How do you like your Panasonic 45-200?

[mark_stephan2]

<p>I'm looking at this lens as a Christmas present from the wife and I'd like to know how you like it? I use a Panasonic G-1's and enjoy photographing backyard wildlife so the extra reach will come in handy.</p>

[phototransformations]

<p>This lens is a bargain, but as a bargain it also has shortcomings. I find it to be fairly soft from about 100mm on. I also use it with a G1. I can do some tweaking of the RAW files to bring back the appearance of sharpness, but it's nowhere near as sharp, at the long end, as my other Panasonic and Olympus lenses.<br>

I suspect the even cheaper Olympus 40-150 is sharper, but on a Panasonic body you won't get image stabilization so the 45-200 may still be the best medium telephoto out there for m4/3. The newer 45-175 lens, once they get the image stabilization sorted out, will probably surpass it, but apparently that's still an issue even after a firmware update.</p>

[Sanford]

<p>Excellent lens, good price, and best of all - 52mm so I can use my old Nikon filters. Sometimes I have a little problem holding focus on distant subjects at the 200mm but it is the equivalent of hand holding a 400mm lens. The 14-140mm zoom would keep me from having to change lenses so often but it is much more expensive and said to not be as good.</p>

[ilkka]

<p>It is a very good lens for the price, and fairly compact size. I would not want to put a bigger lens on a small m4/3 body. It just spoils the whole system. I find this 45-200 to be just about the biggest I would like, and fairly light. Optically good but not great, especially in longer focal lengths. Overall a great buy unless you are really serious about wildlife photography, and then you probably should not be using m4/3 anyway.</p>

[bob_meyer6]

<p>I would consider it pretty much equal to similarly priced tele zooms in other systems. Good, not great. A bit soft at the long end, but not dreadful by any means. It's certainly not the equal of, say, a Nikon or Canon 70-200 2.8 lens, but it's not at that price point, either.<br>

I'll take issue with Sanford on the 14-140. It's an excellent lens. Every bit as good as, and I think slightly better than, the Panasonic 14-45. In fact, I'd say the 14-140 is the best 10X zoom on any ILC.</p>