Panasonic 45-200mm f/4.0-5.6 Lumix G Vario MEGA OIS Zoom Micro Four Thirds Lens for Panasonic and Olympus Micro Four Thirds Cameras

I am using this lens with the Panasonic Lumix G1, the camera for which the lens was made, and I am very pleased with it. The OIS system works very well and I am able to hand hold it at full zoom at 1/50". The photos are beautiful. I fully recommend it for use with the G1.

Merchandise arrived on time and is as represented. A decent lens for the enthusiest.
works smoothly and has satisfactory sharpness for the price.

This is my second lens for my Olympus EP1. My other lens is the f1.7/20mm. Played around with the 45-200mm last night for a bit. Have yet to take it out on a shooting spree. Initial thoughts: The telephoto movement from 45 to 200 seemed hard/rough. I felt like I had to use more force to move out to the 200mm setting than I should. Movement back from 200 to 45 was nice and easy. It seems like the action is getting a little easier as I use it. Wait and see is the strategy there.

Packaging was nice. Nothing taped or glued together. Just open and start shooting.

As far as the 200mm goes: maybe I just don't understand camera optics very well, but I have a Nikkor 180mm lens that I have put on my EP1 as well. They look to me to give about the same amount of telephoto magnification. The 200mm is 400 in 35mm equivalent. What does the Nikkor 180 do when you put it on a less than full frame sensor? Is it giving me 360mm?

Great Product.

I have been using this lens with Olympus E-P2 for about a month now, and have been mostly happy with the purchase. Given the price, the quality of the image is very good, and focusing is amazingly quiet (this is a concern if you are planning to shoot videos). The image stabilization works great even at the full focal length. My only problem is that the zoom mechanism is too loose so the lens tends to drift when you are aiming it up or down.

After fiddling around with my excellent Panasonic 20mm 1.7 lens and GF-1, I felt that I wanted a zoom lens, especially since I like to capture nature. There's not many zoom lenses that is supported for the micro four-thirds format, the price was good, and I heard good things about this lens, so I grabbed it.

Image quality: it handles pretty well from the 90mm-400mm range (adjusted for 35mm equivalent). With the right aperture setting, it has beautiful bokeh and the image quality is pretty good, though I can see this lens upstaged by more pricey lenses.

Auto-focus: This is one of the more disappointing areas of this lens. From the distance, it does okay on medium to larger sized objects, but as the object gets smaller the more this lens struggle to focus, and it gets worse if it is a moving object. Unfortunately, even if you are using manual focus, I found the focus-by-wire system used on Panasonic micro four third lens to be quite frustrating, as it is quite easy to slip in and out of focus at the slightest touch, and when you are zoomed in and trying to focus, you really don't get a feel of whether you are moving to the right focus range. I am not sure capturing fast moving objects at the distance from out of focus would work well.

Aperture: It starts from 4.0, and while it is not unreasonable for a zoom lens, it is a bit tough for me to shoot from ISO of 400 and up even on a bright sunny day. The noise at 400 is not so bad, and it is hard to expect a faster lens at the price range.

Stabilization: This is one area Panasonic loses to Olympus is that they chose the lens stabilization option, instead of the body stabilization option. With my GF-1, this lens is much bigger and heavier than my camera- easily twice the size and weight of the camera. There is a certain reason for most dSLRs to have that heft, and that is for image stabilization. Not sure how this lens would fare with heavier cameras like G2 and GH1, but for the GF-1, the camera/lens balance is definitely not good.

Build quality: It's okay. Doesn't exactly feel robust in your hands, but it doesn't feel like it's going to break once you drop it. Still, I'd be quite careful with this lens.

Overall: This is a great zoom lens for anyone starting out with the GF-1. The 400mm zoom can add some extra length, which makes it that more fun for outdoor photography. However, I feel that this lens in general is a cheaper one even compared to the 20mm lens. I would say this is about a kit lens quality. Still, a steal at this price point, but there will be some little disappointments.