Lynne311's reviews

Panasonic 100-400mm f/4-6.3 ASPH POWER OIS LEICA DG VARIO-ELMAR

Just got my Panny Leica 100-400 the other day and was eager to try it out against my aging, heavy Canon 100-400 (orig mk 1 version). With the Panny on a Panasonic G7, and the Canon on a Canon 70D, looking at both on a table, the Canon only appeared to look about 30% bigger. But holding them in hand is a whole different story! The Canon weighs close to 5 lbs whereas the Panasonic is only 3 lbs. Much easier to carry around all day and handhold. I expected to have to sacrifice image resolution and AF speed by moving to a smaller MFT sensor from a DSLR, but I've yet to find either the case. While both cameras have a stated 7 fps max speed, the Panasonic seems to lock focus and shoot about twice as fast as the older Canon system (totally unscientific-- just my impressions thus far). Image sharpness seems much sharper with the Pan 100-400, and I'm liking its bokeh much better than the Canon as well. While default color out of the Pan G7 seemed a tad less saturated than the Canon 70D, shadow noise was surprisingly less noticeable. The only (minor) complaint with this new lens is the zoom ring. While I love the short/fast travel to get it zoomed from 100 to 400, love that it doesn't "creep" like the Canon when tilted downward, and love the simple one-handed zoom lock function (vs. 2-handed with the Canon), to make a micro zoom adjustment on the Panasonic is more difficult and a bit "jerky." If your shooting style is to make lots of little zoom changes (i.e. 200 to 250, or 400 to 300), rather than just 400 to 100, you may be annoyed with this lens. I'm a max/min shooter, so for me, this is not a big a deal. All in all, the Panny 100-400 with a fast AF Panny G7 is certainly a no-brainer upgrade over my old Canon 70D and 100-400 mk 1. I'm thrilled!