Telephoto lens: 100-300mm or 45-200mm?

[Bill Edmunds]

My 35-100 lens is great for most things, but there are times when I need something more powerful. I'm looking at the 100-300 and 45-200 Lumix lenses. I'm most interested in image quality; they both provide enough telephoto power for me. Can anyone give an opinion?

[Darren Levine]

i cant comment on such lenses as i don't own them, but what will you be shooting? concerts? wildlife? at night? during day? handheld? etc....

generally, getting a little more reach than you think you need is a good idea. but then again, the difference between 250 and 300mm is not very significant.

[Bill Edmunds]

It will generally be used outdoors for weddings & other events where I can't get as close as I would like.

[Bruce Foreman]

Generally I would feel the 45-200 would be more flexible in the wedding/event setting. Autofocus performance does suffer at the telephoto end of most long zooms, I have the 45-200 and find autofocus does seem to work pretty well up to and some past 100-120mm, but once I go into that range I switch to manual focus with the magnified focus assist and find I can "nail" focus without any problems.

I tend to prefer to work with primes when I can and am waiting for UPS to deliver an Olympus 75mm f1.8, been "drooling" over that one ever since I saw Robin Wong's test and review of it in Kuala Lumpur. Olympus Malaysia used to offer to lend him new stuff coming out for him to test and review on his blog.

They finally hired him for their marketing team.

[Bill Edmunds]

How is the sharpness at the 200mm length? Does it become noticeably soft?