Digital Camera World Verdict
Outstanding image stabilization and excellent image quality should put this on the wishlist of wildlife and sports enthusiasts. It’s not small – but the lens is impressively compact and lightweight for its focal range; it’s not too much of a chore to fit into a camera bag. The only letdown is the new smooth-tight ring, which, as far as I could tell, had very little effect on the zoom speed.
Pros
- +
Image stabilization is outstanding
- +
Great image quality throughout the zoom range
- +
Light and compact for the focal range
Cons
- -
Smooth-tight ring doesn’t make much of a difference
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Superzoom lenses often get a bad rep in professional circles. Compared to primes, they’re routinely accused of being compromised with slower apertures, softer corners, bulkier build –but the appeal of a single lens capable of covering everything from mid-tele to full reach is hard to ignore, especially for wildlife, travel or sports shooters.
The Panasonic Lumix S 100-500 mm f/5-7.1 O.I.S. arrives not to replace primes, but to challenge if a superzoom really perform well enough to make you rethink carrying multiple lenses?
In a market where rivals such as Sigma’s 100-400mm and 150-600mm zooms already offer solid performance, this new Lumix promises a more portable, lighter alternative in the L-mount ecosystem. With improved optical image stabilisation, new Lumix lens features like a tight-smooth ring, and a notable focal range, can this lens convince you to leave your primes at home?
Lumix S 100-500mm f/5-7.1: Specifications
Mount | L-mount |
Lens construction | 19 elements in 12 groups |
Optical Image Stabilization | 7 stops |
Diaphragm blades | 11 |
Minimum Aperture | f/22 |
Minimum focus distance | 0.8m (100mm), 1.5m (500mm) |
Maximum magnification | 0.16x (100mm), 0.36x (500mm) |
Filter size | 77mm |
Dimensions | 196.1 mm (L) x 92 mm (D) / 7.72 in (L) x 3.62 in (D) |
Weight | 1,285 g / 2.83 lbs |
Lumix S 100-500mm f/5-7.1: Price
At $2,099 / £1,799, the Lumix S 100-500mm is very reasonable compared to similar focal length/aperture combinations from other camera brands, and still well within enthusiast territory. However, Sigma does offer two excellent competitors in L-mount for significantly less money. The Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS costs just $1,049 / £899, while the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS is $1,649 / £1,249.
I’ll go deeper into this in the next section, but the new Lumix S lens beats both these Sigma options if you value weight and size above price, with the Lumix being significantly smaller and lighter than even the Sigma 100-400. If you want the lightest kit possible, then you’ll likely find the extra cost of the Lumix is worth every penny.
Lumix S 100-500mm f/5-7.1: Design & Handling
I hesitate to call the 100-500mm lens small, as it's still a hefty bit of kit at 1,285g (2.83lbs) and 196.1mm (7.72in) long – but compared to rivals, it's a significant difference. Sticking with L-mount cameras, the closest two competitors are the Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS, which, despite being 100mm shorter in maximum focal length, weighs an almost comparable 1,135g (2.5lbs) and measures 197.2mm (7.76in) in length. Meanwhile, the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS weighs a whopping 2,100g (4.63lbs) and is 279.2mm (10.99in) long. Although both these lenses have a stop wider aperture at the top end.
Glancing beyond the L-mount for just a second, the closest any other brand comes is Canon’s RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM lens, which is marginally heavier and longer (1365g / 207.6mm), although it does have a slightly wider aperture at 100mm.
The Lumix 100-500mm is an impressive feat from Panasonic’s engineers – and will be a very welcome one to those sick of lugging around wildlife or sports kit.
The fit and finish on the lens itself feels very premium. It’s weather sealed at various potential ingress points, so it can survive a trip out in the rain, some sea spray, or dusty conditions. It can also be used down to -10ºC (14ºF), should you want to take it on your next arctic expedition. The lens also comes with a hood and solid metal tripod foot compatible with Arca-Swiss plates, and allows the camera to be quickly rotated between landscape and portrait shooting.
Around the barrel, switches include a full-time manual focus switch, a focus limiter switch, and a switch to swap between the two optical image stabilisation modes on the lens, with mode one being standard stabilisation and mode two for panning. There is also a custom switch a third of the way down the barrel. By default, this is set to control the camera's hybrid zoom function, but this switch is customizable to a number of quick settings selectable in the camera’s menu.
The lens also has a zoom limit function, which, when turned on, stops the lens from creeping below 150mm, and can help with speeding up zooming through the entire range and consistent framing. It's an incredibly useful feature, especially for birders, but I’d love to see this improved by being able to manually change the locked focal length, as at times I’d have liked to have locked it higher than the 150mm base.
New for an S Series lens is a Tight-Smooth ring, which should set the dampening of the zoom ring to either Tight, for precise control of micro-adjustments, or Smooth for quickly zooming through the range, perfect for erratically moving subjects. However, I couldn’t really feel the difference between the two modes. The lens just always felt a bit tight to me, and I would have loved the smooth setting to actually let me quickly fly through the focal range.
I also prefer Sony’s Tight-Smooth implementation, with it being a one-or-the-other switch rather than the Tight-Smooth ring, which did get easily knocked out of its set position while I was using the camera, and with very little difference between smooth and tight, having a graduated scale between them is fairly meaningless.
Lumix S 100-500mm f/5-7.1: Performance
The optical quality of the lens is excellent, for any lens this would be a great performance, let alone for its impressively compact size, weight, and the zoom range it manages to cover. Centre sharpness is excellent from 100mm all the way up to 500mm. Wide open, some softness creeps into the corners as you go up through the zoom range, but it's not hugely noticable unless you're looking for it.
The background blur wide open is really pleasing. With this lens compression, especially the further you zoom in, the background fall off from your subject just melts away.
The lens (combined with the in-camera corrections) also does a great job of controlling color fringing, distortion and vignetting – with none being visible in my real-world testing.
Panasonic’s image stabilisation has long been one of the best in the business, but somehow it continues to improve while becoming even more compact.
The new optical image stabilisation unit in the lens is phenomenal. The sample video in the section below was shot entirely handheld using a combination of the lens’s optical stabilization and Panasonic's excellent standard electronic stabilization.
At 500mm, shots were rock steady, and I could even pan smoothly, the lens doing an excellent job of compensating for the direction of movement. This stability also makes such a difference just in the EVF for framing a shot or tracking a subject.
Autofocus is very quick and silent, pulling from near to far incredibly quickly. Panasonic’s autofocus still isn't quite up to Canon and Sony’s when tracking subjects, but it's still did a decent job of picking out animals bodies and eyes, although was a little bit skittish in tracking movement.
Lumix S 100-500mm f/5-7.1: Sample Gallery
Lumix S 100-500mm f/5-7.1: Video Performance
Lumix S 100-500mm f/5-7.1: Lab results
We run a range of lab tests under controlled conditions, using the Imatest Master testing suite. Photos of test charts are taken across the range of apertures and zooms (where available), then analyzed for sharpness, distortion and chromatic aberrations.
We use Imatest SFR (spatial frequency response) charts and analysis software to plot lens resolution at the center of the image frame, corners and mid-point distances, across the range of aperture settings and, with zoom lenses, at four different focal lengths. The tests also measure distortion and color fringing (chromatic aberration).
Sharpness:
Center sharpness is excellent at 100mm, even wide open at f/5, and though slightly less impressive at longer focal lengths, it's still very good. Corner sharpness is more mediocre, but at least its quite consistent, regardless of focal length or aperture.
Fringing:
Even without automatic in-camera correction enabled, color fringing is impressively low at all focal lengths.
Distortion:
There's consistent pincushion distortion at all focal lengths, but it's minimal.
Lumix S 100-500mm f/5-7.1: Verdict
The Panasonic Lumix S 100-500mm f/5-7.1 O.I.S. proves that a superzoom doesn’t have to mean big compromises. Its headline feature is outstanding image stabilization, delivering up to seven stops of compensation that makes handheld shooting at extreme focal lengths genuinely viable. Image quality holds up impressively too, remaining sharp and consistent right through the zoom range.
What’s most surprising is how portable it feels. At this reach, Panasonic has kept things impressively light and compact, making it practical for throwing in a bag for travel, wildlife safaris, or sports. But it’s not flawless – the new smooth-tight zoom ring offers little noticeable difference in operation.
Still, for L-mount users looking for reach without investing in multiple primes or lugging a 150-600mm monster, this lens neatly fills the gap.
Features ★★★★★ | Huge 100–500mm range, 7 stop O.I.S., smooth-tight ring, custom button and weather-sealing make this a very rounded package. |
Design ★★★★☆ | Premium feeling, and more compact and lighter than L-mount rivals, though the smooth-tight zoom ring doesn't deliver. |
Performance ★★★★☆ | Sharp images throughout the range, excellent stabilisation and reliable autofocus for stills and video. |
Value ★★★★☆ | Pricier, but a much lighter and more compact alternative to heavier 150–600mm zooms. |
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