Olympus 100-400 vs (found faulty) Panasonic/Leica 100-400

Stevenray wrote:

The picture sample you have posted for the Lumix lens is back-focused. The Lumix Leica lens is focused on the hair not the eye. It would be better if you could have manually focused both lenses on the eye for the comparison.

This thread was posted over a year ago, and, if you read through it, it turned out that the Panasonic that the OP had tried was defective.

-J

PhotoMac503 wrote:

Glad to hear it was resolved satisfactorily.

I went through mutiple copies of the PL and eventually gave up, and got a great copy of the Olympus 100-400.

The PL 100-400 is not a lens I would recommend buying used and without a good return policy.

It was a rental.  He ended up calling LensRentals and asked them to test the one he had rented, and, indeed, it was way out of spec.

These are very sensitive to shipping mishaps, I think, which is why they vary so much.  It would also explain why the LensRentals one was bad...lots of shipping malhandling possible with rental units.

-J

jalywol wrote:

PhotoMac503 wrote:

Glad to hear it was resolved satisfactorily.

I went through mutiple copies of the PL and eventually gave up, and got a great copy of the Olympus 100-400.

The PL 100-400 is not a lens I would recommend buying used and without a good return policy.

It was a rental. He ended up calling LensRentals and asked them to test the one he had rented, and, indeed, it was way out of spec.

These are very sensitive to shipping mishaps, I think, which is why they vary so much. It would also explain why the LensRentals one was bad...lots of shipping malhandling possible with rental units.

-J

I think when it's bad, it's just bad. Mine goes in a motorcycle top box pannier (in a camera bag) on an adventure bike and on rough roads for thousands of kilometres and is still fine.

PhotoMac503 wrote:

glassoholic wrote:

jalywol wrote:

PhotoMac503 wrote:

Glad to hear it was resolved satisfactorily.

I went through mutiple copies of the PL and eventually gave up, and got a great copy of the Olympus 100-400.

The PL 100-400 is not a lens I would recommend buying used and without a good return policy.

It was a rental. He ended up calling LensRentals and asked them to test the one he had rented, and, indeed, it was way out of spec.

These are very sensitive to shipping mishaps, I think, which is why they vary so much. It would also explain why the LensRentals one was bad...lots of shipping malhandling possible with rental units.

-J

I think when it's bad, it's just bad. Mine goes in a motorcycle top box pannier (in a camera bag) on an adventure bike and on rough roads for thousands of kilometres and is still fine.

Maybe your adventures knocked it back in to spec.

I did my comparisons with an OM1 of both lenses at the beginning. Found the images from the Panasonic/Leica to be VERY inconsistent and not as sharp as the Oly at the  long end in particular. My copy of the Olympus 100-400 happens to be sharp one end to the other so will never part with it. Even with the 1.4x tc on it renders superb sharp images at the long end where I occasionally need it.