Superzoom shootout including old Panasonic Leica 14-150

Last year I was searching for a good super zoom lens for traveling. But which one to choose? I think some of you might know the problem ...

What makes things more complicated is the fact that I am used to excellent image quality from my 12-40 and 40-150 PRO lenses. Soon after buying the first superzoom lens, I felt the desire to test another lens. At the end, I ended up having 3 lenses

Because I had access to three superzooms at the same time and made some detailed comparisons, I think I should post my results here. Last not least, the old FT Panasonic Leica lens is quite rare and there are not many reviews/comparisons at all.

This are the lenses I have:

• Panasonic 14-140 f3.5-5.6
• Olympus 14-150 f4-5.6 V1
• Panasonic Leica 14-150 f3.5-5.6

I also had the old Panasonic 14-140 f4-5.6 and the Tamron 14-150 in my hands but did not do any further testing because I was not happy with their tele respective wide angle performance.

During my testing adventure, I decided to do a side by side comparison shooting selected subjects from tripod. This made comparing the lenses much easier ...

I did around 20 different subjects (landscape, architecture, portrait, close up) and evaluated sharpness, contrast and bokeh quality.

Resulting on my long time usage and additionally resulting from the controlled test setup, my findings are like this:

Favorite: Panasonic Leica 14-150 :

• + Best sharpness and contrast all over the frame and at all focal length. Comes close to my Oly PRO lenses.
• + Good sharpness and contrast for close ups (like flowers)
• +- AF is a little bit slow on my EM1 like other old design DSLR lenses or the 20/1.7 pancake. On my EM5 its really slow but at least it is accurate and usable.
• - The focal length is reduced to around 120mm for shorter focal distances
• - The lens is bulky and heavy, 535gr plus FT-adapter
• - The zoom barrel is heavy and tends to creep if holding the lens downwards half zoomed out

Second: Panasonic 14-140 II:

• + Sharpness is good at wide and normal end and gets better at tele end
• + Usable contrast and sharpness for close up
• + Fast AF
• + Compact lens, shorter than the Oly lens but a little bit fatter
• +- OIS is not as good as IBIS
• - Prone to shutter shock, best used with EFC or electronic shutter

Third: Olympus 14-150

• + Good sharpness wide, even better up to 50mm
• + Fast AF
• + Compact lens but somewhat long when extended to 150mm
• - Soft images at 150mm
• - AF not always spot on at 150mm (camera has problems to find perfect focus?)
• - Soft close up photos, especially at tele end

I made an Excel matrix comparing the lenses and I made a statistic regarding sharpness:

Subjective rating from +++(excellent) to --- (really bad)

Oly 12-40 PRO, Oly 40-150 PRO, Panasonic Leica 14-150, Panasonic 14-140 II, Olympus 14-150 I

To give you some impression on the sharpness/contrast differences, here are some 100% snippets from 2 subjects (architecture + flower):

Architecture 100% crops from center

Architecture 100% crops from corner

Close up with similar magnification (0.2x) at 100%

Close up Bokeh and maximum magnification

Conclusion after one year of usage:

The Panasonic Leica lens might be perfect for people who want got to excellent IQ from a superzoom lens but and don't mind slow AF or some bulk.

The newer Panasonic mFT lens might be perfect for traveling light or for those that are happy with little less than perfect IQ for landscape or architecture but search for good telephoto resolution.

The Oly lens (which is optically similar to its weather-sealed mark II incarnation) is a good option for architecture or occasional portraits but I found it to be less attractive for tele or macro usage.

In my next post I will show a short size comparison of the three lenses ...

Christof

The first posting was long enough, the size comparison is in this second post.

Size comparison (Sorry, PL with UV filter and smaller 14-50/2.8 lens hood)

With lens hood and maximum zoom (PL has a metal barrel!)

Lens diameter, 72mm vs. 58mm

Panasonic Leica versus Panasonic, both on my EM1

Christof;  you've obviously put a lot of time and work into this comparison project.  Thank-you as I've long had an interest in this class of lenses and owned the Pan-Leica 14-150 for several years w/ my standard 43 cameras.  And I agree, it is excellent.  I tried really hard to like the Pan 14-140 but had bad shutter shock when used in bracket mode on my m43 Oly bodies-- and that was with 2 different copies.

I once owned 3 of these m43 super-zooms and in the end kept just the Tamron as I found IQ to be reasonably good and I liked the size and build quality.  Of course the Tamron does not optically compare to 12-40 and 40-150 f2.8s, but still, it has its uses.

Thanks for a nicely done review.

JL

Thanks for the comparison, always wanted that Panaleica. Take it and the new 100-400, and you'd be set...both take 72mm filters as well.

JohnLock wrote:

Christof; you've obviously put a lot of time and work into this comparison project. Thank-you as I've long had an interest in this class of lenses and owned the Pan-Leica 14-150 for several years w/ my standard 43 cameras. And I agree, it is excellent. I tried really hard to like the Pan 14-140 but had bad shutter shock when used in bracket mode on my m43 Oly bodies-- and that was with 2 different copies.

I once owned 3 of these m43 super-zooms and in the end kept just the Tamron as I found IQ to be reasonably good and I liked the size and build quality. Of course the Tamron does not optically compare to 12-40 and 40-150 f2.8s, but still, it has its uses.

Thanks for a nicely done review.

JL

John,

thanks for the comment. I always thought it would be nice to include the Tamron into this test. But I felt crazy enough having 3 similar lenses and getting yet another one was no option ...

But it is good to know I am not alone with 3 super-zooms. This spring I will sell 2 of them.

I can assure you that you did not tap into what Pana 14-140mmII can actually deliver.

It is SHAAARP! It rivals Pana 12-35 f2.8 and 35-100mm f2.8 at times.

But you need to avoid shutter shock. It is very tricky to use once the shutter speed goes slower than 1/400s. Electronic shutter is a must.

In defense of that lens. Here is a full-res landscape shot taken with it:

And a 140mm f5.6 shot (yes, wide open at full zoom).

Robiro wrote:

I can assure you that you did not tap into what Pana 14-140mmII can actually deliver.

It is SHAAARP! It rivals Pana 12-35 f2.8 and 35-100mm f2.8 at times.

But you need to avoid shutter shock. It is very tricky to use once the shutter speed goes slower than 1/400s. Electronic shutter is a must.

In defense of that lens. Here is a full-res landscape shot taken with it:

And a 140mm f5.6 shot (yes, wide open at full zoom).

I am interested in this lens but how does it generate shutter shock? Would I see it on my em5mkii if I get it?

Kszchopstix wrote:

I am interested in this lens but how does it generate shutter shock? Would I see it on my em5mkii if I get it?

It does not generate shutter shock. It is a lens. Shutter shock is generated by shutter mechanism.

This lens is most likely THE MOST PRONE lens to shutter shock.

It is seen as ghosting a few pixels wide.

I don't own an Olympus camera so I don't know how much of it you would see and what measures are most effective against it

Why don't you start a new thread and ask people who own both 14-140II and E-M5mII?

Robiro wrote:

I can assure you that you did not tap into what Pana 14-140mmII can actually deliver.

It is SHAAARP! It rivals Pana 12-35 f2.8 and 35-100mm f2.8 at times.

But you need to avoid shutter shock. It is very tricky to use once the shutter speed goes slower than 1/400s. Electronic shutter is a must.

In defense of that lens. Here is a full-res landscape shot taken with it:

And a 140mm f5.6 shot (yes, wide open at full zoom).

Hi Robiro,

nice to hear that you like the lens.

But I have to disappoint you a little bit. At wide angle, the two 14-140 samples I have/had where OK but not outstanding. The Oly 14-150, the PL14-150 and my 12-40 did much better. Same for normal range 20-40mm. Where the lens is good (but not great) is 140mm.

And my test did not suffer shutter shock, I know it good enough to circumvent it, see my longish post called "shutter shock measurements".

Regarding shutter shock, did you shoot these with full electronic shutter, or with anti-shock (electronic first curtain)?

LandscapeWhisperer wrote:

Regarding shutter shock, did you shoot these with full electronic shutter, or with anti-shock (electronic first curtain)?

Good question. I am not sure, it's not in the EXIFs.

But I think at that time (I acquired the 14-150 last year) my camera firmware did not have electronic shutter. Anyhow, I think for these lenses the EFC works quite well ...

Christof

I have oredered the Panny mkll, and intend to use it on the GM-5. Anybody doing it?

How rid that lens work out with your gx5?

Take note on the thread, Olympus users were not as happy as the Panasonic users.

I'm would imagine there is some in magical body correction done on the Panasonic.  This is most likely not the case on an Olympus body, and Optical imperfections will affect IQ more, on the Oly bodies, I'm guessing this is the difference in sharpness.

Would be nice to hear from another Panasonic user.

I find the 14-140 3.5-5.6 i very sharp, even at near max telephoto, on my gx85, and will share some results later.

Crazy Micro Four Thirds Dude wrote:

How rid that lens work out with your gx5?

Take note on the thread, Olympus users were not as happy as the Panasonic users.

I'm would imagine there is some in magical body correction done on the Panasonic. This is most likely not the case on an Olympus body, and Optical imperfections will affect IQ more, on the Oly bodies, I'm guessing this is the difference in sharpness.

Would be nice to hear from another Panasonic user.

I find the 14-140 3.5-5.6 i very sharp, even at near max telephoto, on my gx85, and will share some results later.

A) You do realize this thread is nearly 4 years old no?

B) Not sure what a GX5 is (GM5? GX series went from 1 to 7 with no in-between models), but corrections haven't been an issue when using lenses across bodies of both brands for years now. All corrections are applied equally since the Pana G5 or G6 for them and since the original E-M1 for Oly (a little later than Pana), even then the only disparity was in CA corrections. AFAIK distortion corrections were always applied evenly across the board.

Not trying to belabor the point, but every once in a while people bring that up without the right facts and that's how mis-information spreads.

FWIW there's been a few other super zooms released since this thread (mostly from Oly, 12-100 & 12-200), tho I think there's still a place for the two smaller 10x featured here. The Pana was updated with weather sealing too in an actual mk II that wasn't out 4yrs ago (Cris was probably differentiating between the older/larger f4-5.6 and the newer/current f3.5-5.6 model of which there's now a version II).

svein wilhelm kristiansen wrote:

I have oredered the Panny mkll, and intend to use it on the GM-5. Anybody doing it?

Yes I do, I find it an excellent lightweight super-zoom, easy to carry by the lens.

Sorry, for my mistype.  I meant G-m5.

Also i hit the wrong button, meant to reply to the g-m5 user.

I realize about the newer superzooms, I own nearly all the other 14-140/150 in the Micro system.

They all have their pros, the 14-140 3.5-5.6 Panasonics are super sharp, I get all that stuff.  As a JPEG shooter who hates editing, characteristics of the result matter to me.  Is there another Leica superzoom available for my GX85?  If not, i don't care about weather sealing.  I dont really like editing photos, JPEGS are fine by me.  Too me grab even the kit lens from any camera in the past 8 years, they are sharp, all of them, and peeping blurry parts of my pictures is just a waste of time, so the actual printable output is all i care about, and I'm confident this Leica lens will produce vastly different results than the Micro 14-140s by Pansonic.  Different lenses simply produce different results, pretty much why I was trying to open discussion.

I just wanted to know how this lens worked out for someone on an older Panasonic body, as I understand it uses CAF, and I love my Olympus 4/3 lenses on my E-m1, i want to use some Pany lenses that will focus okay on my gx85.

Its kinda hard to dig up as much info on the a Panasonic Four Thirds lenses on Micro bodies, so i just wanted to bring out some discussion and info.

Thanks for the comparison, never knew there was a PL14-150mm.

The lumix 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 is a bullseye hit.

Small, light, punches above it's pricerange.

It's is not special in focalrange like the oly 12-200mm and i think i would be happier if the lumix was a 12-120mm f3.5-5.6. But then the body would be fatter to get that 12mm.

Still it's in my bag just after my PL12-60mm. It's mounted every time during the day i don't have the time or feel for it of swapping. Then i slap on the lumix 14-140mm and just walk.