Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150 mm F4-5.6 Lens, Telephoto Zoom, Suitable for All MFT Cameras (Olympus OM-D & PEN Models, Panasonic G Series), Black

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There is of course an interesting alternative for those who don’t need that extra 50mm reach and want a smaller lens that won’t unbalance the kit too much: the Lumix 35-100mm f/2.8. And this is another positive aspect about the new zoom: Olympus has released something different from everything else out there to bring the MFT system a step closer to completion.

40-150mm crop: Micro Four Thirds Which is better? 75-300mm or 40-150mm crop: Micro Four Thirds

As a telephoto zoom lens with a fast aperture of f2.8 for professional use, we have achieved a stable center of gravity and a total length that remains unchanged during zooming. It also offers strong splash & dust proof performance that permits photography even in the rain when used in combination with astonishing compact and lightweight E-M1, the flagship model of the OM-D series. With these outstanding mobility, this lens gives you the possibilities of photographing the way you like in any locations using the minimum amount of equipment.In the world of online photography forums, one of the negatives you will read about m4/3 systems is the inability to achieve a shallow depth of field. In portraits and especially at weddings, beautiful bokeh is looked fondly upon and part of some very salable looks for clients. It should not be the sole objective, but I digress.

Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150 mm F2.8 PRO Lens, Telephoto

Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software.So example on soccer match that is photographed in direct sunlight, a more important thing is magnification and fast shutter speed than the sharpness. The levels of sharpness it can deliver throughout the zoom range are excellent, especially in the centre of the image area. This coupled with the low levels of CA and distortion make it an excellent choice for anyone looking to expand the zoom range of their Micro Four Thirds camera into telephoto. One of the best things about Olympus latest cameras is surely the JPEG engine. I think the Truepic 7 Image Processing engine is doing a fantastic job at countering all the technical lens flaws. I almost do not see any Chromatic Aberration (CA), even if there was color fringing in high contrasty area, they were not too intrusive and are very efficiently controlled. There is no noticeable distortion (usually not a big issue with long lenses). Also, the overall look of the photograph resulting from this lens looked punchy and lively straight out of the camera. I did not do much post-processing to the images I am showing in this blog entry, they are all almost as good as straight out of camera. But if you’re photographing portraits or landscapes, speed hardly matters. Therefore, you might as well save some money and carry a lighter more compact lens. Finally, there is the MC-14 1.4x teleconverter, the first developed for MFT lenses. It is relatively flat (14.7mm) so using it won’t affect the size of your system. It features a very similar build quality to the lens with an all-metal finish. The front lens protrudes from the converter, a design that will limit its compatibility to the Olympus 40-150mm and upcoming 300mm f/4. It won’t work with other MFT telephoto lenses.

40-150 F - 97924466 | Grundfos - Grundfos Product Center MAGNA3 D 40-150 F - 97924466 | Grundfos - Grundfos Product Center

This kind of zoom lens can also be a nice addition to a filmmaker’s bag, especially for nature and animals. The versatility of the focal range combined with the close focussing capabilities and the MC-14 is really interesting for video as well. Unfortunately the lens isn’t optically stabilised so with a Panasonic camera like the GH4, a good video tripod with a nice and fluid head becomes very important to bring home nice sharp footage. If you want even more fair comparisons, look at the cigarette stump on the ground just right from the mans head. Even when it is just partially out of focus with 40-150mm, you can see how 75-300mm will clearly render far more details in the grass blades and the stump itself! Following an initial day of testing at the Cheltenham horse races with Ken McMahon, Gordon sourced a second sample of the lens and tested it for a month in a wide variety of portrait, landscape and action environments. He also retested the lens with the Olympus ODM EM1 updated to firmware 2.2 which claims to deliver superior AF precision with the 40-150mm. Read on to find out if this is the telephoto zoom Micro Four Thirds owners have been waiting for. Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 Pro design and build quality

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But if you tend to shoot moving subjects in good light or static subjects in any light – the larger F2.8 aperture counts for little. As a result, you might as well save some weight and money and go for the cheaper and smaller Olympus 40-150mm F4 Pro. The only thing to mention is that the 40-150mm makes your kit less discreet. From a distance, it doesn’t look much different from a D7100 with a 70-200mm f/4, especially from the perspective of a non-photographer. But you get less weight and more reach, so there is a benefit if we want to compare it to a medium-sized DSLR kit. I actually wrote a specific article about this topic recently which you can read here. The sharpness/resolution of the 40-150mm with or without the TC enables images to be cropped significantly with little discernible loss of IQ. Using the TC lessens the difference in focal length.

INCOME TAX (TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS) ACT 1997 - SECT 40.150 INCOME TAX (TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS) ACT 1997 - SECT 40.150

Levels of Chromatic aberrations are very low for a telephoto optic such as this. A their worst fringing approaches 0.75 pixels widths towards the edges at 40mm and maximum aperture. This is still a very low level, which should pose few issues, even in large prints or harsh crops from the edges of the frame. So it mainly comes to only a technical argumentary and choice making, that makes it personal justification to boost the ego "I have the better one" and "I made the good choice" than for actual use and results making. This is an incredibly sharp lens (even wide open) and one that edges out its closest competitor, the Panasonic Lumix G X Vario 35-100mm (70-200mm EFL) f/2.8 II POWER OIS Lens. Whether this is a sensible trade-off depends on your photography. If you shoot moving subjects in poor light, the twice-as-bright F2.8 will give you more light at faster shutter speeds, ideal for avoiding motion blur and noisy high ISOs. And because it passes more light, autofocus tends to work better.Olympus Micro Four Thirds compatible cameras automatically correct distortion in camera, so the following won't be noticeable if shooting JPEG images, or if the software supplied with the camera is used to convert the RAW images. For a lens with a zoom range over three times, distortion is very well controlled at both ends of the zoom range. Imatest detected 2.8% barrel at 40mm and 0.5% pincushion distortion at 150mm, which are both very mild levels. The distortion pattern is uniform across the frame, so correcting this in image editing software afterwards should be a straightforward affair. This first image above was taken with the 40-150mm f2.8 at its maximum telephoto focal length and with the aperture wide open at f2.8. The shooting mode was set to continuous low with the auto focus set to continuous. I selected the central AF point and tried to keep the rider in the red and blue silks in the center of the frame. This is the eighth frame of a ten-frame sequence, exactly half of which (the first frame and the final four) were sharp on the subject in the AF frame. Before I move on to talk about the optics and focusing, just to note that like several other lenses in the Olympus range the 40-150mm f2.8 Pro has a L-fn function button on the barrel that can be assigned to one of a number of functions from the custom menu on the camera. Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 Pro optics If you zoom in on the cap's strap, the shirt seams or the plastic clip on the dog's collar I can clearly see more detail on the 40-150mm f2.8. If any of this sounds important to you, the Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 Pro is one of my all-time favorite lenses and an easy recommendation. Read Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 Pro Review for more information.