Panasonic Leica DG Elmarit 200mm f/2.8 Power O.I.S Review

Panasonic Leica DG Elmarit 200mm f/2.8 Power O.I.S. Performance

Looking at the lens alone, centrally sharpness is excellent from f/2.8 to f/11. It is very good at f/16 until diffraction pulls down the performance at f/22, although even here it remains a good standard. The edges start of as very good at f/2.8, rise to excellent from f/4 to f/11 and back to very good at f/16. At f/22 sharpness is good, but diffraction does take the bite off it.

Adding the TC does mean some reduction in performance, as we might expect, but centrally it remains excellent from f/4 to f/8, is very good at f/11 and f/16 and good at f/22. Diffraction at f/32 makes for soft images and in fact the camera EXIF reports this as still being f/22. The edges suffer the most, being good at f/4 and f/5.6, very good at f/8 and f/11 and good at f/16. beyond this, images become soft at f/22 and f/32. This is actually all pretty good, as using wide apertures with subjects centrally placed results in very nice, crisp images.

CA (Chromatic Aberration) is extremely well corrected. Using the lens alone CA is kept under one half of a pixel centre and edge. Adding the TC gives a mild increase of CA, but it still hovers around the half a pixel value. This is unlikely to need any further correction in either case.

Distortion figures are also very impressive. With the lens alone we have +0.22% pincushion distortion. With the TC added we have -0.45% barrel distortion. Both these figures mean that the lens is very close to rectilinear and distortion is unlikely to be noticed. For very critical work it could be further corrected in software.

Flare is not a problem either, it being marked by its total absence.

Bokeh is of course the smoothness of the gradation of out of focus areas and all long lenses are already ahead of the game by virtue of the reduced depth of field. This lens excels in having ultra-smooth bokeh, making it ideal for quality images with diffused backgrounds.

The OIS system is a very welcome addition and it was with ease that a full 6 stops advantage could be enjoyed. That is amazing. However, it is worth remembering that this does nothing to address subject movement, so for much wildlife photography it may well be best to switch OIS off.

Value For Money

The Panasonic Leica DG Elmarit 200mm f/2.8 lens, including the Teleconverter DMW-TC14, is priced at £2699. This may well be a very large sum of money, but let's consider what a 35mm-format full frame user might have to choose to obtain a similar field of view.

Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM, £9,499
Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM, £7,999
Nikon AF-S 400mm f/2.8E FL ED VR, £10,499
Nikon AF-S 500mm f/4E FL ED VR, £8,999
HD Pentax-DA 560mm f/5.6 ED AW, £3,709
Sigma 500mm f/4 DG OS HSM Sports, £4,999

These figures speak for themselves.

For more options have a look at the Top 11 Best Panasonic Lenses, the Top 35 Best Micro Four Thirds Lenses, or the Top 10 Best Super Telephoto prime lenses.

Add your message