind of shake.

But if you want an empirical "study" you can take a look at the problems with the original kit-lens of the Olympus-EP1, where the shutter apparently "shook" some loose part in the collapsible lens-design inducing some blurriness especially between 1/100s and 1/200s. (also irritating the IS-system from Olympus)

I can see sometimes similar things with my GH1 and the 45-200mm lens. It seems that the vibration is quite harsh, but also very short and often only influences a small part of the image (a horizontal line appears somewhat distorted)

Remember that a focal-plane-shutter doesn´t expose the whole area at the same time (therefore the rolling-shutter-effect), and the vibration from the shutter seems to be short enough to influence only a part of the image. I think it is also too fast for the IS-system to react, even worse the IS-system will record the vibration and counteract it, but until the IS-element moves the vibration will be already over, so instead of preventing motion-blur the IS-system in this case will cause some additional blur. This happened with the EP1 and has been corrected with a firmware-update. With Panasonic-lenses the gyrometer sits in the lens, as it is much farther away from the shutter it shouldn´t be influenced that much from it.

 

[viztyger]

That's quite a bit of misfortune with your 45-200. Too bad you didn't discover the problem before the warranty period was up.

As to the 100-300, mine is also sharp. I can't really judge the effectiveness of the image stabilization since I've never used focal lengths this long before, but it does seem to be working reasonably well. Here's some shots that I took at 170mm and 1/30 or 1/40s. They were taken hand held, but I was careful to brace the camera.

http://www.bmupix.com/journal/2011/3/1/kathakali.html

Hi L

I find my 100-300 works well, very happy with its OIS. I'm posting because I find the Panny lenses can vary significantly from copy to copy. I think I have an excellent copy of the 100-300. I had much poorer luck with my 45-200 copy. No matter what I did, it gave me soft pictures. Being new to MFT, I just shrugged my shoulders, figured my technique was poor, and hardly used it. When I got the 100-300 and outstanding sharpness, I realised there was something wrong with the 45-200 and not with my technique, and did some systematic tests with LensAlign. I then sent the lens off the Panasonic UK with the printouts of my tests. They kindly replied, saying the lens was 'unrepairable' and suggesting I buy a new copy. It was 13 months old and had worked badly right out of the box from day 1...

--
Lester

--
Björn

http://www.bmupix.com

 

[Guy Parsons]

Currently I'm playing with testing the Oly E-PL1 IBIS effectiveness and in doing so read a few threads to see other peoples' experience with stabilisation.

Basically I find the old rule of 1/(35mm equivalent focal length) without stabilisation to be completely true for me at least. For 150mm I can shoot 1/300 safely and reliably.

Turn on stabilisation (in my case sensor shift) and that shutter speed improves by a factor of 10x (approx 3 stops) so the 150mm lens on M4/3 can be used at 1/30 fairly reliably.

Indications from OIS users are that the effectiveness of Pany OIS and Oly IBIS is roughly the same, so extending that to the 100-300mm lens then at 300mm you would need 1/600 second minimum to be reliable with hand-held no stabilisation and 1/60 second with OIS or IBIS for that same focal length hand-held. But of course at 1/60 sec the subject movement would usually spoil the shot.

People vary in hand-holding ability of course and I have found that the to-the-head stance with the Oly viewfinder is just a little whisker worse than holding out at 12" to use the LCD, maybe the Oly IBIS is tuned to that hold-out-from-the-face stance. With tele and heavy lenses I hold the lens with the left hand and the right hand is in the normal place holding the right side of the body. Some people I've seen with tele lenses holding the left hand on the body, bad practice as it allows too much long lens wobble.

So I would expect that the 100-300mm lens OIS would be useful. It's just that the ability of the users reporting here and on other forums varies wildly. Plus of course hidden agendas involving rubbishing rival brands flourishes everywhere.

As for the fill flash situation, it seems from another thread when I asked, that the Pany M4/3 flash logic cannot be fooled. When a flash is attached it always goes to 1/160 sec maximum.

Whereas the Oly can be fooled, a Nikon flash in self-auto allows the Manual mode to sync at any speed you like but of course shutter shadows start at 1/400 sec. The maximum sync speed for Oly is 1/320 and not the 1/160 that they also limit to.

The Pany allows FP sync for higher shutter speed sync (tested OK to 1/2000 on my Oly E-PL1) but of course flash range is dramatically shortened in that FP (or Pany S) flash mode.

I fool my E-PL1 like this when I have the Oly FL-50 flash on in self auto mode...



I use Scotch Magic Tape as it leaves no residue.

And here's the results at various shutter speeds as noted in the file names....



All at 3:2 ratio, and at 4:3 ratio the 1/320 shot is still clear of shutter shadow.

Regards...... Guy
E-PL1 info... http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~parsog/olyepl1/01-epl1-menu.html

 

[Anders W]

Your logic totally ignores the fact that camera shake is not the only thing that causes blurry photos. Subject movement is the culprit more times than not. IS does nothing for subject movement. Sometimes even 1/4000 of a second isn't enough at the extreme telephoto lengths the GH2 can obtain.

Subject-movement is independent of the focal-length. If 1/200s will be enough to freeze subject-movement it will be enough at 100mm and at 300mm. (Of course always assuming your subject will be the same size on the final picture.

First, I want to thank you for your excellent post earlier in this thread. It explains the most of it. I also agree on your point. However, usually the subject size is not the same on different focal lengths. This is the main reason why people buy long telephoto lenses in the first place. I would say that in practice motion blur is a bigger problem with long telephoto lenses than with shorter ones.

Although we do buy long tele lenses to increase magnification, this does not necessarily mean that the subjects we picture by means of them are magnified more than subjects shot with shorter focal lengths, for example domestic animals or people. Typically, we use the long tele because we cannot get as close as we would ideally like to be. The fact that long teles tend to be used at longer subject distances counteracts their magnifying effect.

What really affects the motion blur is the velocity of the object, the distance of the object and the shutter speed.

Plus magnification and the angle of the motion relative to the focal plane.

 

[EXR]

First, I want to thank you for your excellent post earlier in this thread. It explains the most of it. I also agree on your point. However, usually the subject size is not the same on different focal lengths. This is the main reason why people buy long telephoto lenses in the first place.

I would say people are using (ultra) telephoto-lenses to get their subject big enough when it is not possible to get close enough.

For example if you want to make a portrait you usually want to fill the image with the head of a person. You can do this at 100mm equiv. at a closer distance or at 300mm equiv. and a larger distance. (obviously the perspective-difference will compress the background with the larger distance, giving you more "bokeh-effect")

 

[Anders W]

It is well-known that the mirror may induce a small amount of shake (unless you put it up in advance as you preferably should when working on a tripod). But that a focal-plane shatter would create the same kind of problems, and do so to a greater extent than a central (leaf) shutter is news to me. Do you have an authoritative source for this? If so, please let me know where I can find it.

Well it should be common sense that very quick acceleration and deceleration of mass will induce some vibrancy. And a focal-plane-shutter is much bigger and therefore must move much more mass than a central-shutter. Additionally the movement of the central-shutter is circular so the force-vectors will neutralize each other more or less, while the focal-plane-shutter moves up and down and therefore need a lot of force in the opposite direction to change the movement.

Sure, virtually any movement will induce some small amount of vibration. But I think the blades of a focal-plane and a central shutter alike are very thin so the energy we are talking about should be far less than that from the mirror flap, at least if the shutter is well constructed. Further, I think at least some focal-plane shutters are constructed so that there is not movement in one direction only but a counteracting movement on the other side.

You can also feel the shutter working when shooting with a µ4/3-camera, so it is obvious that it will induce some kind of shake.

You can of course feel it in an ordinary SLR or DSLR too, even if you put the mirror up a few seconds before releasing the shutter. But, unlike the mirror flap, I have never heard or read any report that the shutter release has an optically measureable impact on camera shake. If it did have such an effect, then virtually all the lens reviews out there would be flawed. Even though they are routinely performed with the mirror-up beforehand, they cannot avoid shutter vibration.

But if you want an empirical "study" you can take a look at the problems with the original kit-lens of the Olympus-EP1, where the shutter apparently "shook" some loose part in the collapsible lens-design inducing some blurriness especially between 1/100s and 1/200s. (also irritating the IS-system from Olympus)

Haven't heard about that before. Do you have a link?

Remember that a focal-plane-shutter doesn´t expose the whole area at the same time (therefore the rolling-shutter-effect), and the vibration from the shutter seems to be short enough to influence only a part of the image. I think it is also too fast for the IS-system to react, even worse the IS-system will record the vibration and counteract it, but until the IS-element moves the vibration will be already over, so instead of preventing motion-blur the IS-system in this case will cause some additional blur. This happened with the EP1 and has been corrected with a firmware-update. With Panasonic-lenses the gyrometer sits in the lens, as it is much farther away from the shutter it shouldn´t be influenced that much from it.

Yes, I agree that the shock/vibration will be too fast for any IS system to handle. The frequency of the human movements the IS is designed for is considerably lower.

 

[DidierDCH]

FWIW: without an arm rest,

• with an FZ8 (using the LCD) + C180 (eqv focal 730 mm), I begin to worry below 1/100 sec (after 2 years)
• with a G1 (using the EVF) + 100-300, it's from 1/200 sec (after 3 months)

Didier

 

[Anders W]

Hi L

I find my 100-300 works well, very happy with its OIS. I'm posting because I find the Panny lenses can vary significantly from copy to copy. I think I have an excellent copy of the 100-300. I had much poorer luck with my 45-200 copy. No matter what I did, it gave me soft pictures. Being new to MFT, I just shrugged my shoulders, figured my technique was poor, and hardly used it. When I got the 100-300 and outstanding sharpness, I realised there was something wrong with the 45-200 and not with my technique, and did some systematic tests with LensAlign. I then sent the lens off the Panasonic UK with the printouts of my tests. They kindly replied, saying the lens was 'unrepairable' and suggesting I buy a new copy. It was 13 months old and had worked badly right out of the box from day 1...

Sorry to hear about your experience. Although it seems that Panasonic has a good reputation for reliability, one thing I dislike about them are their stingy warranties. In the US, I think it's only 90 days for labor, one year for parts. In the EU, I think they are forced by law to give you at least one year in both respects.

 

[julieng]

BTW: Why would shorter shutter speeds (even shorter than 1/4000) be required to stop subject motion with "extreme telephoto lengths" than with shorter focal lengths?

Without going into exact numbers and formula:
A) at distance x, a pixel will represent y square units of area on 14mm equiv.
B) at distance x, a pixel will represent z square units of area on 800mm equiv.
C) Everything else being equal, z

The wider the angle, the more tolerant to movements, shakes and slow shutter speed.

Like Peter Nelson, I think you overlooked that I said subject motion, although I underlined the word. If I shoot a person walking by 5 meters away from me with a 50 mm lens, the shutter speed I will need to freeze the action will, to my knowledge, be exactly the same as if I shoot the same person walking by 20 meters away from me using a 200 mm lens. The shutter speed I will need to avoid blur due to camera shake, by contrast, will differ (shorter for the 200 than for the 50). As EXR has already pointed out, the shutter speed required to freeze action of a subject at a given magnification is independent of the shutter speed required to eliminate blur due to camera shake.

By "movements" I meant "said subject motion".

For whatever my indoor experience is worth, using the 1.7/20 and a legacy 1.5/50, often, where the 20mm freezes the action, I find myself cranking up the ISO to get something decent with the Jupiter-3. I am talking about discrete shooting without flash, so for all practical purposes all other variables are equal : distance, light, subject's movements.

 

[Guy Parsons]

Anders W wrote:

But if you want an empirical "study" you can take a look at the problems with the original kit-lens of the Olympus-EP1, where the shutter apparently "shook" some loose part in the collapsible lens-design inducing some blurriness especially between 1/100s and 1/200s. (also irritating the IS-system from Olympus)

Haven't heard about that before. Do you have a link?

Absolutely true, I'm checking Oly E-PL1 IBIS issues and problems with the Mk1 14-42mm Olympus lens right now.

It seems to have unavoidable shake problems in the 35-42mm range with the shutter speed range of maybe 1/100 to 1/200, IBIS on or off no difference, anti-shock on or off no difference, holding the front barrel of the lens during exposure still seems to be no difference. That's why they made a new Mk2 14-42mm lens to eliminate the shake problem.

As an aside the IBIS in the E-PL1 at least, with any lens attached, mostly seems to make higher shutter speed exposures worse for shake. So my Oly IBIS recommendations are currently to turn off IBIS if the shutter speeds are safely above your own personal shake minimum.

I obviously need to buy a Pany OIS lens to see how that compares on the Oly body.

As for an existing link, try http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/EP1/EP1A.HTM and look for "Anomalous image blurring" about halfway down the page.

Regards.......... Guy
E-PL1 info... http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~parsog/olyepl1/01-epl1-menu.html

 

[Anders W]

BTW: Why would shorter shutter speeds (even shorter than 1/4000) be required to stop subject motion with "extreme telephoto lengths" than with shorter focal lengths?

Without going into exact numbers and formula:
A) at distance x, a pixel will represent y square units of area on 14mm equiv.
B) at distance x, a pixel will represent z square units of area on 800mm equiv.
C) Everything else being equal, z

The wider the angle, the more tolerant to movements, shakes and slow shutter speed.

Like Peter Nelson, I think you overlooked that I said subject motion, although I underlined the word. If I shoot a person walking by 5 meters away from me with a 50 mm lens, the shutter speed I will need to freeze the action will, to my knowledge, be exactly the same as if I shoot the same person walking by 20 meters away from me using a 200 mm lens. The shutter speed I will need to avoid blur due to camera shake, by contrast, will differ (shorter for the 200 than for the 50). As EXR has already pointed out, the shutter speed required to freeze action of a subject at a given magnification is independent of the shutter speed required to eliminate blur due to camera shake.

By "movements" I meant "said subject motion".

For whatever my indoor experience is worth, using the 1.7/20 and a legacy 1.5/50, often, where the 20mm freezes the action, I find myself cranking up the ISO to get something decent with the Jupiter-3. I am talking about discrete shooting without flash, so for all practical purposes all other variables are equal : distance, light, subject's movements.

But what is not equal in your example is subject magnification. At equal distance, the longer Jupiter-3 will magnify the subject to a greater extent than the shorter Panasonic. Hence you need a shorter shutter speed with the Jupiter although the amount of subject motion remains approximately the same.

In the paragraph you quoted, by contrast, I talk about a subject shot at different distances but equal magnification. In that case, no increase of shutter speed is called for in order to freeze action with the longer lens (although it might be needed to avoid camera shake).

If you look at my response to RicksAstro and pannonum above, you will see why I think your indoor experience does not necessarily generalize to the outdoor scenario in which we would ordinarily use the 100-300, especially at its long end. Indoors you are confined to a certain range of distances and when you use your 50 it ordinarily implies greater magnification of the main subject than when you use your 20. Outdoors by contrast, we tend to put on long teles when we cannot get close enough for sufficient magnification. So long teles are typically shot at longer distances and do not necessarily imply greater magnification of the main subject than shorter focal lengths used at shorter distances.

 

[Anders W]

Anders W wrote:

But if you want an empirical "study" you can take a look at the problems with the original kit-lens of the Olympus-EP1, where the shutter apparently "shook" some loose part in the collapsible lens-design inducing some blurriness especially between 1/100s and 1/200s. (also irritating the IS-system from Olympus)

Haven't heard about that before. Do you have a link?

Absolutely true, I'm checking Oly E-PL1 IBIS issues and problems with the Mk1 14-42mm Olympus lens right now.

It seems to have unavoidable shake problems in the 35-42mm range with the shutter speed range of maybe 1/100 to 1/200, IBIS on or off no difference, anti-shock on or off no difference, holding the front barrel of the lens during exposure still seems to be no difference. That's why they made a new Mk2 14-42mm lens to eliminate the shake problem.

As an aside the IBIS in the E-PL1 at least, with any lens attached, mostly seems to make higher shutter speed exposures worse for shake. So my Oly IBIS recommendations are currently to turn off IBIS if the shutter speeds are safely above your own personal shake minimum.

I obviously need to buy a Pany OIS lens to see how that compares on the Oly body.

As for an existing link, try http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/EP1/EP1A.HTM and look for "Anomalous image blurring" about halfway down the page.

Thanks! Interesting! As to your recommendation to turn IBIS off at higher shutter speeds, you have perhaps already seen Thom Hogan's take on this:

http://www.bythom.com/nikon-vr.htm

 

[453C]

Based on personal observations, longer FLs magnify the image and the subject's perceived movement, which is why it can be difficult to keep a shot framed properly at long FL. The true distance between the sensor and subject may not change, but as FL increases, the relative, observed movement, and the speed of the subject's movement, does change.

Did you read my last sentence?

Of course I´m assuming the subject is shot at the same magnification

I did.
And I'm out.

IME, this kind of detailed, technical debate usually encounters more problems with the media than the message, as I'm sure you and I could have a far more fruitful conversation about this in person than on a message board.

Thanks for the discussion, and I hope the OP finds a solution for his rain forest walks.

 

[453C]

I wondered if a monopod would be too slow for you to track flitting birds. The more you define your needs, the more it seems you'll be first in line for a pro m43 telephoto.

Consider trying a monopod head. They are much better suited for monopods than ballheads (much more stable and practical), cheaper and lighter. Something like this:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/554098-REG/Manfrotto_234RC_234RC_Swivel_Tilt_Head_for.html

Looks like a good solution, but the MagMount is a better fit for my trekking pole. I generally leave it locked in an upright, level position. It's quite a bit smaller and lighter than the Manfrotto above, and I like how easily I can mount/dismount my E-PL1. I might be concerned about the magnet's ability to lock down a heavier camera, but the MagMount is very good for a m43 system.

http://www.trek-tech.com/products/magmount.html

I'll have to take a look at your rain forest photos later, but I'm looking forward to it. Enjoy the birds!

BTW, I really like using the 45-200 on my Olympus. The OIS in Mode 1 (pretty sure that's the only mode for an Oly with a Panny lens) is quite helpful when at the long end.

 

[luisflorit]

FWIW: without an arm rest,

• with an FZ8 (using the LCD) + C180 (eqv focal 730 mm), I begin to worry below 1/100 sec (after 2 years)
• with a G1 (using the EVF) + 100-300, it's from 1/200 sec (after 3 months)

So for you the FZ8 is 2x better than the G1?
What does the "after 2 years" mean?

Thanks,
L.

--
My gallery: http://luis.impa.br/photos



Oly E5 + E3 + 12-60 + 50-200 + EC14 + FL50R
Pany FZ50 + Oly FL50 + TCON17 + Raynox 150 & 250