Olympus 14-150II: a great travel lens

Robert Deutsch wrote:

You may be right. But bhphoto also lists the 14-150 specs as 13 elements 10 groups and the 14-150 II as 15 elements 11 groups. Who are we to believe?

The Olympus press release mentions the changes (cosmetics, dustproof, splashproof, and ZERO coating) and that is all they say.  Very hard to believe that if they had completely new optics they wouldn't have even mentioned it since that would be the biggest, most important change.  B&H probably just copied the incorrect info on the Olympus website that was most likely just a copy and paste error using the wrong lens info.  As time goes on if I find that the new one is better then I will get one.  Your happiness with the lens is encouraging.  It would be cool if some testers or posters here who have both did some comparisons between the old and new though.

But it's a good point about the importance of the lens coating. Also, incorporating weatherproofing may lead to changes in construction that can produce an imrovement in performance even if the lens elements were the same. All I can say is that the 14-150 II performs better than I expected, on par or better than two well-regarded consumer-Level narrower-range zoons.

Yes, my 14-150mm (original) performs better than I expected also. I have used it extensively on my E-M5 and E-M10 since May 2012.  I have used it a lot in Nepal, Turkey, Japan, Bali, Thailand, Taiwan, Hawaii, Texas, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado.

Henry Richardson
http://www.bakubo.com