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Panasonic 14-140 vs 14-45, 45-200 IQ

mark1958

Member
I have been trying to decide whether or not to go with the 14-140mm or 14-45 vs 45-200mm. Ok there are lots of issues discussed. Today i did some image comparisons f7 over the shared focal lengths-- 45-200 and 14-140mm--just to get an idea of which was better. With colors, contrast and distortion not enough difference to make any difference to me.

Center sharpness very close. The edge and corner sharpness go to the 45-200mm. This is the only major difference i have seen. Not sure what others have found
 

PeterB666

Member
I don't have the 14-140 so I cannot really comment on that lens. I do have the 45-200 and use that with the Olympus 14-42 and Panasonic 20mm lenses.

I am not surprised that you cannot tell the differences in image quality between the 14-140 and the 45-200. Such differences would be most minor. I am not surprised that the 45-200 has better corner sharpness compared to a 10x zoom. Such long zooms are very much about finding the right balance in compromise and something has to give.

I do find that the 45-200 is a bit of a pain and not wide enough quite often which leads to the inconvenience of having to change lenses. In most situations that isn't a big problem but if you are out in the field in rotten conditions (wind, rain etc), or don't have much time to change over, the 14-140 would be the way to go.

The other things that I don't particularly care for in the 45-200 is the close focus distance. I find it just a bit too long, 0.6m or so would be much better.

I also find it misses focus from time to time and is particularly difficult to manual focus. The missing focus is probably due to the Olympus E-P1 which has far too large an AF focus spot. The difficulty in MF comes down to the long focal lenght and slow aperture. On the other hand, the 14-140 is even slower at the same focal lenghts.

I am waiting for Olympus to release their 14-150 and see what the price and performance of that is like. I would expect it to be marginally cheaper than the Pansonic but not necessarily a better lens. The differences would be most minor. I may well go for either the 14-140 or 14-150 as a single lens holiday kit and when combined with the 20mm will do just abuot everything I want.

I don't know. It's a hard choice. I would have thought the 45-200 would have been the longest zoom I would ever need having only ever briefly had a 200 lens on a full-frame camera. I find myself now using an old Olympus OM 200mm lens with a 2x teleconverter and still wanting more.

If I were starting from scratch today and had the same knowledge, I would go for the 14-140, 20mm and be looking at adding a longer and shorter zoom later (e.g. 9-18 and 100-300 or thereabouts).
 

mark1958

Member
I was going to comment on the focusing distance of the 45-200 not being optimal as well. I totally agree with you there. I am not even going to try the MF lenses on this system. If i am needing to do that then i need my canon or hasselblad.
 
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