Shopping CartPanasonic 45-200mm f/4.0-5.6 Lumix G Vario MEGA OIS Zoom Micro Four Thirds Lens for Panasonic and Olympus Micro Four Thirds Cameras
Date : January 16th, 2012
Review : 3 Reviews
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Price : $ 349.95
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Tags : 45200mm, Cameras, f/4.05.6, Four, Lens, Lumix, MEGA, Micro, Olympus, Panasonic, Thirds, VARIO, Zoom
Panasonic 45-200mm f/4.0-5.6 Lumix G Vario MEGA OIS Zoom Micro Four Thirds Lens for Panasonic and Olympus Micro Four Thirds Cameras
- Micro Four Thirds lens mount system produces professional level images while greatly reducing the overall size compared to traditional DSLR lenses
- Built-in Optical Image Stabilization reduces blurry pictures due to hand movement that is especially useful at longer focal lengths
- Maximum f/stop opening of 4.0 (at 45mm wide) to a minimum of f22 with a filter size of only 52mm
- 16 elements in 13 groups utilizing 7 circular aperture diaphragm blades with a total weight of only 13.4 ounces
- Standard accessories include front and rear lens caps, lens hood and lens storage bag
Lumix G VARIO 45-200mm/4.0-5.6 zoom lens w/MEGA Optical Image Stabilization covers the 35mm equivalent from 90-400mm to help the user capture crisp, blur-free, shots when shooting sports events, wildlife and other distant subjects
Excellent lens with latest firmware,
I have five lenses for my G1, but this is my favorite. Overall, it’s quite sharp and produces images with an excellent feel to them, particularly for such a comparatively low price.
Initial test reports indicated noticeable softness at 160-200mm, but this appears to have been fixed. One possibility is that the latest firmware may have improved the autofocusing at long focal lengths. This has not been verified by Panasonic, but many owners of new or updated copies of the lens are routinely getting sharper images at 200mm than the early test reports would indicate, so it seems to be the best guess at the moment.
It’s important to have realistic expectations for long lenses. If you’ve never shot with a really long lens on an SLR, it’s easy to assume that such a cute little lens will be just as easy to hand hold as its 14-45mm brandmate. It isn’t.
At 200mm, it has the same long reach and very narrow angle of view as a 400mm lens on a full frame 35mm. I still have one of those from my film days, and it’s 13 inches long, heavy, and almost impossible to hand hold! This Panasonic lens at 200mm is subject to the same laws of physics and optics as those old 400mm bazookas, even though it is so much smaller and lighter.
The optical image stabilization is superb, so you CAN hand hold it in good light, but you need to be well-braced and use good technique, and there’s no point in even trying to hand hold it at 200mm at very low shutter speeds. (When I’m shooting at 200mm, I increase the ISO if necessary to make sure my shutter speed is at least 1/125, and I really prefer 1/250 or faster.)
If you’ve never shot a long tele before, consider using a tripod, turning OIS off, and touching up the autofocus results manually to nail the exact part of the image that you want to be the sharpest. Either that or try to get closer to your subject – sharp hand held shots at 100-150mm are much easier to get.
In summary, this lens is an exceptional value and the zoom range is great for a wide range of subjects, from portraits to wildlife. If you treat it with respect at the long end, you’ll get many great pictures with it.
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|About as good as it gets,
I have no idea why anyone would have this lens and not sing it’s praises. Perhaps, for some reason they did not get a good copy. I’ve now worked with 2 and both were stunningly fast to focus, sharp throughout their entire focal range and provided excellent color and contrast. The lens balances wonderfully well on a Olympus PL1 or other Pens for that matter. It is quicker to focus than other Olympus lenses (perhaps due to firmware interfaces). I love the solid build frankly, but most importantly I”m rewarded with amazing sharpness that easily rivals the Canon 100-400L and 80-400 Nikkor lenses at their long end. I’m coming from both Full Frame and cropped frame sensor DSLR’s and I’m telling you this lens is NO compromise in any way. If you don’t get superb sharp images from this lens across the board you are flat out doing something wrong or your gear is malfunctioning….that simple. For under $300 you’d be crazy NOT to own this lens with the Panasonic or Olympus 4/3rd cameras. It is just a delight to use PERIOD.
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|Reasonable, Budget Telephoto,
I bought this lens because it is the only telephoto lens currently available for the micro43 system. My first impressions follow:
Build Quality is what you’d expect from a kit lens. It is very “plastic-y” and doesn’t really inspire the user with confidence. Perhaps more disconcerting is the fact that you can “feel” the components inside the lens move around. I read on the dpreview forums that this is to be expected.
I was also less than impressed with the Optical Image Stabilization of this lens. Having used/owned various Canon IS lenses in the past, I was expecting 3-4 stops of additional hand-holding ability. However, I’ve found that I’ve had consistently poor results with the OIS beyond 2 stops. It is better than nothing (particularly since this lens is so cheap) but not great.
The IQ is quite decent. It has little to no distortion (and it is very good at the wide end) but this may have to do with the fact that Panasonic corrects distortion from their lenses inside the camera. Pictures at the telephoto end are a bit soft but I’m probably being unfair (I’ve been comparing in my mind to Canon’s fantastic 70-200 f/4 IS which costs 3 times more).
The one extremely bright spot for this lens is its relative size. For an equivalent focal length of 90-400, there isn’t another lens on the market that can compare to this lens’ size. It is no bigger than the standard zoom kit lenses that you get with other systems. Micro43 has a bright future if they can continue to make such small lenses while improving build quality.
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