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MFT lens 100-400mm, Leica DG, announced (2 Viewers)

So still problems with shutter shock on the Oly lens ...

I am looking forward to seeing more on the panasonic lens, hopefully they will make a test of that one as well.

Niels
 
Have to be a bird sitting extremely still for this to be relevant ;)

Niels

I've managed to get decent shots with the 100-300mm at 1/60th with the lens IS off and the Olympus body IS on, so the number of time where you need both is limited as even a gentle breeze could cause problems with a bird's plumage or leaves on branches next to the bird at that kind of shutter speed and close-ups of butterflies perched on flowers, for instance also need a fast shutter (though they're usually out and about in brighter light anyway).
 
With a RRP of £1349, the 100-400mm isn't exactly cheap, but's its a good deal less expensive than I feared - in short its do-able!
 
I also see one in my future. Just have to be sure that the extra lbs will not be a problem for me carrying it around.

Niels

(edit: the last sentence was a comparison to my present lens the 100-300, the new lens is about 1 lbs heavier)
 
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It's a reasonable size, and price,
if the image quality is as good as expected.

Really hope that the AF performance will be good enough
for birds in flight with the E-M1.
4 stops of in-lens IS would be nice to.

Would be using it mostly for documenting birds.
So it will probably be more suitable than the olympus 300/4 PRO.

This link has been posted before but there are some new interesting Questions and Answers in the
bottom of the page:

http://naturalexposures.com/leica-lumix-100-400mm/

Release date seem to be April...
 
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speculating a bit on bokeh,
the DOF is actually a bit shorter for the leica at 400mm/6.3 than for the Olympus 300/4
at 10 meters it's 0.11 m vs 0.13 m,
at 300mm it's the opposite, obviously as the leica is only 5.6 at 300mm
this is pretty small differences and the actual focus lengths might not be exactly as stated.

The actual bokeh is another thing but short DOF and nice bokeh are related to some extent.

Seen some comments on the olympus 300/4 PRO that the bokeh might be a bit nervous in some situations.

But direct comparison is needed to draw any conclusions.

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
 
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I am not sure what is meant by "early version of the lens"? Production or pre-production, and would one be better than the other?

Niels
 
The images at natural exposures have been reprocessed by another photographer and the new output files are ready for download http://naturalexposures.com/lumix-diaries-leica-100-400mm-samples/

Niels

Perhaps a bit better (originals where over sharpened)
but many of the photos unfortunately seem to show signs of diffraction,
the european roller and the white-crowned sparrow for example,
not sure why to use f/10 or even f/13 on a 20MP MFT sensor,
I would't use smaller than f/8 with this lens.

The did-dik looks sharp to me, but it's not at full focal length,
and the lion looks good also @400mm. Both shot at more suitable f-stops.
 
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According to the rumours site, Amazon UK expects this lens to ship on February 29 and the Oly 300 the following day. That hopefully means that we will get much more feedback on what these lenses are like in real use, and for the Pana lens, if it makes any difference to have routine production samples rather than the preproduction lens that was used for the above linked images.

Niels
 
There is a full ephotozine review out: https://www.ephotozine.com/article/...o-elmar-100-400mm-f-4-0-6-3-asph-review-28971

The oly lens is sharper, but the pana still earns words like "excellent, bordering on outstanding"

Niels

They missed off the 300mm figures but they've promised to re-run the test at that setting. The Pana lens was tested on the 20Mp GX8 whereas the Olympus was on the 16Mp EM5 so that lens could show even higher res on the GX8 or Pen-f.

On the zoom test the 200mm setting seems even slightly better than 100mm but there's a noticeable drop in resolution at 400mm - let's hope the 300mm figures are closer to the 100/200mm than 400mm...
 
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