Panasonic 100-300mm II vs 100-400mm comparison

I currently have the Olympus 75-300 with an Olympus OmD Em5 iii. I was considering getting the Panasonic 100-400 after Olympus releases their 100-400. I am hoping the prices drop for the Panasonic.  The newer Olympus looks bigger. I do like the size of the Panasonic much better. How do you think the Panasonic 100-400 would be on an Olympus body?  Without dual is?

That's a very good question ! Unfortunately I am unsure. I'm confident the OIS alone would perform well, but I have no point of comparison with what you have now, that would allow me to tell you "go for it" or "you wouldn't gain much".

After a bit of research, I have not found a way to use only the lens stabilization on my G9, to give an idea of how it would behave on an Olympus body. If someone knows, I'm interested.

That being said, I've used non stabilized lenses (Pana 25mm f1.7 for example) with only my G9's IBIS, and it does help quite a bit I must say.

If I was an Olympus user, in the market for such a telezoom lens, I think I would wait for the Olympus lenses to come out, see the price tags, reviews etc. I am 99% sure there will be comparisons between the Pana 100-400 f4-6.3 and the Olympus 100-400 f5-6.3 when the former comes out. Maybe the Panasonic would drop in price as you hope, I don't know for sure. That would be good news !

Even though I haven't read anything on it (my research wasn't extensive, I admit), I cannot imagine Olympus getting this lens out without Sync IS. It is, after all, the Olympus contender for the Panasonic 100-400.

Thanks for the advice guys.  It is significant $ to spend for not much more reach.  I do love the Oly 75-300 and it performs well with just ibis. The images I am getting are more than sharp for my purposes.  I will probably wait and see.

John Carb wrote:

Thanks for the advice guys. It is significant $ to spend for not much more reach. I do love the Oly 75-300 and it performs well with just ibis. The images I am getting are more than sharp for my purposes. I will probably wait and see.

Yes, if your current gear satisfies your demands, then waiting for this release to unfold before purchasing a new lens is most likely the best idea

Barry Twycross wrote:

I had to choose between those two, and I've no doubt the 100-400 would have better IQ. However, I'm sure that'd leave it behind most of the time, it's just too big to take casually, you have to have a good reason to lug it along.

So I chose the 100-300ii, and I'm pleasantly surprised just how much I use it. It's become my second most used lens, after my 12-32 (the really really tiny one), because I can always have it with me. It's amazingly compact for what it does, and the IQ is good enough for me.

Indeed, that increase in size with the 100-400 is something to consider. I have an obviously photographic bag wiith me, that could be sized down to something less obvious with the 100-300. One could say it defeats the stealthy purpose of the micro 4/3, but I don't particularly care about that.

And as we say, the best camera is the one you always have on you ! That's also true with lenses

WhiteBeard wrote:

John Carb wrote:

I currently have the Olympus 75-300 with an Olympus OmD Em5 iii. I was considering getting the Panasonic 100-400 after Olympus releases their 100-400. I am hoping the prices drop for the Panasonic. The newer Olympus looks bigger. I do like the size of the Panasonic much better. How do you think the Panasonic 100-400 would be on an Olympus body? Without dual is?

Many users use the PL 100-400 mated to their E-M! or E-M5. From this thread and some others, I'd say the PL 100-400 OIS is superior for long tele range than the camera's IBIS alone. For this reason, most long teles, even from Oly, feature OIS and Dual IS. I wouldn't hold my breath for the PL 100-400's price to drop like a stone when t he Oly 100-400 comes out (bigger, heavier, slower and 30 to 50% more expensive). It is compatible with Oly TCs but how often do you need an 800 mm (1600 mm eq.) F12 lens ?

That's a very fair point.

With these apertures I also wonder why one would use a teleconverter. For the Oly 150-400 F4.5, the built-in 1.25x teleconverter makes sense in my opinion. The idea of a high quality 500mm f5.6 for the m43 system makes me dream. But the price tag will surely put my feet right back on the ground !

Also, we already have a 2x crop factor on the micro 4/3 sensor, so narrowing the aperture makes a huge difference. An 800mm equivalent already gives so much reach... When framing subjects that are very far (I consider 50 metres / 160 feet, for a deer, 30 metres / 100 feet for a magpie to be very far), you often have to deal with atmospheric stuff, which lowers contrast and image quality. And if there's dust, fog or anything like that, IQ drops dramatically.

There is no substitute to closing distance with your subject when it comes to image quality. Having a longer focal length helps, especially for small birds, but that's up to a point. And I think that with an equivalent of 600 or 800mm, we're about there. We'll see if I stick to these words in the future, though

darrinlingle wrote:

Squire Photographer wrote:

That's a very good question ! Unfortunately I am unsure. I'm confident the OIS alone would perform well, but I have no point of comparison with what you have now, that would allow me to tell you "go for it" or "you wouldn't gain much".

After a bit of research, I have not found a way to use only the lens stabilization on my G9, to give an idea of how it would behave on an Olympus body. If someone knows, I'm interested.

That being said, I've used non stabilized lenses (Pana 25mm f1.7 for example) with only my G9's IBIS, and it does help quite a bit I must say.

If I was an Olympus user, in the market for such a telezoom lens, I think I would wait for the Olympus lenses to come out, see the price tags, reviews etc. I am 99% sure there will be comparisons between the Pana 100-400 f4-6.3 and the Olympus 100-400 f5-6.3 when the former comes out. Maybe the Panasonic would drop in price as you hope, I don't know for sure. That would be good news !

Even though I haven't read anything on it (my research wasn't extensive, I admit), I cannot imagine Olympus getting this lens out without Sync IS. It is, after all, the Olympus contender for the Panasonic 100-400.

i had the PL 100-400 on my previous Oly EM1.2 and it's one of the sharpest lenses up to 300mm. it drops from excellent to good at 300-400mm. i'm looking forward to the new Oly 100-400.

does anyone know when we can pre-order?

Thank your for your feedback with the 100-400 on an Olympus body.

Maybe I should try shooting at 300mm and cropping vs shooting at 400mm and see how IQ compares. I never took the time to try and test that !

Now that Olympus released their 100-400, it has no sync is (at least I think so and that’s huge), is heavier, bigger, and slower than the Panasonic 100-400.  It’s a hard pass for me.

John Carb wrote:

Now that Olympus released their 100-400, it has no sync is (at least I think so and that’s huge), is heavier, bigger, and slower than the Panasonic 100-400. It’s a hard pass for me.

Correction:  Sync is may be supported but not 5 axis?  I am not sure what that really means for it’s effectiveness?

Impulses wrote:

I'm not a birder or heavy action shooter, and outside of a few sporadic events I tend to end up using really long FLs like this for landscapes as much as anything... So I went with the 100-300 II a while ago for the OIS and weather sealing (vs the 75-300) amongst other things (and even though I was gonna use it on an Oly body), and I'm likely to stick with it because the Roesch 3rd party tripod collar/foot I got for it is handy enough it even makes it pretty usable with my GX850.

It's a ridiculous combination but sometimes my larger body is just tied up. I can balance it atop a mini/tabletop tripod angled against my chest and achieve some pretty slow shutter speeds that way (the really soft shutter of the GX850 might be helping too). I thought about going for the PL50-200 + TC instead since it'd give a similar FL with more flexibility and probably better IQ in some cases, but I can't justify it (and no tripod foot! boo)

Over time Pana carpet bombed their lineup with both cheap and premium long tele options in various sizes, Oly has got to have lost a lot of sales to people going with one of Pana's 3-4 different options all smaller than the 300/4. I think Mirrorless Comparison had a thorough test of the 100-300 vs the PL100-400, tho they might've used v1 of the former with worse OIS/mechanics (same build/optics tho).

Thank you for tour feedback! If it works for you, it's not ridiculous ! I didn't know about the Roesch tripod collar, that's genious ! It takes away one of my favorite features of the 100-400 haha. I'll update the descriiption of my video.

If I remember correctly, Mirrorless did use the first version of the 100-300.

John Carb wrote:

John Carb wrote:

Now that Olympus released their 100-400, it has no sync is (at least I think so and that’s huge), is heavier, bigger, and slower than the Panasonic 100-400. It’s a hard pass for me.

Correction: Sync is may be supported but not 5 axis? I am not sure what that really means for it’s effectiveness?

That's a real bummer... Indeed,on DPReview's review of the Oly lens, Hymenoptera mentionned Olympus's official specsheet, stating that 5 axis isn't supported:

https://www.dpreview.com/videos/7491054563/dpreview-tv-olympus-100-400mm-f5-0-6-3-is-review?comment=5600433409

Maybe someone will try the Pana combo vs the Oly combo and give us more a more precise comparison about this ?

Lens and body do work together but it doesn't have sync is. It's weird and a little complicated.  No way near as good as sync is though. This video review helps explain it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfwU5Iavp1E

John Carb wrote:

Lens and body do work together but it doesn't have sync is. It's weird and a little complicated. No way near as good as sync is though. This video review helps explain it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfwU5Iavp1E

Gordon Lang released a review today and said the same thing. You can use both IBIS and the lens OIS, but they are not synced. Weird.

Regards, Dave

I don't get it. Dual IS was the major drawback for Olympus users, wasn't it ?

It's well known that Olympus know how to make great stuff. Heck, their 300mm f4 is acclaimed by everyone!

I really hope that future reviews will reveal better things about Oly's 100-400...