EZ 45-150mm

I was wondering about the Olympus 45-150mm lens for the E-300.

Currently i have a compact digital with a 35-115mm lens (35mm equivalent. By buying the E-300 with the 40-150mm lens, which is 80-300mm equivalent in 35mm, will i be able to bring objects almost 3 times more than what i do with my current camera? I am an amateur photographer and i am considering upgrading to a dSLR so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Dimitris.

dimitris47 said:

I was wondering about the Olympus 45-150mm lens for the E-300.
Currently i have a compact digital with a 35-115mm lens (35mm
equivalent. By buying the E-300 with the 40-150mm lens, which is
80-300mm equivalent in 35mm, will i be able to bring objects almost
3 times more than what i do with my current camera? I am an amateur
photographer and i am considering upgrading to a dSLR so any help
would be greatly appreciated.

Dimitris.

Click to expand...

I currently have the 50-200 lens. It's awesome.

But images posted by 40-150 users are also excellent. The price is right. Go for it.

Jeff.

It is good to hear! But will it provide me 80-300mm zoom or it will be 40-150mm. The 35mm equivalent of the lens is 80-300 and currently i have a camera with 115mm (35mm equiv). So i keep wondering if i will be able to achive almost 3 times more zoom with that lens. That is something that Zuiko digital lenses have confused me with!

dimitris47 said:

I was wondering about the Olympus 45-150mm lens for the E-300.
Currently i have a compact digital with a 35-115mm lens (35mm
equivalent. By buying the E-300 with the 40-150mm lens, which is
80-300mm equivalent in 35mm, will i be able to bring objects almost
3 times more than what i do with my current camera? I am an amateur
photographer and i am considering upgrading to a dSLR so any help
would be greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

Yes, the 40-150mm lens has a field of view equivalent (on the long axis) to an 80-300mm lens on a 45mm camera. This would be about 2.6x more than the 115mm (equiv) of your compact camera.

Glad to hear you like the 50-200. However, it is much heavier than I want to carry around unfortunately.

I am glad to hear that. I really need that zoom for my hobby (aviation photography) and anything less is not enough. So i still was cautious about that lens and if it would really provide the 300mm it is said to! Btw, really good price for the camera and the 2 lenses!

Dimitris.

The smaller sensor "crop" will offer the field-of-view of the longer lens, but not the magnification... so you may not get the "magnified detail" that you'd come to expect from a 300mm on film. The crop is at the sensor... not a magnification by a longer lens. And with aviation photos, you might not be able to to get at a close enough range where the amount of detail you're expecting to see becomes apparent.

...but, this can turn into another discussion altogether.

Still, I think you should go for it ;•) A definite move up in quality can be expected.

good luck,
Shelby
musician, architecture student, Dad

That is what i was afraid, not enough magnification of the object! And that is why i started this thread. I am still considering the option of the 350D with a Sigma 100-300mm lens. The bad there is that i can only afford that lens and i am not sure about its results.

Dimitris.

You must test at an airshow, even if you borrow a 35mm film camera and put a 75-300mm lens on it. Only then can you decide if the magnification is enough.

Also, be aware that the 4:3 aspect ratio of the E-300 sensor does funny things to magnfication. Yes, the frame diagonal is almost exactly 1/2 that of 35mm film, so most people quote a 2x focal length conversion factor. In fact, the differing aspect ratios of 4/3 and 35mm (4:3 and 3:2) cause the conversion factor to be more controlled by ratio of the short sides of the two frames. In other words the 4/3 conversion factor is closer to 24/13.5 or 1.78 and not 2.0. That's good for wide angle shooters and bad for telephoto shooters. This alternative view of conversion factors means that the Zuiko 40-150 zoom will give you closer to the equivalent of a 70-270 zoom on a 35mm camera. Of course, you can crop to effectively increase magnification, but you lose pixels and, therefore, detail when you do that.

I tell you this because it seems very important to you to get the magnification you desire. The 50-200mm Zuiko seems more the logical choice for you, but is about 3x the price of the 40-150 and does not come bundled in a kit.

Putting a Sigma 100-300mm on a Canon or Nikon DSLR will give you equivalent reach of 480mm and 450mm respectively. Since their sensors are 3:2 aspect ratio already, there is no short-side consideration when calculating equivalent focal lengths.

Good luck.

--
Cheers,

Jim Pilcher
Colorado Rocky Mountains, USA

'I have not failed. I've merely discovered 10,000 approaches that do not work.' -- paraphrased from Thomas Edison

Thanks for the helpful information. I guess i should be going for a 350D or a D70. Magnification is really important for me.

Dimitris.

Shelby Lewis said:

The smaller sensor "crop" will offer the field-of-view of the
longer lens, but not the magnification... so you may not get the
"magnified detail" that you'd come to expect from a 300mm on film.
The crop is at the sensor... not a magnification by a longer lens.
And with aviation photos, you might not be able to to get at a
close enough range where the amount of detail you're expecting to
see becomes apparent.

Click to expand...

If you're speaking about what you see in the viewfinder, you are probably correct. But the problem (a small image in the VF) is common to nearly all DSLRs. Only Nikon's D2 bodies and Canon 1 bodies have significantly larger viewfinders. At equivalent field of view, a 350D or 20D won't give you a larger image in the VF than with an E-1 or E-300.

But another thing is sure : objets shot with a 150mm lens on a 4/3 body will have the same size relative to the whole frame in the final image (ie the print) than if they where photographed with a 300mm lens on a film camera. Now, if you want to talk about the amount of "details" in each print, it's another mater completely (film vs digital).

That said, I don't think a 300mm equivalent field of view (film, 4/3 or APS-C) is enough for what the OP wanted. If I were him, I would buy the 50-200 and the 1.4x TC. For this type of photography, that combo will be way superior to the 40-150 ... but its price too ;-)

--
Rémi

James Pilcher said:

In other words the 4/3 conversion factor is closer to 24/13.5 or 1.78 and not 2.0.

Click to expand...

Yea, I thought I noticed that at the 14mm end of my 14-54. Does seem wider than say 17 on my 1.6 crop Canon.

--
http://www.pbase.com/duncanmcklowd

Indeed! In fact, its price is almost as much i can offer for a camera and lens! lol

Dimitris.

RémiG said:

If you're speaking about what you see in the viewfinder, you are
probably correct.

Click to expand...

nope... there is a crop of the image circle at the sensor, viewfinder has little to do with it... and most people make up for the reduced FOV by moving back from the subject... but at the expense of fine detail due to a lack of optical magnification of the object.

With aerial photography, subject to camera distance is essentially fixed, and magnification by the optic becomes more important. Sure an...

RémiG said:

objets shot with a 150mm lens on a 4/3
body will have the same size relative to the whole frame in the
final image (ie the print) than if they where photographed with a
300mm lens on a film camera. Now, if you want to talk about the
amount of "details" in each print, it's another mater completely
(film vs digital).

Click to expand...

.... that's what I was getting at. The lack of magnification by the optic might make for less than stellar detail. Quite a pickle to be in at some times... this crop factor thing.

RémiG said:

That said, I don't think a 300mm equivalent field of view (film,
4/3 or APS-C) is enough for what the OP wanted. If I were him, I
would buy the 50-200 and the 1.4x TC. For this type of photography,
that combo will be way superior to the 40-150 ... but its price too
;-)

Click to expand...

I'd agree ; )

cheers,
Shelby
musician, architecture student, Dad

Duncan McKlowd said:

James Pilcher said:

In other words the 4/3 conversion factor is closer to 24/13.5 or 1.78 and not 2.0.

Click to expand...

Yea, I thought I noticed that at the 14mm end of my 14-54. Does
seem wider than say 17 on my 1.6 crop Canon.

Click to expand...

And if you put a DZ 50mm on your 4/3 camera, you will notice that a portrait made with it will seem to have a slightly smaller image than one made from the same camera position with a 35mm camera and a 100mm lens.

--
Cheers,

Jim Pilcher
Living on the High Plains of Colorado, USA

'It seems to me that photographing a camera is redundant.' -- Me

Shelby:

Your theory incorrectly attempts to impose the fixed information capacity of a specific type of film upon different sized imaging sensors with varying pixel counts, among other things.

They're apples and oranges. You can't simply ignore the fact that some of the new sensors are capable of detecting far more detail than the same size piece of film. You also can't simply ignore the different imaging characteristics of lenses designed for very different sized formats.

Tony

.. and agree totally... in theory.

But I'm speaking anecdotally though. There are indeed too many variable to be specific about this topic in any brief statement. But two things hold true... the crop at the sensor on cameras less than, say, 12mp does often impose specific limitations on the ability to reproduce fine detail... in relation to film.

Like yourself (i'd guess), I've seen this firsthand for the last two years with cameras at 6 and 8mp.

My comment was offered with the common sense that this question was posited in a forum where people don't have a camera of more than 8mp. And the original poster's request about the 40-150 would support this. I could get "technical" and discus my earlier point in light of a hassy with a 22mp aptus back...

... but that wouldn't be pertinant in the oly forum, wouldn't it.

I had the same discussion in the pro forum, taking your view (which is one that I hold to be VERY true) that became very heated... so I know where you are coming from.

Thanks for the spirit of the reply though ;•)

cheers,
Shelby
musician, architecture student, Dad

Shelby:

In addition to my earlier comments about film versus different sized imaging sensors with different pixel counts, compare large, medium, and small format lenses with the same FOV for their native format sizes.

For example, Hassy's 100 3.5 Planar was designed as an aerial mapping lens, and is known to be extremely sharp (NASA used it). But it can't deliver the same detail to the same sized section of film or digital sensor as Canon's 135 2.0 L or Olympus' 50 2.0. When you consider how tiny the sensor is on some digicams, the better lenses for those cameras are far out-performing the best Hassy lenses on, for example, a lines per milimeter basis.

You simply can't ignore the different characteristics of lenses designed for different formats, or ignore the different characteristics of various imaging sensors compared with each other and with film.

Image magnification is quite a bit less important with digital than it was with film. There has been a parallel debate going on over "full frame" versus "reduced format" imaging sensors. The full frame adherants are seeing themselve becoming increasingly isolated as advances in sensor technology, imaging engine design, and optical design, make sensor size and image magnification considerably less important than it was with film.

Tony

Hassy's 180 would be a better example I made above.

Tony

Shelby Lewis said:

Shelby Lewis said:

If you're speaking about what you see in the viewfinder, you are
probably correct.

Click to expand...

nope... there is a crop of the image circle at the sensor,

Click to expand...

Hmm, no. The image circle projected by 4/3 lenses is not cropped by the sensor. You describe what happens with 35mm lenses mounted on an APS-C DSLR.

And (at least Olympus) 4/3 lenses can resolve more details per projected square mm than comparable 35mm film lenses. Their MTF curves are similiar to comparable Canon or Nikon lenses but with two times more l/mm.

Shelby Lewis said:

viewfinder has little to do with it... and most people make up for
the reduced FOV by moving back from the subject... but at the
expense of fine detail due to a lack of optical magnification of
the object.

Click to expand...

You are too used to 35mm focal lengths. A given focal length doesn't equate to a given level of detail.

And when I use my E-1, I don't "move back from the subject". I know that a 50mm focal length is a short tele, just like a MF user know that a 150mm focal length is a short tele and an Leica Digilux 2 user know that its zoom at 22mm is a short tele.

IMHO the level of detail is a product of two factors : the sensor resolving power and the lens resolving power. Focal length has little to do with that (at the same FoV obviously).

Shelby Lewis said:

[ ... 40-150 probably not enough for aerial photography ... ]
I'd agree ; )

Click to expand...

At least we agree on one point

--
Rémi