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Because of the crop sensor, Micro Four Thirds cameras don’t perform as well in low light. It’s also more difficult to get a narrow depth of field on a Micro Four Thirds camera. (See more in our article Equivalence Also Includes Aperture and ISO.) Olympus has a similar system called Sync IS, but surprisingly the 100-400mm is not compatible, unlike the 300mm Pro. flattening effects for shooting that is unique to a super telephoto lens. The closest focusing distance across the entire zoom range is 1.3m and the maximum image magnification is 0.57x, Alternative telephoto lenses in Olympus’ line-up include the M.Zuiko Digital ED 300mm f/4 IS PRO lens and eye-wateringly good Digital ED 150-400mm f/4.5 TC 1.25x IS PRO. Both are more expensive, justifying their price increase with stabilisation and fixed aperture. However this Digital ED 100-400mm offers an excellent compromise between price and features, with a considerable cost saving over both of these other options.
For me, it’s kind of a toss-up with this lens. The image quality is really nice, and it’s great to have a lens with the amount of reach that it has. If you’re a wildlife or bird photographer, it’s definitely something to consider. Granted, it's got a maximum aperture of f/5, as opposed to the Panasonic which tops out at f/4, but it's got impressive weatherproofing, and its compatibility with Olympus's 2x Teleconverter MC-20 and 1.4x Teleconverter MC-14 means you can extend that colossal reach even further! We run a range of lab tests under controlled conditions, using the Imatest Master testing suite. Photos of test charts are taken across the range of apertures and zooms (where available), then analyzed for sharpness, distortion and chromatic aberrations.
Image Stabilization
Characterized by its impressive range and reach, theOlympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 100-400mm f/5-6.3 ISis a 200-800mm-equivalent super-telephoto zoom for Micro Four Thirds mirrorless cameras.
When it comes to stabilisation, the Panasonic is inferior on its own but matches the performance of the Olympus lens when using a Lumix camera compatible with Dual IS (sensor + optical stabilisation). As you can see, the Micro Four Thirds format has few limitations. Even if you find that it’s missing a lens you need, you can always adapt other lenses, like I did for my Laowa 15mm f/4 macro. There is a plethora of prime and additional zoom lenses out there which cover almost every need. When I had the lens on loan from Olympus, after a while I felt the need to try it side by side with the Panasonic 100-400 lens, which has been on the market for some time. In the end, it worked out thanks to the generosity of FotoŠkoda that kindly loaned it to me for a few days resulting in the amazing opportunity to try out both, the Olympus 100-400mm/ 5.0-6.3 IS and the side by side. At that moment, I got into a testing vortex as you can imagine the countless combinations of focal lengths and apertures. Field tests of wildlife are quite difficult because God knows why wild animals keep doing their own thing and leave whenever they want. After several target tests from my room window, I ended up going to the Prague Zoo for a day. It was very cloudy and it rained most of the day. I couldn’t have asked for better conditions for the test. The better the weather, the better the results, so it was also a stress test. Before this occasion, I knew the Panasonic zoom only from a handful of pictures and word of mouth from a few fellow photographers, who usually rated its longer end (400mm) as “ clear as mud“. As you know, my scale is a little finer and I wouldn’t rate the Panasonic lens as harshly. As a matter of fact, I think it’s a long way from the “mud” and would rate its performance somewhere between so-so and just peachy. I parked my gear for a few hours at the pelican enclosure, where there is also always plenty of standing and flying wild herons. Unfortunately, the enclosure is not built with photographers in mind, so the surrounding vegetation is usually too close to the birds, hindering any creative process of an interesting photo making. Fortunately, due to rain, the birds barely moved and stood like statues. This gave me plenty of time to switch lenses between shots and add converters to a fixed 200mm. I photographed exclusively on the lowest available aperture value because, in my opinion, the comparison of sharpness is the most important. You can’t see much at F/8. Even so, when shooting from my hand under this cloudy sky and rainy weather the values I reached of 1/60s were fairly critical. In some photos, you may also notice that despite all my efforts, I did not manage to create a completely identical image (animals are simply monsters). During my visit to the Zoo, I also strolled through other enclosures taking several hundred photos, and I think I have quite a good idea of how the lenses compare. As mentioned, the new Olympus 100-400mm is impressively compact and lightweight for such a long-reaching lens, making it a perfect option for active wildlife shooting while hiking, for example, or simply in other situations where you want to be mobile and flexible with your shooting options and not "tied-down" from lugging around a tripod. True-to-form, the Olympus 100-400mm is significantly more compact and lighter in weight than most other 100-400mm-style super-telephoto zoom lenses for some of the other larger-sensor camera systems. The Laowa 15mm f/4 macro is an extremely unique lens. At a working distance of 2.17″, this lens provides a maximum magnification of 1:1. This means you can capture some very nice, wide-angle macro photos with this lens.Zoom Precision– Olympus has a much smoother and more precise zoom performance. When twisting the zoom with two fingers on the Panasonic, the values skip over the entire range. The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 100-400mm F5.0-6.3 IS lens may have a lot of plastic parts to help keep the weight down, but the lens mount is, thankfully, made of metal. I’m a bit disappointed that Olympus didn’t give its lens Sync IS support when using a compatible OM-D bodies, as the performance could have been much better in my opinion, especially when recording video. Perhaps it is because it’s not a Pro lens and is less expensive, but stabilisation is the company’s most advanced feature, and in my opinion it should have been there.
The rotational direction of the zoom ring is the same as in Nikon lenses. The electromagnetic diaphragm control makes aperture adjustment impossible with some older Nikon DSLRs, however. More expensive than a Nikon Z6, Canon R5, Sigma 150-600mm lens and 10 weeks’ worth of groceries combined
We’re used to seeing robust kit from Pentax with impressive build quality, and this lens is no exception. It feels particularly solid and has a durable, weather-sealed construction. The flipside is that it’s physically larger and noticeably heavier than competing lenses, weighing in at 2kg. That’s nearly twice the weight of the Sigma and Tamron 100-400mm lenses, although they’re only available in Canon and Nikon mount options. Tripod Mount Plate Removal– Panasonic can unscrew the plate altogether, it can be swapped around with Panasonic 200mm (one plate is sufficient for both). Olympus allows you to remove the entire mount after disconnecting the lens from the camera body.
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