Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150 mm F2.8 PRO Lens, Telephoto Zoom, Suitable for All MFT Cameras (Olympus OM-D & PEN Models, Panasonic G Series), Black

Product Information

The teleconverter doubles the focal length of the master lens, which in the case of the 150-400mm results in an astonishing reach of 2000mm (working in tandem with the lens' integrated 1.25x teleconverter).

Distortion is well corrected in camera, but without corrections applied, Imatest still only detected 0.342% pincushion distortion at 40mm being replaced with only 0.327% pincushion distortion at 150mm. This extremely mild amount of distortion should pose few issues for day-to-day shooting.It's not just the focal length and aperture that are doubled; the MC-20 also doubles the maximum shooting magnification of the mounted lens, which opens the door for unparalleled super telephoto macro photography.

By contrast, if you ever expect that you will need 200mm, the PL50-200mm will probably give you better results. Not only is it dramatically more convenient to be able to shoot without swapping teleconverters, but the bare PL50-200mm is much sharper than the 40-150mm/f2.8 when it is used with the MC-14 (68 lp/mm vs 47 lp/mm).

Olympus 40-150mm First Look – Time to Recap

A little heavy for the m4/3 system but not too much so. Keep in mind it is equivalent to an 80-300 F2.8 full frame angle of view. 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 Place both of the telephoto zooms side-by-side and there’s significant physical differences to literally weigh-up. The Leica is noticeably more compact, shorter and lighter. I could squeeze it into my bag standing up whereas the Olympus always had to lay down and occupied much more space. That said, the Olympus enjoys the benefits of internal zooming (less chance of dust or moisture entering the barrel) and a tripod foot for greater stability (which also sports an Arca Swiss dovetail base). Both lenses may feature lens hoods that can fold over the end of the barrel for transportation, but the Leica hood must be reversed and re-mounted, whereas the Olympus hood simply pulls-out. There’s no doubt the Olympus feels more confident and has more physical features (including a programmable function button for Olympus bodies), but again it’s much larger.

The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm f2.8 Pro is a high-end telephoto zoom for the Micro Four Thirds system – as such it’ll work on any modern Panasonic or Olympus body. It was originally teased in September 2013 at the launch of the OMD EM1 and 12-40mm f2.8 Pro zoom, but took a whole year to finally come to market, officially being announced during Photokina in September 2014.A collapsible circular hood is supplied with this lens, which does an excellent job of shading the lens from extraneous light that may cause issues with loss of contrast or flare. Even without the hood in place, this lens is very resistant to flare and contrast levels are retained well when shooting into the light. For me though, I will be keeping the 40-150 + MC-20 combination even though it's more difficult to get sharp shots, requires more post processing, and is optically inferior. Why would I do this?

The lens barrel is constructed from a combination of metal and high quality plastics, with a glossy finish and the bayonet is metal with a rubber gasket to prevent the ingress of dust and moisture into the camera body. Despite the robust build and the telephoto range covered this lens only weighs 760g. As far as size and handling are concerned, this lens is a perfect match Micro Four Thirds cameras with a deep grip, such as the Panasonic Lumix G6, but it can feel a little unwieldy on smaller bodies, such as the Olympus OM-D E-M5 used for testing, when used without the optional grip. What I'd like to share with everyone is my experience with the new to me Olympus mZD 40-150mm f2.8 Pro + and MC-20 2x converter coming from owning and loving the Olympus ZD 50-200mm f2.8-3.5 ED (non-SWD) + EC-14. It's going to be a lengthy post / rolling review with a few images and may take a couple of days to add some things that I want to share. What I really want to highlight for others is what living with the 40-150 f2.8 is like with the MC-20 and what to expect. I welcome others with this lens + TC to add to my comments and let me know if that's what they have experienced as well. I'm no expert lens reviewer by any imagination and won't be posting shots of newspaper (though I've done that comparison and my real world shooting has confirmed it).Of course, the µ4/3rds image will be 1/4 the area, and if you blow it up to have the same print size as the full-frame image, it will have less DoF. But what you’ve done in that case is you’ve enlarged the pixels — depth-of-field is dependent on reproduction ratio! Which is where the “Fool Frame Fanatics” come up with their DoF goofiness. The 40-150mm f2.8 has a closest focus distance of 70cm. That’s constant regardless of the focal length so you can get close in at 150mm to produce very shallow depth of field shots. Keeping to their promises of a release date in the latter half of 2014, the first production samples of the M.ZUIKO Digital ED 40-150mm f/2.8 have finally started to hit UK shores, and with an opportunity to join Olympus to try out the lens at a sporting environment for which the lens is designed for, we charged the batteries on our OM-D E-M1 and headed down to Cheltenham races to find out if it’s the lens Micro Four Thirds users have long been waiting for. Olympus 40-150mm First Look – Time to Recap 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. Of course, we could argue equivalency. But for 95% of my photography, the debate is mainly conceptual. Yet, that’s not to say a bit of extra full-frame light sometimes doesn’t come in handy. But I am saying that a lens I’m willing to carry is always helpful.