100-300 Panasonic not as Sharp as i wanted

rashid7 wrote:

very funny (sarcasm obviously)!

Nice pix Carlo

I honestly thot u were joking. These pictures are definitely sharp, and obviously you got a good copy of the lens.

Let me address some questions that keep popping up.

Obviously everyone has diff standards and priorities. But there is a tremendous amount of wishful thinking here (as everywhere). None of us is immune.

Example: FF vs M4/3. Those of us who love this format are often accused by outsiders of having our heads buried (ostrich-like) in the sand. I have owned more than one FF camera, and i prefer m4/3.

But PLEASE, lets be real about these lenses. After owning 35 m4/3 lenses, this much seems certain:

Olympus small kit lenses are sub-standard... except perhaps for the plastic 40-150.

Oly Pro lenses are superb, but perhaps 'bloated'

Version ii of panasonic lenses offer very little upgrades at all. They are optically the same. I doubt they even have improved front glass coating. Most offer WR... although already there in f2.8 zooms. Several upgrade from Dual IS to Dual IS2 = a very minor dif.! Some offer increased rate of AF 'sampling' to 240x/sec. A few adopt smoother aperture transitions for video.

I did a careful but unscientific comp. of both 100-300 versions. There was absolutely no diff in sharpness (no surprise)! For SAF they were identically quick on my G9. Also on G9, there was no apparent difference in stabilization, even though the ii has dual IS and the i does not!

I almost bought a used 100-400 for $800. But what a pig! There was all kinds of dirt visible in photos, at normal apertures. [This is hard to accomplish, as you can scratch the front of a lens w/ no visible effect!] The zoom action was very stiff. The mount tolerance, {reportedly so tight as to scrape metal off Olympus camera mounting sfc.} was not tight enough on my G9 to inspire confidence. This lens is notorious for being irreparable by Panasonic... at least outside Japan. Early adopters who had problems were reportedly given refurb copies, and if not covered by warranty, at a cost of $1400!

I love my panasonic gear. But I try to tell it like it is. Assuming you don't get a faulty copy     [and I have yet to encounter an unacceptably faulty lens, new or used - w/ the exception of the 100-400 above]  ... there are very few lemons out there. I would say that the original lumix 14-42, and the 45-200 were rather bad. To add insult to injury, both 45-200 and the original 14-140 f4- were 'obese'. The 14-42 and 14-140 were the only Lumix lenses to get a total redesign, making them much smaller while improving sharpness!

All other Mkii versions are not redesigns at all!

Beware some compact lenses. While most f1.7/1.8 primes are more than decent, the 17f2.8 is v. weak. The 2 pancake 14-42 pwr zooms are also weak, esp the Oly.

Now if you are itching to own, say, a 45-200 ... be my guest.  Just don't say i didn't warn you,  ha ha ha

As for the controversial 100-400 ... when i find one of those good used copies for <1k you can count me in (-:

meow wrote:

You can take it a step further by increasing local contrast. I do this pretty much manually by creating three masks, one for highlights, one for mid tones and one for shadows. Then I use a curve to increase the contrast, i.e. make the light pixels lighter and the dark ones darker, within each tone range with the help of the masks.

Maybe I overdid it a little (it's fun to play with other people's stuff!), but I think the deer got a little more life in her eye. You can see the image looks sharper (contrast = sharpness) and the colors look more vivid.

I haven't touched saturation, sharpness or anything else. Just those two things I've tried to describe.

and the colors looks more vivid.

Your lens looks fine. The main problem with this photo is that the focus point is wrong. Mammals are very difficult subjects for AF, their fur and their color are made to hide between grass or tree

The focus is on the shoulder and not on the head. A good RAW conversion and good post-processing will help to improve the results but you cannot fix problems like this, and you will see it if you print large or view the picture on a big screen.

The depth of files at m43-300mm is shallow. With long focal lenses need some time and exercise to get good and consistent results.

thanks for your repons. Verv Good tips on technique and equipment and how it is relaxed! Nr.6 : set in for the whites! I’ll try to remmende that. Sometimes there is juist so little time!  And nr.  7 & 8 are to be judget later!

Thanks, next week i have time to check Silkypix!

#2 was focus , no crop, straight Out of the camera. I Will look at the jpeg settings, and check it with your settings  ( fine jpg, NR -5, sharpening was at 0 I)

I get som tips on hand holding technicus. Always good! My experience is that movement of the object is more important. You’ll need 1/250 sec at least, and Then  hand holding technique is not so important anymore. Or am i missing something?

Very fine pictures from you and the former responder! ! A benchmark for me! Very capable lens. You need to be close, i noticed already! 😏

Thanks. I’ll start with  SILKYPIX!

Ha, ha, no joking at all. New in this business. No expectations (no, high expectations😏)

Good to read on these Pany lenses! My 18-35 mi (the only other lens i have ) is very fine! a pleasure to use.

👍😏

No offence!  As i said just test pictures for the lens shapness!

I do point at the eyes. With little succes (took a lot of pictures of these deers, not one tack sharp in the face/eye). Mostly one-area, AFS

have to practice some more😊