Hi cliff,
Yes, I expect a lot for what is a lot of money - $600. If that's not a lot for you then please send me $600 - every week. :thumbs:
Hi all,
I'm being fairly clear about what I'm comparing this lens to. The FD 100-300mm f/5.6, the Tamron SP 60-300mm f/3.8, and other manual focus legacy lenses like it. I guess I'm a particular class of photographer. I evaluate lenses on the bases of IQ performance first and foremost. After that I look at price. And lastly I consider such features as AF, IS, EA, and etc. I don't care how consumers define the various segments of the market. I'm not a marketing agent so that's completely meaningless to me. It's also not very important to me whether people agree with my assessments or not. They are mine and stand for one man's time and effort in making such judgements. That I spend an excessive amount of time doing just this may or may not add weight to my analysis - that's for others to decide. Certainly, I can't be the only one here who wants top drawer performance at bargain prices. I'd find it strange if other here or anywhere didn't.
As for image samples of this particular lens I haven seen
any "great" ones that weren't scaled down and intelligently processed to hide this lens's severe shortcomings! I think the images posted in this thread are perfect examples. The photographer is good - certainly no slouch - but the lens just can perform and it shows. These samples as far as IQ goes are pretty terrible - yes, bad! The first three are very soft and detail-less even though they have both been scaled and sharpened extensively. The 5th and 6th are much better which to me shows that this lens may have a sweet spot around 120mm if it's also stopped down. If one looks at all of these images here and thinks to themselves that they are examples of good IQ then IMHO they either haven't seen the results of a good lens so have nothing to compare to, haven't learned how to analyze images slash what to look for, or are confusing themselves with emotional content - either from the photographer's skill in composing the capture or from the marketing/forum hype that frenzies the consumer fanatics. In any case these samples do not serve as samples acceptable to actually evaluate this lens. They are not 100% crops and at least a few of them have been sharpened to death - which introduces false detail & noise and destroys some of the existing micro-detail.
In all it is still the result of my evaluation that anyone would be better suited and better equipped via the purchase of a step filter adapter (if needed) and a
2.4x Canon tele-con (telephoto converter) to place on your existing 14-140 kit lenses. The IQ will be slightly better than this 100-300mm Lumix, the OIS will still function perfectly, the AF will still work correctly, and there is no measurable light loss. It will provide about 150mm to exactly 336mm of extension without vignetting and it only costs $60 - as opposed to $600. Hey, if $600 is nothing then there's
absolutely nothing to lose with this! :angel: It still may not be as good as the Tamron 60-300mm F/3.8 Macro I mentioned but it's guaranteed to provide better IQ than the Lumix 100-300mm. The tele-con can also be added to any other existing lenses of about 55mm or more...
.