Panasonic OIS compatibility on Olympus bodies?

Motorazr wrote:

I just received a new Panasonic 35-100mm f/4-5.6 and I’m surprised at the lack of OIS compatibility on some Olympus camera bodies. It’s not a shock that OIS doesn’t work on any of the older 12mp Olympus bodies. What surprises me though is that Panasonic’s campatibility chart shows a whole group of lenses which won’t stabilize on the E-M5 mkI and E-M10 mkIII. Oddly, to me at least, that same group of lenses DO stabilize on the E-M10 mkI and mkII.

I searched online without being able to find an explanation for this behavior. Why would some Panasonic lenses work on the E-M10 mkI and mkII but NOT on the newest mkIII? And why not on 12mp bodies like the E-PM1 but fully working on the 16mp E-PM2?

Surely someone on this forum knows why this limitation exists.

I assume you mean the list on this site:

http://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/global/cs/dsc/connect/FourThirds_lens.html

I believe that the Panasonic lenses listed as "NG" for OIS on certain Olympus bodies are the ones with no OIS switch. If there's an OIS switch, you can turn it on and off on any body with no menu diving.

If it has no OIS switch, it has to be supported in the camera menu. So, support for lenses with no physical switch is entirely contingent on the manufacturer being able to and wanting to support it. With Olympus' older bodies, they didn't have it in the menu. With the newer bodies, they added it. Very simple.

Do you own the E-M10 III and are you sure it doesn't have a menu option for OIS lenses? That would be unusual IMO and a step back. If it's not there, perhaps Olympus think that IBIS is always better than the lens option for those lenses that don't have the switch. That would be wrong IMO, especially for the 45-175, but, if it's not there, perhaps that's what they think. With the 45-175 above 100mm, I think OIS would be better . With the rest, it's questionable. But OIS has advantages regardless of how good IBIS is, like the fact that it's always on and always stabilized EVF.