Panasonic 100-300 vs Olympus 75-300 Lens Test

Introduction           With the release of new lenses and camera bodies, there has been a recent surge of interest in the Micro 4/3 system.

There are two long telephoto lenses designed specifically for the M43 system, the Panasonic 100-300 mm OIS and the Olympus 75-300 mm without IS.  These both offer the real prospect of handheld ultra telephoto photography in a compact, lightweight, moderately priced  package.

I bought and have tested both on a Panasonic GH2 body.  I will re run some of the tests with and without IBIS on the Olympus EM5 when I can obtain one.

Notes for potential buyers     1)  Results reported here are valid for the specific copies which landed in my posession. In my experience of the lens lottery there is considerable sample variation between copies of the same lens. This can be greater than the difference between one model and another.  2)  These are both super telephoto lenses, best suited to use on a camera with EVF.  They are not, in my view, suitable for hand held photography using monitor view only, as they need to be held very steady, using good technique.  3)  while testing these lenses, I encountered the highly unwelcome phenomenon which I have called "Shutter Shock Syndrome"  [S.S.S]  which you can read about elsewhere on this blog.

S.S.S.  is a real and significant problem with the Panasonic GH2. I have not tested any other M43 body.

Tests  With both lenses, I photographed distant subjects (100 meters - several kilometers) and test charts at closer distances (8-20 meters). I ran series of exposures on a sturdy tripod, on a monopod and hand held. I used subjects of different types, some with fine detail, some with high contrast, some low contrast, some backlit. This produced several hundred frames from each lens.

Description and specifications  You can read all the details elsewhere, but my impression after using both for several weeks is that the Olympus lens feels significantly more compact in operation and in the camera bag than the Panasonic. This could be the most important issue for some users. The Olympus also zooms more smoothly whereas the Panasonic tends to get a bit jerky when zooming slowly. The Panasonic comes with a soft pouch and lens hood, the Olympus has neither. Based on B&H New York prices the Panasonic is considerably less expensive.

Focussing Both achieve AF and MF with about equal speed and accuracy on the GH2.

Image Quality  I had to run many tests in different conditions to separate the two, which should tell you they give similar results in most situations. Testing was complicated by the Shutter Shock Syndrome  referred to above and also by the finding that the two lenses perform a little differently when comparing closeup with distant subjects.  In addition my copy of the Panasonic is slightly decentered, producing  some softness on the left edge of the frame at most focal lengths.  This softness cleaned up somewhat by stopping down the Panasonic one stop. Apart from that both lenses appeared to perform just as well wide open as stopped down at each focal length.  On several test runs I found the Olympus at 300 mm gave better results at f6.7 than any smaller aperture.

With distant subjects the Panasonic produced slightly but consistently better resolution of fine details and better clarity across the frame than the Olympus at all focal lengths and apertures. With subjects, including the test chart,  8-20 meters from the camera the difference between the two was less clear cut although I scored a slight advantage to the Panasonic after much pixel peeping.  Neither lens rendered the test chart with as much clarity and resolution as lenses of shorter focal length such as the Panasonic 14-45 mm OIS or the Olympus 40-150 mm.

Both lenses delivered good contrast. The GH2 corrects for chromatic aberration with the Panasonic lens but not the Olympus lens which showed significant CA towards frame edges which would require correction in post capture processing.

Conclusion  Either of these lenses is capable of good to very good results if used with care, handheld, on a monopod or on a tripod.

I would not recommend pairing the Olympus lens (no OIS) with a Panasonic body (none has IBIS at this time).  Some form of IS is required for accurate hand held framing and composition at the long end of these superzoom lenses.

The Pansonic lens works just fine on the GH2, with the OIS providing good stabilisation of the viewfinder image. I will discuss the effectiveness of OIS in this and other Panasonic lenses in another post on this blog.  It should also be suitable for the Olympus EM5 but I have not been able to test this yet.

Overall the Panasonic costs less and delivers better resolution which I suspect will make it the clear choice for most buyers.

Photo 1  This was made on a windy day, with air turbulence causing atmospheric distortion of the subject which was about 1.5 kilometers from the camera. I rested the camera on a folded towel on the roof of a motor car. This gave much better stability than a tripod in the windy conditions. Panasonic GH2, Panasonic 100-300 mm lens at 197 mm, f 6.3, 1/1600 sec ISO 160.

Photo 2 is a crop of Photo 1 showing detail.

Photos 3 and 4  are 200% crops of a static subject about 400 meters from the tripod mounted camera. Focal length 124/127 mm, 1/640 sec @ f 5.6, ISO 160. Photo 3 is the Olympus, Photo 4 the Panasonic. This illustrates the slightly better resolution delivered by the Panasonic lens.