Panasonic Leica 100-400mm f4-6.3 superzoom lens for MFT User review 6 December 2019

The full name of this lens is Panasonic Leica DG Vario Elmar 100-400mm f4.0-6.3 Asph Power OIS for Lumix G Micro Four Thirds cameras.

It was announced in January 2016.

The initial response to this lens was mixed. Some reviewers praised its optical and mechanical performance. But negative feedback appeared on user review sites around two main issues, a stiff zoom action and inconsistent quality control.

At the time my attention was mainly on bridge cameras in particular the Sony RX10.4 which I used for birds and other long lens work.

But the Leica recently became available on sale in Sydney at an attractive price (AUD 1530) and as I already had a Lumix G9 body on which to mount the lens I bought one and have been using it over the last two months.

My experience of the lens has been very positive. I don’t know whether this is because I got lucky with my copy or because Panasonic has fixed its quality control issues, which by the way have not been confined to this lens.

The PL100-400mm is currently the third most expensive Panasonic lens for MFT. The PL50-200mm f2.8-4 is more expensive and the PL 200mm f2.8 costs more than twice as much.

100-400mm in MFT gives an angle of view equal to 200-800mm on full frame.   

Olympus has announced that it will release a 100-400mm zoom for MFT at some future time and has also announced the development of a Pro 150-400mm f4.5 with built in TC1.25, which when deployed will give a full frame equivalent focal length range of 300-1000mm.

The Micro Four Thirds system was launched in 2008 by Panasonic and Olympus.

Both corporations took a big risk with the new system. 

It was the first digital mirrorless interchangeable lens camera system and it uses a sensor only one quarter the area of the standard “35mm” (24x36mm)  film/sensor size which has been in use for over a hundred years.  On top of that MFT was introduced in the depths of the global financial crisis.

Eleven years later the MFT system has largely met its original brief, which was to provide high quality photographic results in a compact, versatile, package at moderate cost.

The subject of this post embodies the spirit of MFT very well. It is a very high quality super telephoto zoom lens which amateur photographers can buy and use effectively without needing help to carry the thing or a second mortgage on the house to pay for it.

The PL 100-400mm is about half the size, weight and price of a Sony FE 200-600mm zoom which covers the 24x36mm format and about 70% the size, weight and cost of the Fuji 100-400mm for APS-C and has more effective reach than either, unless you mount the Sony 200-400 on an APS-C body when the effective focal length range becomes 300-900mm.

I note here that there are no native APS-C prime supertele or superzoom lenses for Sony, Canon or Nikon. Full frame FE long lenses can be used on Sony APSC cameras as they use the same mount. Nikon will presumably get around to making super tele models for the Z mount in due course. These will work on full frame or APS-C Z mount bodies.

Canon EOS M owners who want to move up to long lens territory are out of luck as the M mount is different from the R mount and no adapter can be used.

Before getting into the details I want to say something about the opportunities made available by the 800mm equivalent focal length. Before getting the PL100-400, I had become accustomed to using the FZ1000 with a maximum  400mm equivalent and the RX10.4 with a maximum of 600mm equivalent. 

I thought that extending the reach to 800mm would not make much difference. But it does. Especially with birds. With the 800mm reach I am finding many more opportunities to get close (optically speaking) to birds than was possible with 600mm.

Part of the benefit is that the PL100-400 has higher sharpness, resolution and contrast than either the FZ1000 at 400mm or the RX10.4 at 600mm. This is readily appreciated in matched test photos.  

The PL 100-400mm is 185mm long at the shortest focal length extending 71mm at full zoom. Diameter with the large hood reversed is 90mm. Filter size is 72mm.

Mass with both lens hoods and caps and filter is 1055grams.

Total mass of the lens and G9 body is 1705 grams.

Optical construction includes 20 elements in 13 groups with various aspheric, ultra and extra low dispersion elements.

The construction is stated to be splash and dust proof.  I have not yet put this to the test.

The lens is black which surprises me as it can get quite hot in the sun.   I have read that this could potentially have an adverse effect on optical performance. I would like to see Panasonic move to the off white color for all its long lenses.

There are two lens hoods, The small one stays on the lens, the large one slips over the small one if desired and is retained with a little screw clamp.

There is a zoom lock ring but I have never found the need for it.

The zoom action on my copy is slightly less smooth than I expect of a top tier product but it works well and is getting smoother with use.

There is a large zoom ring in the middle of the barrel and a small focus ring towards the front.

The whole rear section of the barrel rotates to allow a switch from landscape to portrait orientation while on tripod.

There is a primary tripod foot which stays in place and a larger secondary tripod foot which can be affixed if desired.

There are slider switches on the left side near the mount for Full or restricted focus range, AF/MF and Stabiliser on/off. On a Panasonic MFT body with IBIS the stabiliser switch on the lens controls both the OIS in the lens and the IBIS. They are both on or both off.

All my use and testing of the lens has been while mounted on a Lumix G9 body which is a good match for the long lens.

I use a Think Tank Mirrorless Mover 25i which is a nice fit for the lens mounted on the G9 lying horizontally handle up. There are also several top load zoom type bags which will hold the same combination vertically, monitor up.

I rate the sharpness, resolution and contrast of the PL as excellent from 100-300mm. In this range the lens is extremely sharp right from the widest aperture and right into the corners.

From 300-400mm There is a small decline from excellent to very good. However even at 400mm sharpness extends right to the corners and fine feather details are rendered clearly.

I found no significant distortion, color fringing,  corner shading or flare.

I find that at 400mm and f6.3 if I have a bird’s head in focus the body will generally be slightly unsharp and vice versa.

This is very smooth.

This is excellent. Dual IS is available on the G9 and it works very well. I can make sharp pictures at 1/30 second hand held at 400mm as long as the subject is still and I use good technique.

This is extremely fast and accurate in AF single.

In AF Continuous the camera/lens combination can follow focus on steadily moving subjects easily with a high rate of sharp frames.

This is a very high performance lens with hardly any faults at all.

In fact it is one of the best lenses I have owned.

It delivers a very well balanced combination of excellent optical and mechanical performance with modest size, mass and price in a package very suitable for enthusiast bird/sport/action/wildlife photographers.  

Now Panasonic needs to upgrade several aspects of the G9 so users can more readily get the best out of this lens. Things which need to improve are changing AF area position and size and continuous AF on unpredictably moving subjects. The recent Ver2 FW upgrade is not enough. I will discuss this in another post.