Head to Head: Panasonic 100-300mm vs Olympus 75-300mm lens. Which is the best?
Olympus and Panasonic are not only partners inside the Micro Four Thirds world but also very strong competitors. So let’s compare some of their camera and lenses. Today you have to chose between the Olympus 75-300mm and the Panasonic 100-300mm lenses. There are not many reviews out there and I can give you only a few useful links:
Olympus 75-300mm
Photographyblog (Click here)
Diwa labs
Image samples at Olympus website
Customers reviews at Amazon US (There are no user reviews in European Amazon stores).
Price and availability checks at Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay.
Panasonic 100-300mm
Diwa labs
Outback Photo.
Image samples at Panasonic website.
Customers reviews at Amazon US, Amazon DE, Amazon UK.
Price and availability checks at Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay.
And now the big question:
Loading ...If you own one of those lenses feel free to add your personal rating at:
43rumors Olympus 75-300mm rating
43rumors Panasonic 100-300mm rating
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Recent comments
Comment from Mr. Reeee: Agreed.
What's worse is to further co...
Comment from admin: Hi Charles. Can you give us some links t...
Comment from Charles: I live in Tokyo. If you want to help out...- Comment from Charles: You deserved it. They post rumors when t...
spam
2 years ago |The Olympus is interesting because of size and slightly larger zoom range. If I were to get one it would still be the Panasonic because of built in IS.
Jonathan
2 years ago |@admin – maybe none of this is really interesting?
I’m not expecting you to fabricate rumors (I hope you’re not so inclined…) but would you have ANY news on the (hopefully) upcoming Panasonic and Olympus models based on next gen sensors?
Whatever information you may have would be appreciated!
admin
2 years ago |If it doesn’t interest you skip the news. I post rumors when I have some. Don’t be impatient
Jonathan
2 years ago |That was brisk and uncalled for, too bad :/
spam
2 years ago |Brisk and uncalled for? You started your post with “@admin – maybe none of this is really interesting” then continues off topic.
Charles
2 years ago |You deserved it. They post rumors when they get them. Why do you think you deserve special attention?
Paulus
2 years ago |In regard to the apocalypse in Japan I think that our technical concerns are actually completely insignificant.
I propose to make a break for technical information and rumors for at least one day on 43rumors.com in respect and in care for the Japanese people.
Dear Admin, perhaps you can contact your trusted persons in Japan and give them a discrete space on 43rumors.com for their actual needs – certainly only if they want to do in this way.
admin
2 years ago |Hi Paulus!
I contacted a few friends that are currently living in Japan. There is not a lot we can do. The problem right now are not the lack of donations, they need professional help on the ground and official support from our governements.
let’s cross the finger that everything will be over soon (see nucelar plant issues).
Paulus
2 years ago |Dear Admin!
Thank you very much for your dedication!
Best regards
Paulus
Charles
2 years ago |I live in Tokyo. If you want to help out the people who are in trouble here donate some money or give to another organization that is providing support here. Shutting down a website here or holding a candle vigil gets nice attention, but it doesn’t do shit for the people who have lost their home and without food, water, electricity or gas.
admin
2 years ago |Hi Charles. Can you give us some links to reliable organisation that do accept donations? Thanks!
James
2 years ago |At least this is m43 related so somewhat relevant, as opposed to all the “the large sensor fixed-lens camera completely unrelated to m43 is delayed again”.
Spoo
2 years ago |Maybe it IS interesting to some of us – what is “brisk and uncalled for” is your belief that this site should be tailored specifically to YOUR needs and ignore the rest of the world. If you don’t want to read, skip it, but do not presume to think you know what the rest of us find interesting.
Fish
2 years ago |Photographyblog.com also has a review on the Panasonic lens for those who want to compare reviews done by the same reviewer.
Fish
2 years ago |Sorry my mistake… looks like it is just a couple of thoughts, rather than a full review
Fish
2 years ago |Haha i am an idiot today. I was looking at the outbackphoto link. The photographyblog has full reviews on both lenses.
DonTom
2 years ago |There seems little quality difference between them, so the faster and cheaper one would win for me: Panasonic.
Chris K.
2 years ago |DonTom, huh what? Little quality difference? Have you actually looked at the Diwa labs analysis charts?
Oly seems to beat out Pana by a large margin in avg. luminance blur (sharpness), at f/5.6 ranging from 4.33-13.28 at the zoom range, while the Pana at f/5.6 ranges from 4.39-28.53! (Nearly twice as blurry at 300mm.) Similar/worse performance at the higher f-stops.
On the flip side, looks like chromatic aberration is way better on the Pana lens at 29.35-57.21 for f/5.6 than the Oly shocking 62.08-126.82 with a peak of 145.47 at 150mm.
Vignetting is significantly worse at f/5.6 for the Panasonic lens as well.
I am not entirely clear on how much CA correction can be applied (and is there any blur correction) so my guess is you have a real choice here between sharpness versus chromatic aberration. Well, that and price/size, and in-lens IS.
cL
2 years ago |After I saw the sample photos from the Zuiko 75-300mm, I moved to see Panny’s offer, hoping it’ll be better. Nope…, it isn’t. Like you suggested, the sharpness level (luminance) is yucky. Oly’s wasn’t stellar, but at least the center frame is sharp and lack of strange noise pattern we see in Panny’s even under good lighting… and resolution (how fine the lines/pixels of the photo) seems to be higher. Maybe the noise pattern has to do with sensor. I only compared the results from Photographyblog though. I wonder if they’re shooting in JPEG or RAW. Probably JPEG, because that noise is driving me nuts! How can you convince others that m4/3 is better than a P&S with that result? Panny’s JPEG engine need fixing…. My LX3′s out of camera JPEG is unusable as well.
I wish they’d test it like Cameralab, showing some sample photos with the exact same scene, so one can compare it apple to apple. If not too much to ask, shot different lenses with the same camera body, so it can be a real head to head review.
DonTom
2 years ago |Hi @Chris,
Yep, I looked at the charts, and came to much the same conclusion: accept lower sharpness with less CA on the Panny, or better sharpness with worse CA on the Olly. That’s why I said there is little difference, as for me CA is about as important as sharpness. Also, there are some excellent bird photos around taken on the Panny lens.
Actually, I doubt I’ll get either lens, more likely to get the Panny 14-140HD, or 45-200. In the meantime I use a legacy 200mm F3 for long shots. My (lack of) ability with this has convinced me also of the need for OIS at these focal lengths.
Alan
2 years ago |Some head to head shots:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1041&message=37961204
cL
2 years ago |Thanks for posting that! Though it seems to poster is only interested in showing result when the lens is shot wide open at a given focal length…. Which is fine, but one must also supply some comparison photos at a given aperture (e.g., two photos of the same scene and light condition, both show 200mm at f4 @ 1/250″).
But that said, this is what I saw from that post.
Surprisingly wide open performance favors Panasonic. Usually it’s the other way around. It’s also shocking after I saw the sample photo shown in photographyblog, which definitely favors Olympus’s performance. So maybe it is the Panasonic body that’s lousy at handling JPEG, as I previously suspected.
Like the original poster at dpreview mention, the differences is little, though when stopped down, it seems Oly is sharper. I really expected the result to be the opposite. I mean Oly sharper wide open and Panny gets better when stopped down. Interesting read!
Zorg
2 years ago |The Pana is faster and has IS (useful for Pana bodies). The Oly is longer and is MSC (useful for videos). So it’s not only about the lens, but also if you have a Oly or Pana body and if you will use the lens for video or not.
“Olympus and Panasonic are not only partners inside the Micro Four Thirds world but also very strong competitors.” Unfortunately… Sigh… What a waste of resources, why can’t they fight as one to impose mFT first, and later fight against each other when the market will be established and solid? Right now, being strong competitors instead of allies will only loose them… Oly is going to loose this fight, then Pana will exit the market when it realizes it cannot compete alone against Sony, Canon and Nikon.
spam
2 years ago |The Olympus is tempting because of the size, but I want Panasonic bodies because of better video. That could change, but with OIS lenses you can pick any body you want and get stabilisation.
Btw, I completely agree that Oly and Pana should stop making duplicate lens designs and cooperate more until MFT has a fairly secure position in the market. Then they can start their fight if they really want to.
TheVoiceoverman
2 years ago |Big plus one. Such a waste of time and money trying to cut each other’s throats.
Mr. Reeee
2 years ago |Agreed.
What’s worse is to further confuse the issue, both companies have been releasing duplicates of their own lenses. TWO 14-42mm from Oly, Panasonic’s 14-42mm that’s inferior to the 14-45mm. Why? Then there are the dopey things like fish-eye and 3D lenses (when 3D TV is already a bust).
Check out this lens chart at fourthirds.org:
http://www.four-thirds.org/en/microft/lens_chart.html
What is the point of all this, when basic lenses that would serve a range of users are MIA?
If Panasonic/Olympus want to offer choices: fast prime/slow-cheap prime, a couple more portrait/macro lenses (55mm). One they deliver those sorts of generally useful lenses, then they can add the fluff stuff like fisheye, mega-zooms, 3D and the like later.
Sure, Voightländer, Zeiss and Schneider are stepping in, but we can all count on those lenses being well beyond what most folks would be willing to spend. Most of those lenses will be manual focus and without stabilization.
With P&S shooters the (mostly) target audience for M4/3, and likely never shot manual anything, it’s a tall order expected any of them to buy $1000+ fixed lenses. The ironic thing is that camera companies have spent years convincing consumers that it’s impossible to take photographs without auto-focus or OIS/IBIS or “art filters”, etc.. Just look at any M4/3 discussion forum if you want proof of that.
John Krumm
2 years ago |The Panasonic IS is useful for the Olympus bodies as well, which doesn’t work so well at 300 mm. It would be nice in fact if someone could compare the effectiveness of both forms of IS at 300mm on an Olympus body, especially at higher (still shake prone) shutter speeds. I’d spring for the Panasonic 100-300, and the little Oly 9-18 for wides, and the Panny 20mm 1.7. Nice mixed kit.
frank
2 years ago |Lenses with these focal ranges are useless anyway. The panasonic 45-200 is the longest you would use with any sense. Remember that due to the crop factor these FL can be compared to 200-600 on full frame. Who would have ever considered buying a 600mm on full frame?
The 45-200 compares to 90-400 on full frame. The 14-140 is a much nicer range. But all these lenses should have been 1 stop faster.
Per
2 years ago |I already decided for the Panasonic. Three reasons: IS, aperture and cost. Sharpness is good, not more. The lens IS is at least one step better compared to the in-camera IS of my E-P1.
Actually balances with E-P1 and GF1 quite well (left hand supports lens).
As always, using a tripod = getting the best out of the tele lens.
One strange thing: I shot at 300 mm (“600mm”) and compared with an older shot with Nikon 70 – 300 at 300mm (“450mm”) – the bird nest was larger in the Nikon image!! Both shot from same window. Isn’t there also something about “imaging scale” too? A bit disappoitning anyway.