Olympus 100-400mm/5.0-6.3 IS - my review

Raist3d wrote:

Astrotripper wrote:

Raist3d wrote:

Astrotripper wrote:

Raist3d wrote:

Astrotripper wrote:

Raist3d wrote:

Of course under a camera with more minimum closer distance it will appear bigger Duh That’s not what I am talking about

Minimum focus distance is the same for both.

talking about this

”But what surprised me was the difference between the two zooms. If you compared the size of the photographed object to a focal length of 400 mm with the mentioned lenses, then each is different from the same distance. With the Panasonic 100-400, the object is smaller and corresponds roughly to what the 342mm focal length looks like on the Olympus 100-400.”

This is exactly what mirrorlesscomparisons found and illustrated in their article:

Both brands mention 1.3m as the minimum focus distance for these lenses but the magnification is higher on the Olympus

You conveniently left out: ", most likely because focus breathing is more pronounced."

On the Panasonic. About focus breathing, see my response above: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64225930

So at 400 the Panny Leica sure performs with a similar FOV then.

No idea what you're referring to here.

Both have the same FOV at 400mm.

At infinity, which is what the specs state.

Keep in mind, that's not quite I was talking about- at least as described by Petr, but could be the same reason / finding. Seems like an Olympus Len defect here (or "defect").

I really do not see the difference between both described situations apart from the fact that MirrorlessComparison erroneously states which lens has more breathing.

Why were they wrong? How do we know?

Because they provide a description of the test and the resulting photos. There really is no room for any argument here. This is as clear as things can be.

At long end of the zoom and minimum focus distance of 1.3 meters, Panasonic has a shorter focal length than Olympus.

That's it. No more, no less.

Hmm how do we know the Panasonic isn't the correct one? Trying to understand that.

Because Panasonic has smaller magnification (wider FoV) at minimal focus distance. Hence its FL is shorter when compared to Olympus in the same scenario.

Also, there's no "correct" here. Each lens has different focus breathing characteristics. In this case it's easily comparable because both lenses share the same MFD. So this is actually the perfect case for demonstrating this phenomenon. And I am 100% sure that both of those lenses have focus breathing and the only difference is in the extent to which this happens.

I guess you could say that "correct" would be a hypothetical lens that does not focus breathe. I don't think you will find a consumer grade or even pro grade photographic lens like that. Maybe some older manual focus film era designs. I have a legacy 300mm that seems to not focus breathe at all (or very little), but it has ridiculously long minimal focus distance (like 3 or 4 meters). But comparing it to my Panasonic 100-300, the difference is striking.

Tech Head wrote:

Auf Reisen wrote:

Amazing shots as always, Petr.

Do I understand it correctly that you are saying that this lens is not offering Sync-IS with Olympus bodies? Or that the Sync-IS did not work as well as other lenses? Could that have to do with this being pre-production?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxXfO1uPVTA

If you look at Gordon Laing's review he compared the OIS of the lens to IBIS at 400mm in video, and the IBIS was clearly better. With the Panasonic lens, this wouldn't be the case. The PL100-400 OIS alone would either match or exceed IBIS at 400mm.

Not my experience, actually.

For EVF stability, I found IBIS on my E-M1 Mark II superior to OIS of PL 100-400. And I have found no advantage to OIS for photos either (I could reliably get 1/20s at 400mm with just IBIS). I tried using its OIS for a while and switched back to IBIS only, as it was giving me more reliable results. There's a clearly visible difference in the way both work, and I simply did not see any advantage to using OIS instead of IBIS.

For video, it was a no-brainer, IBIS wins hands down with Panasonic's OIS. Not even a contest.

Now, the advantage of IBIS did not seem as obvious (for stills) as with my 100-300 II, which I actually measured to be considerably less reliable than IBIS alone.

With OIS vs IBIS, OIS tends to be better at longer focal lengths and IBIS tends to be better at shorter focal lengths. Comparing this lens to the PL100-400, the stabilization at the longer end is clearly going to be better with the PL, not only because of the better OIS but because Panasonic's equivalent of sync IS is the Dual IS 2, which the PL100-400 has. The Oly 100-400 apparently doesn't have sync IS.

But it does have OIS+IBIS mode of operation. Not as effective as Sync IS or Dual IS 2 (most likely), but still better than just OIS.

However, looks like Gordon could not have tested that, because that requires firmware update to E-M1 Mark II that he used for testing.

NCV wrote:

As expected some great pictures have been produced by the OP with this lens.

But I would say that the post should be titled "Presentation" rather than "Review", seeing that the OP is connected to Olympus by being a "Visionary."

This post is a social media marketing exploit and not in any way an impartial "review".

Please lets have some honest transparency and have an accurate title.

On balance I felt it was far superior to what DPreview managed to do!

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Adrian Harris wrote:

NCV wrote:

As expected some great pictures have been produced by the OP with this lens.

But I would say that the post should be titled "Presentation" rather than "Review", seeing that the OP is connected to Olympus by being a "Visionary."

This post is a social media marketing exploit and not in any way an impartial "review".

Please lets have some honest transparency and have an accurate title.

On balance I felt it was far superior to what DPreview managed to do!

Absolutely! I would much prefer to have a “presentation “ by someone who is both knowledgeable and accomplished, than a review by someone who is neither.

Adrian Harris wrote:

NCV wrote:

As expected some great pictures have been produced by the OP with this lens.

But I would say that the post should be titled "Presentation" rather than "Review", seeing that the OP is connected to Olympus by being a "Visionary."

This post is a social media marketing exploit and not in any way an impartial "review".

Please lets have some honest transparency and have an accurate title.

On balance I felt it was far superior to what DPreview managed to do!

don't worry the Oly salesteam have provided many videos on youtube about the lens, some with samples to download so you can make your own mind up about the performance of this new release

bobn2 wrote:

gary0319 wrote:

Adrian Harris wrote:

NCV wrote:

As expected some great pictures have been produced by the OP with this lens.

But I would say that the post should be titled "Presentation" rather than "Review", seeing that the OP is connected to Olympus by being a "Visionary."

This post is a social media marketing exploit and not in any way an impartial "review".

Please lets have some honest transparency and have an accurate title.

On balance I felt it was far superior to what DPreview managed to do!

Absolutely! I would much prefer to have a “presentation “ by someone who is both knowledgeable and accomplished, than a review by someone who is neither.

Are you suggesting that the DP reviewers are not knowledgeable or accomplished?

Are you suggesting that they are accomplished Micro FourThirds experts ?

Peter

Messier Object wrote:

bobn2 wrote:

gary0319 wrote:

Adrian Harris wrote:

NCV wrote:

As expected some great pictures have been produced by the OP with this lens.

But I would say that the post should be titled "Presentation" rather than "Review", seeing that the OP is connected to Olympus by being a "Visionary."

This post is a social media marketing exploit and not in any way an impartial "review".

Please lets have some honest transparency and have an accurate title.

On balance I felt it was far superior to what DPreview managed to do!

Absolutely! I would much prefer to have a “presentation “ by someone who is both knowledgeable and accomplished, than a review by someone who is neither.

Are you suggesting that the DP reviewers are not knowledgeable or accomplished?

Are you suggesting that they are accomplished Micro FourThirds experts ?

Peter

how do you become an expert of something just released?

Wu Jiaqiu wrote:

Messier Object wrote:

bobn2 wrote:

gary0319 wrote:

Adrian Harris wrote:

NCV wrote:

As expected some great pictures have been produced by the OP with this lens.

But I would say that the post should be titled "Presentation" rather than "Review", seeing that the OP is connected to Olympus by being a "Visionary."

This post is a social media marketing exploit and not in any way an impartial "review".

Please lets have some honest transparency and have an accurate title.

On balance I felt it was far superior to what DPreview managed to do!

Absolutely! I would much prefer to have a “presentation “ by someone who is both knowledgeable and accomplished, than a review by someone who is neither.

Are you suggesting that the DP reviewers are not knowledgeable or accomplished?

Are you suggesting that they are accomplished Micro FourThirds experts ?

Peter

how do you become an expert of something just released?

Just released ? Hasn’t Micro FourThirds been around for years ?

Unless you’re putting it on an optical test bench, a lens needs to be mounted on a camera - in this case a m43 camera. Expertise with m43 cameras will, in my opinion, help the reviewer evaluate the lens - especially its autofocus capability. And experience with the other m43 lenses will enable the reviewer to better compare the new lens with other m43  models.

unlike many here, I’ve got zero interest in reading about how this or any other m43 product compares with Sony, Nikon, Fuji or Canon products. Got no interest in comparative weight or cost.  I’d much rather read a review from a dedicated, and yes accomplished, Olympus user like Petr Bambousek.  Yes he is connected with Olympus but that doesn’t make him untrustworthy as NCV suggests.

In fact, I just wish that Petr and the other Olympus Visionaries put more time into doing reviews and technical presentations etc and were available for technical Q&A.

Peter

spot on Peter, I sometimes think this site should be split into two parts, "tech-heads" and "Photographers"

In past reviews DPR have published test results that have been patently impossible, not even being internally consistent, I don't rate them very highly as reviewers

NCV wrote:

As expected some great pictures have been produced by the OP with this lens.

But I would say that the post should be titled "Presentation" rather than "Review", seeing that the OP is connected to Olympus by being a "Visionary."

This post is a social media marketing exploit and not in any way an impartial "review".

Please lets have some honest transparency and have an accurate title.

Well, I would like to avoid to start flame in rather decent discussion. I am just wondering, what you think to be "Olympus visionary" REALLY means? I expect you think Olympus pay to visionaries to say its gear is great. Which is common mistake far from reality.

All my articles are based on my personal experiences and never been changed single word from Olympus guys.

I chose my equipment voluntarily based on my personal preferences and feelings. BUT yes - I love my gear. YES, I dig very deeply to setting to tune up the camera to be perfect in real wildlife photografy life. I'd rather look for a solution than make an infinity complain that that's not good enough for this and that. And finally YES, Olympus like my work and I am honored I am time to time featured in their materials as well as I am priviledged to have some gear in advance to make personal testing before release (feedback from visionaries is important for future fw updates, etc.).

I am confident all my observations reflects my real experiences and are not curved to make the gear better than I really mean. And honestly I really don't understand why people tend to believe more "reviewers" who are not interested particularly to wildlife photography (and very often even to Oly gear) and just recap technical facts with several usually poor pictures. They are not even willing properly set the camera just make sure nothing is good enough for their needs. "Visionary" multi-award wining wildlife photographer with more than 15 years of real field experiences in wild "review" with tens of exapmles confirming what is written based on 3 weeks intensive testing period is less valued one.

This is why I never "review" portrait/wedding/street oriented lenses.

Choice is always on particular person, I always recommend to "try first" before buy. As there are zillion other "reviews" available, I am pretty sure people can do their clear decision if buy or not. Everybody can find lots of my work examples (over 300 to be seen here: https://500px.com/sulasulacom/galleries/olympus), I am not hidden person for rest of the world behind nickname.

Regards,
Petr

bobn2 wrote:

Messier Object wrote:

bobn2 wrote:

gary0319 wrote:

Adrian Harris wrote:

NCV wrote:

As expected some great pictures have been produced by the OP with this lens.

But I would say that the post should be titled "Presentation" rather than "Review", seeing that the OP is connected to Olympus by being a "Visionary."

This post is a social media marketing exploit and not in any way an impartial "review".

Please lets have some honest transparency and have an accurate title.

On balance I felt it was far superior to what DPreview managed to do!

Absolutely! I would much prefer to have a “presentation “ by someone who is both knowledgeable and accomplished, than a review by someone who is neither.

Are you suggesting that the DP reviewers are not knowledgeable or accomplished?

Are you suggesting that they are accomplished Micro FourThirds experts ?

Peter

What's a 'Micro Four Thirds expert'? I would hazard a guess

hazard a guess ? So you don’t know then

that they have had experience of more micro Four Thirds cameras

experience handling the latest model for a day so they can post a review, or are you saying that they are working pros who earn a living from them ? Or are they awarded wildlife photographers who use m43 ?

than most of us, have experience of other cameras too, so that they can contextualise their reviews.

I’ll hazard my own guess and say that they have indeed handled more m43 camera models than I could even name,  but neither of those DPR guys have spent much time using the equipment for any purpose other than to do a review.

Peter