Olympus 40-150mm for travel?

[sanath444]

I will be going on a trip to Sri Lanka for a month and planning to take my Oly EPM2 and 14-42 with me. I was wondering whether to buy an Oly 40-150mm but I am not sure how I would make use of it because I have never used a telephoto. I will be taking mainly landscape. I am leaving Sigma 19mm, 30mm and my Cannon DSLR home. If anyone knows of a good deal on Oly 40-150, please let me know.

Another option is to leave everything and take the Canon and my Tamron 17-50 f2.8 (which is the best zoom I have) but it would be cumbersome than the Oly.

 

[shihhan]

sanath444 wrote:

I will be going on a trip to Sri Lanka for a month and planning to take my Oly EPM2 and 14-42 with me. I was wondering whether to buy an Oly 40-150mm but I am not sure how I would make use of it because I have never used a telephoto. I will be taking mainly landscape. I am leaving Sigma 19mm, 30mm and my Cannon DSLR home. If anyone knows of a good deal on Oly 40-150, please let me know.

Another option is to leave everything and take the Canon and my Tamron 17-50 f2.8 (which is the best zoom I have) but it would be cumbersome than the Oly.

Are you likely to go on safaris? or take pictures of birds/animals at a distance?

Canon + 17-50 f2.8 is nice combo... not too heavy for a pro zoom, and pretty much a general purpose system if you don't need the telephoto option.

EPM2 + 14-42 is a good compact combo... and even with the 40-150 + the two primes will weigh much less than your Canon setup! However, you'll be limited in the aperture department, so night photography with no tripod will be a pain.

That being said, if you carry along one of the primes, that should solve your slow glass problem!

 

[Acrill]

I would recommend getting the 40-150.

Telephoto lenses are great while traveling. You can use them to

- compress landscape scenes

- take pictures of small or far-away details

- portraits of locals

- wildlife

The 40-150 gets praise from many people and you sure can't beat the price.

 

[zenpmd]

But does it have enough reach? I have been trying to work out to get this or something up to 300....

 

[maggiemole]

zenpmd wrote:

But does it have enough reach? I have been trying to work out to get this or something up to 300....

Hove you got the extended tele converter option on your camera? That would give you 300mm, and the IQ is good. I have set the ETC on to C2 on my mode dial so I can get at it instantly.

Maggie

 

[zenpmd]

Presumably such a function is just a digital crop right? I use an OMD

 

[Guy Parsons]

zenpmd wrote:

Presumably such a function is just a digital crop right? I use an OMD

The 2x digital teleconverter on E-M5/E-PL5/E-PM2 at least (there are others) does a sensor crop so it takes the centre 4 MP then interpolates that up to 16 MP and surprisingly or not, the result is pretty good. Enough for screen display and for prints up to 8 x 10 inches.

Here's an E-PL5 pair with Pana 45-150mm, left at 150mm, right with 2x applied.....



The 2x view makes it easier to frame and check focus, then is best to use the full size RAW and extract more detail.

Regards...... Guy

[edit.... DPReview appears to be broken again, cannot upload images.... sigh!]

 

[Willem Wiersma]

Yes, you should take the 40-150 to Sri Lanka because it has a lot of wildlife (elephants, buffaloes, crocodiles etc etc). For birds you even need more telephoto The 40-150 is quite small, so it won't be a problem to carry it.

Have a nice stay there!

sanath444 wrote:

I will be going on a trip to Sri Lanka for a month and planning to take my Oly EPM2 and 14-42 with me. I was wondering whether to buy an Oly 40-150mm but I am not sure how I would make use of it because I have never used a telephoto. I will be taking mainly landscape. I am leaving Sigma 19mm, 30mm and my Cannon DSLR home. If anyone knows of a good deal on Oly 40-150, please let me know.

Another option is to leave everything and take the Canon and my Tamron 17-50 f2.8 (which is the best zoom I have) but it would be cumbersome than the Oly.

 

[zenpmd]

Jesus - does this mean that you can get an effective length with the 100-300 of 1200mm?!

 

[JCB123]

sanath444 wrote:

I will be going on a trip to Sri Lanka for a month and planning to take my Oly EPM2 and 14-42 with me. I was wondering whether to buy an Oly 40-150mm but I am not sure how I would make use of it because I have never used a telephoto. I will be taking mainly landscape. I am leaving Sigma 19mm, 30mm and my Cannon DSLR home. If anyone knows of a good deal on Oly 40-150, please let me know.

Another option is to leave everything and take the Canon and my Tamron 17-50 f2.8 (which is the best zoom I have) but it would be cumbersome than the Oly.

The m43 system has such small & light lenses that you can take a full set anywhere. Its no effort to carry 4 or 5 lenses around all day. Even if you want to travel ultra light you may as well have the extra lenses in the car or at least your hotel room.

As to whether you would find use for or enjoy the 40-150 I cannot tell. The E-PM2 with 14-42 + 40-150 does make for a very light go anywhere kit that covers a good range of focal lengths. In good light it may be all you need.

Regards

John

 

[JCB123]

zenpmd wrote:

But does it have enough reach? I have been trying to work out to get this or something up to 300....

The Pana 100-300 is a much larger lens. The Oly 75-300 only a little smaller I believe. Still fairly light but in comparison the 40-150 is feather weight. So its a compromise - size & weight vs reach.

If you are not walking any great distance from your car the 100-300 or 75-300 is no problem but if you are gearing up for some serious hiking then the 40-150 will give you some telephoto reach for very small weight penalty.

The Pana 45-200 is in between. It gives a decent amount of reach and is not too heavy although it does have IOS built in (very good IS btw).

Regards

John

 

[Hen3ry]

But get it before you go and use it a bit so you get the feel of it. It is very light and you can carry it in your pants pocket or in a small bag or pack.

Cheers, geoff

--
Geoffrey Heard
http://pngtimetraveller.blogspot.com/2011/10/return-to-karai-komana_31.html

 

[sigala1]

sanath444 wrote:

I will be going on a trip to Sri Lanka for a month and planning to take my Oly EPM2 and 14-42 with me. I was wondering whether to buy an Oly 40-150mm but I am not sure how I would make use of it because I have never used a telephoto. I will be taking mainly landscape. I am leaving Sigma 19mm, 30mm and my Cannon DSLR home. If anyone knows of a good deal on Oly 40-150, please let me know.

Another option is to leave everything and take the Canon and my Tamron 17-50 f2.8 (which is the best zoom I have) but it would be cumbersome than the Oly.

Any photo that you can't take with a 14-42 lens is a photo not worth taking.

Are you really going to deal with how long it takes to change lenses, just to get a mediocre telephoto picture with ugly compressed perspective?

If you need to buy something for your trip, I recommend the lens hood for your 14-42 II lens, which will help shade it from glare. Well worth $25 (even though it only costs Olympus a few cents to manufacture and they should have included it for free).

 

[Zensu11]

The 40 -150 is super light and takes great photos. On m4/3 it's equal to FF 80-300 and if you have one of the cameras with a built in 2x converter it's range is equal to FF 160-600! I love mine, and it's inexpensive. I got mine as part of a two lens kit with the Olympus E-PL5, you can't beat the 14-42 + 40-150 combo. These two light weight lenses give you an effective FF focal length of 28mm to 300mm plus the 2X converter in a pinch, you can't beat that!

 

[Brad09]

--Absolutely.
I have been using this lens since my EP2..3 years ago. Most recently in Alaska for Whale watching. It is light and does a nice job. On vacations you never know what you will encounter especially in Nature. I also bring my 9-18mm Oly lens for landscapes.
Have fun!

 

[sigala1]

Zensu11 wrote:

The 40 -150 is super light and takes great photos. On m4/3 it's equal to FF 80-300 and if you have one of the cameras with a built in 2x converter it's range is equal to FF 160-600! I love mine, and it's inexpensive. I got mine as part of a two lens kit with the Olympus E-PL5, you can't beat the 14-42 + 40-150 combo. These two light weight lenses give you an effective FF focal length of 28mm to 300mm plus the 2X converter in a pinch, you can't beat that!

The question by the OP wasn't about how the m.zuikio 40-150 telephoto zoom compares to other telephoto zooms, but whether he "needs" a telephoto zoom at all in order to visit Sri Lanka. I say he doesn't. If he hasn't found a use for such a lens living in his home country, I don't see why he will suddenly discover this "need" in Sri Lanka.

 

[Russ Houston]

sanath444 wrote:

I will be going on a trip to Sri Lanka for a month and planning to take my Oly EPM2 and 14-42 with me. I was wondering whether to buy an Oly 40-150mm but I am not sure how I would make use of it because I have never used a telephoto. I will be taking mainly landscape. I am leaving Sigma 19mm, 30mm and my Cannon DSLR home. If anyone knows of a good deal on Oly 40-150, please let me know.

Another option is to leave everything and take the Canon and my Tamron 17-50 f2.8 (which is the best zoom I have) but it would be cumbersome than the Oly.

I use telephoto all the time, so when you say you don't use it, that tells me you shoot completely differently from me. While I think the 40-150 is a great bargain and a good small, light telephoto, if you don't know what you'd shoot with it, then it probably doesn't make sense to buy it.

I always travel with a telephoto, and find lots of uses for it. Only you can decide whether or not you'll use it. If you think you'll use it, then the 40-150 is a great lens for the price.

 

[maggiemole]

zenpmd wrote:

Jesus - does this mean that you can get an effective length with the 100-300 of 1200mm?!

I'm hoping so! My big lens is at home and I'm not, so I can't check for a week or so, but wouldn't that be something?

Maggie

 

[sanath444]

I will be shooting landscapes. Although I have never use this length for landscapes, I have seen great landscape photos such as mountains taken with tele.I guess I have to re-think about how to take landscape photos using both the wide and tele. Any tips will be appreciated.

 

[Guy Parsons]

sigala1 wrote:

The question by the OP wasn't about how the m.zuikio 40-150 telephoto zoom compares to other telephoto zooms, but whether he "needs" a telephoto zoom at all in order to visit Sri Lanka. I say he doesn't. If he hasn't found a use for such a lens living in his home country, I don't see why he will suddenly discover this "need" in Sri Lanka.

For travel you do need the ability of the tele lens.

Most times it's up close and personal in Asian countries, but often there's some typical local scene, such as a fisherman casting nets, that can't be reached at all by "zooming with your feet", so the 40-150mm style of lens makes that now an available scene, otherwise it would be just a dot in the image with a 14-42 lens.

The totally ideal lens to travel with is the 14-150mm or superzoom equivalent in any camera, that makes capturing those small swiftly changing scenes in Asia so much easier to capture. First trip to Japan in 2009 I used a Panasonic LX3 with its 24-60mm equivalent range, got many great shots but then quite often I had to call on my wife to capture some detail and her 24-300mm equivalent pocket camera saved the day.

On the second 2011 Japan trip I was more sensible and took E-PL1 and 14-150mm and 9-18mm and despite thinking that I would be using the 9-18mm most, it was the 14-150mm that got 90% or more of the shots, and the ease of transition from wide to tele made life so easy to capture what took my interest.

Next Japan trip (I wanna go back! - Hey, maybe Autumn this year?) it will be two E-PL5 bodies, one with the usual 14-45mm lens plus change to 9-18mm occasionally, and the other body with 45-150mm "glued" to it. Both in an easy to reach bag and each camera with hood on and lens cap off so are ready to use quickly. Way better than lens swapping and also then have a backup body if one goes bananas.

Using just the base kit lens focal lengths of 14-42 or somesuch is so darn limiting and frustrating, you do miss so many great photo opportunities.

Regards...... Guy