ppage Loc: Pittsburg, (San Francisco area)

Greetings everyone, I have been away for awhile and have returned to ask about this lens. I bought it to pair with my panasonic MFT DC-G9. The reviews were positive so I took the plunge. I was distraught to find that the image quality was pretty bad. The images were soft and when cropped to a reasonable degree degraded even more. The eyes of birds were grainy and awful when I zoomed in 67 or 100% with lightroom. I have a nikon coolpix P900 that vastly out performs this setup and with a vastly smaller sensor (1/2.3) and that is with it zoomed out to a 2000 mm equivalent. I tried avoiding the 800 mm range. I tried a tripod, I tried shooting at speeds of 1/4000 and greater. The OIS is enabled. The lens itself has terrific features but takes crappy images. The zoom barrel is very stiff too.
I tested by buying a kit lens; 12-60 mm panasonic. The images on that one stand up nicely when pixel peeping in lightroom. I think it's the lens. Has anyone else had these problems with this lens or know of anyone else that has? I guess I will be contacting panasonic next. Thanks so much.

Pat

Delderby Loc: Derby UK

Unusual for Panasonic - especially their Leica lenses. I feel sure that Panny would want to help.

whitehall Loc: Canada

I have the leica 100-400 paired with an Olympus EM 5 d mkiii. I find that the images are find provided I make the necessary adjustment for the 200-800 FF equivalent

R.G. Loc: Scotland

I can imagine that would be even more important when you're using a small, lightweight camera and lens.

bajadreamer Loc: Baja California Sur

Yes. Same problems with the same combination to the point where we (was my wife's camera) sold the lens and camera and moved back to Canon. Very disappointing. Have friend that has same camera that switched to the 300 mm prime and was very happy with the switch.

davyboy Loc: Anoka Mn.

That lens gets great reviews

RichardRW Loc: West coast of Florida

Have the exact same outfit as you have. Use it in burst mode I on AF-C with great results. Not all 7 to 8 shots per burst are perfect of course but at least a third are good (I'm 88 so maybe a bit shakey!). My post processing includes LRc and Topaz. Don't know how to attach an example or I would.

one_eyed_pete Loc: Colonie NY

I also have the G9 and 100-400 leica. I fear you may have a defective lens. I have no issues with my images. There is a G9 fb group with loads of members regularly posting images captured with the 100-400 that are impressive, better than the 300.

moonhawk Loc: Land of Enchantment

I have one for sale if interested. Has a crack/split in the lens mount but works fine. $300 if interested. listed it a couple years ago here in the buy/sell forum, but withdrew it when I found the issue. Couldn't manage to get it repaired--long story. The listing is still there.

Lens is OK, not great. Both Olympus are much better IMO. My issue may have been putting the Panny on an Oly body, but that's not supposed to be a problem.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

When I had the G9 I used that lens and it was excellent. My problem was the Panasonic AF was just too slow. When I switched to Olympus I also switched to the Olympus 100-400, not because of any fault with the lens, but because with the Oly the OIS in the lens works in conjunction with the IBIS in the body. The Oly also works with the Oly TC’s. I can’t image that I’d use it with the 2X but it does well with the 1.4X.

Hanson

I have been using the same G9 combination and I am happy about the results.