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Panasonic 100-300 Zoom lens (1 Viewer)

R

roger48

Well-known member
I see from Amazon UK that this lens will be released on 8 November. This is great news as it will be perfect for my trip to Cape Town in South Africa. I have plenty of bird places for while my wife paints.

Only one problem, I fly to South Africa on 4 November:C. Grrrrrrrrr!
 
I look forward to reading your reports. If you have a look at the Lumix Lifestyle website you will see some pictures taken with the lens. Some members were given lenses to test in advance of the release.
 
Got mine yesterday. Only taken a few pictures out of the front room onto the feeder in dull weather about thirty feet away but the lens certainly seems to deliver. It's a fairly big lump on the front of the camera however but considering it is equivalent to 600mm fully zoomed in I suppose that is to be expected. Generally I am pleased with it and hope to take to the local reserve for a better test when the sun decides to shine here.:t:
 
first shots

Hello to all,

Here are some of my first shots taken with the 100-300mm Panasonic lens (all at maximum zoom end of 300mm/f5.6-8; all pic's cleaned, enhanced, cropped to fit web-pages/sites). I think the lens produces quite nice, although I had to take several pic's of the same scene/bird in order to be able tot select the best. I enjoy it and still need some more practice with it… especially in low-light conditions / bushes-with-branches with small birds in it.
For me the combi (Panasonic G1 with Lumix G vario 100-300) works fine: not quite big or heavy and ables me to take record shots (like the caudatus tit, kingfisher) or maybe even better!. Any comments are welcome - still learning!

Bye and hopefully till again.
Karel Hoogteyling, The Netherlands
 

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Karel,
I overlooked that you are new to birdforum, welcome here!

As a superzoom user, I like what I see in your pictures :t:

What is the total weight of the camera + lens?

Niels
 
I have just been onto Amazon.com. The olympus counterpart of this lens costs about half ...

Niels
 
Niels, you're right about the price, but:
Olympus has maximum aperture of f5.6 at 300 mm, but the long end is rather soft at this value. You have to use an aperture of f8 for some better quality pics. If image quality with the Panasonic is significant better at the long end (and at the maximum aperture of f5.6), this could be a significant improvement.

P.S. Reading the exif data I found out that four of the pics (the starling, the crow, the long-tailed tit and the kingfisher are taken at f5.6 with 300 mm). The kestrel is taken at f7.1 and it seems to be somehow sharper...
 
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Thanks Christian,
I assumed another difference is presence vs absence of IS in the lens?

Niels
 
I have just received my 100-300mm lens. I would be rushing off to London Wetlands right now but it is snowing. Feels like a real quality product and I cannot wait to use it.:t:
 
I do have the Olympus 70-300 lens and it doesn't have IS. I tried it with the Panasonic G1 and never got results to my liking. Ammadoux did recently post some pictures with the Oly lens with an Oly camera (EP1?) and got good results. I'd like to see more feedback on the Panasonic lens used with the G1 or G2.
 
I finally had a chance to use my new Panasonic 100-300mm lens with my G1. Not a lot of birds out that day, but I did get one keeper:

http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/342832/ppuser/81425

I tried the G1 with an Olympus 4/3 70-300mm lens (no image stablization) last winter. I never had decent results with that combo, even with a monopod, so this is promising.

Sharpness/detail/contrast seem to be okay and the Image Stabilization works well. It is hard to pick up small, fast moving birds in the electronic viewfinder of the G1 (relative to my usual Canon 7D). The 100-300mm lens doesn't snap into focus - it is somewhat slow with the G1. One thing I don't like is that you cannot manually override focus while in an autofocus mode (there might be a menu fix for that, but while in the field, I couldn't do it). I do like the weight of this combination - it is significantly lighter than my Canon, which really helps on long hikes in winter conditions.

I have a GH-2 on order from Panasonic and I'm hoping that it arrives soon. For some reason, the GH-2 is still hard to get in the US, but I see it is generally available on UK websites. From the reviews, the GH-2 focuses much faster than earlier Panasonic cameras, and I am intrigued by the internal tele-extender function of the GH-2. It also has more pixels with better noise performance, so that should help. I'll let you know how it works if / when it shows up.
 
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