Supertelephoto shootout: Nikkor VR 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6 vs Panasonic Lumix G 100-300 mm f/4-5.6 (2)

Test 2: 'landscape' mode - subject at 1km
Using telephoto lens for photograps of trains have two main reasons: one being the effect of perspective compression, allowing to squeeze sometimes long subject in the frame and also pronounce the curvature of the track, other - to be at all able to take a photo (from a location far and above), as track is usually guarded by trees/bushes obstructing the view. There are other usages of this setup, like airplane spotting.

At 'short' end M43 combo is clear winner: better lens contrast and bigger sensor resolution shows clearly.

Extending further, it holds the lead (even if focals were set wrong, producing higher magnification on Panasonic shots)

Reaching 500 mm (full frame equivalent) turns the table: now it is Nikkor winning hands down. Sudden transition feels a bit suspicious and could be attributed to:
- Panasonic reaching fully open aperture earlier (but at f/8 still loses)
- Panasonic struggling with focus

The latter seems more believable, as that focal was the closest that it could acquire focus at all! Fully extended (600 mm eq), with focus poits set on the signal gantry, that lens on E-M1 kept hunting forever. Whether it is an issue of the lens (quite likely, as on Panasonic bodies it would also be struggling above its 250 mm setting /native: 500mm equivalent/ ), or fact of pairing with Olympus body will remain unknown. As that was something I experienced in the past, I was not very surprised, maybe the fact that focusing target was static and looked pretty well defined was unexpected.
On other note, stopping Panasonic from f/5.6 to f/8 brings huge improvement in corner illumiantion.

Thus Nikkor remains alone for the full range shot:

In this case it also visibly benefits from closing aperture to f/8


Summary

Regardless the distance, the outcome is pretty much the same: Panasonic Lumix G 100-300 mm f/4-5.6 displays better sharpness and contrast up to about 400mm equivalent. Throughout the range it shows strong influence of aperture on vigneting. Longer focal ranges bias the scale towards Nikkor VR 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6, with extra reach of 810 mm equivalent being an outstanding feature.
Practice shows that Panasonic lens struggles to aquire focus when fully extended, but that does not apply to some subjects and may be influenced by a body attached.
Both lenses are of similar dimensions (when collapesd) and weight, but Panasonic is a bit (f/4 vs f/4.5) faster at short end. Panasonic did not equip the lens in tripod collar nor mount, Nikon on the other hand would have added VR switch - diving into V1 menus is killing pleasure of taking any photos. Tripod foot for this lens is also legendary hard to obtain, and lucky buyers are ripped for a piece of metal.

Extra reach of Nikkor against many little quirks of Panasonic (like incapability to focus in some cases and slow aperture mechanism, limiting top burst rate) led me to part with the latter.
The verdict of which of those lenses is the best can only be based depending on use scenario. In absolute terms I would call it a draw, with Panasonic gaining at shorter focal range and Nikkor at longer.
I put 70-300 on Nikon 1 V1 body, but with more modern models it has potential for resolving more detail, whereas M43 seems to be settled at 16Mpix.