Diwa Labs tested the new Panasonic 100-300mm lens and the Zuiko 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7
Diwa labs compared the two new Micro Four Thirds tele-zooms:
- Click here to see the Panasonic 100-300mm f/4.0-5.6 test results
- Click here to see the Olympus 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 test results
After a quick look on the graphics I can’t see any big difference between the two lenses. The Olympus lens has more Chromatic Aberration and Geometric Distortion. The Panasonic has more Luminance Blur. Resolution is quite similar. So now it is up to you to choose between the two lenses!
Panasonic 100-300mm direct shop links:
Amazon US
Olympus Zuiko 75-300mm direct shop links:
Adorama, BHphoto, AmazonDE, AmazonUK.
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Recent comments
Comment from Italia: With this lens you can really feel like ...
Comment from Paulus: Dear Angry Olympus User!
Once again an ...
Comment from Panasonic GF2: Panasonic provides announced the Lumix D...
Comment from MikeS: I dunno, I was under the impression that...
dmms
2 years ago |Diwa Labs also tested the new E-5 and the 12-60mm
http://www.diwa-labs.com/wip4/test_result_overview.epl?id=556318
steve
2 years ago |The Oly lens also seems to have better resolution from wide open to past F8. Both the biggest differences are body vs lens IS and the price.
safaridon
2 years ago |Your heading should have included the lens speed of the Pany 100-300 which is f4-5.6 which is 1/2 stop faster than the Oly 70-300 f5.6-6.7 lens. Lens speed is very important for light gathering ability and useability of the lens. It is often less expensive to build a slower and sometimes sharper lens with a slower lens speed but the Oly one costs $300 more?
safaridon
2 years ago |Correction of typy the Oly lens is 75-300/f4.8-6.7
occam
2 years ago |I wish Diwa Labs would test the older and well loved Oly (not micro) Four Thirds 70-300 f4-5.6 lens. I’d like to see what makes it a great lens, and compare it to the two new MFT lenses.
This trio of lenses is odd to me not just for the pricing. Arguably the “best” lens is $300 and includes macro capability which neither of the new lenses include. The next most featureful for $600 includes in-lens Image Stabilization but introduces luminance blur. The least featureful and slowest costs $900, is made by same company (Oly) making the best one, and introduces chromatic aberration. Seems like the two new ones are going for extreme compact size rather than serious quality. At least Panasonic is filling a slot in their product line-up. I wonder whether Olympus shooters would have been better served with the old lens retrofitted with MFT threads for same price $300. Sure it’d be a bigger lens than the new one(s), but it’d be faster (f4), sharper (presumably), and have macro capabilities.
Other perspectives, insights?
Angry Olympus Owner
2 years ago |I think OLY really plans to merge the 2 lens systems. The f6.8 300mm from oly is very small and I think that was the main purpose.
I feel like they didnt want to render the 70-300mm irrelevant (which is a good lens) so they pushed the 75-300f6.8 to the limits making it as small as possible even at the expense of that extremely slow aperture and high price.
The die hards who want “small” will buy this lens over the 70-300 and pannys 100-300 which uses a much larger 67mm thread.
The other option is the 70-300 which is quite bigger but much cheaper on is not that bad at focusing on a mirror-less camera (see link below)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxfUzp7YPCI
They want to market the 2 lenses along side each other i think. Olys GH1 type camera will be mirror-less and will work good with FT glass and be marketed with it also. The smaller pens like the epl-1 will be marketed for its size and they need small lenses to do that which is why all Olys m43 lenses are smaller compared to pannys m43 lenses.. Which is a good move.
The 14-150 and 75-300 from Olympus are much more practical and attractive to use on a GF2 or EPL-1 type camera versus panny’s 14-140 & 100-300 which are quite bigger. Same goes for the 9-18 and 14-42 from oly vs pannys offerings.
It doesn’t make sense to redesign good glass to m43 when much good glass exists in FT, just make them more compatible. I think oly approached the issues pretty good so far… which is to not overlap existing FT lenses unless the size is substantially smaller.
Panny didn’t have to worry about this because they had no FT glass basically, which it why panny’s glass is always bigger then oly m43 offerings (exclude pancakes)
Oly still wants to sell FT glass and it is possible to market it towards mFT users who don’t necessarily want a tiny package like my self. All they need to do is fix the focusing problems which shouldn’t be hard. It only takes more processing power to read more frames per second to make Contrast-AF faster, and some serious firmware updates for the lenses
Thats my hope at least.
MikeS
2 years ago |I dunno, I was under the impression that Panny’s lenses were generally bigger because they incorporate image stabilization, which Oly can obviously avoid since their cameras take care of it. The 1cm reduction in length and 3mm in diameter, as well as the wider wide end, doesn’t justify, to me, the price difference, given the lack of IS and smaller aperture(s).
I wouldn’t mind some cheaper m4/3 redesigns of 4/3 lenses (as I have none), although a better adapter solution would be more than welcome, especially for large-aperture telephotos.
Paulus
2 years ago |Dear Angry Olympus User!
Once again an ingenious analysis!
I cherish your sharp-sighted comments!
Best regards
Paulus
Angry Olympus Owner
2 years ago |I dont know if it matters, but it would be cool if they were both tested on the GH2 as opposed to GH2 vs EPL-1
occam
2 years ago |Good insights, thank you!
Panasonic GF2
2 years ago |Panasonic provides announced the Lumix DMC-GF2 Mini 4 Thirds camera. Any simplified model with the corporation’s GF1, Panasonic GF2 inherits the same flat-body layout but with revised handle layout and touch-screen manage.
You got a really useful blog I have been here reading for about an hour. I am a newbie and your success is very much an inspiration for me.
Italia
9 months ago |With this lens you can really feel like you are almost next to your subject. I can’t wait to get some shots at the next full moon. For the price, it is a great lens. The bokeh on this lens is nice, with a shallow DOF. That said, there are some shortcomings, but I would expect that from a telephoto zoom lens like this. First, the auto-focus will hunt in low light. I..