Panasonic 45-150 and Olympus EM-5

Nivedita wrote:

I just ordered a Panasonic 45-150mm from B&H. After my rewards points, I paid $126.00. I think for that price, it is good. Though I heard that Olympus 40-150 is better, I chose Panasonic for because of build quality.

The Panasonic lens appears to test as a better lens than the Olympus 40-250mm especially is better at 150mm. Go to http://www.photozone.de/m43 and compare the two lenses resolution results, both tested at 16MP so should be a good comparison. Nice lens, I like it a lot.

One question - Does EM-5 automatically turn-off the OIS in the lens (or does not turn it on) because there is not OIS switch in this lens?

-Nivedita

With E-M5 and all the earlier Pens the unswitched OIS is disabled so never works, no fear of interaction.

With E-PL5/E-PL6/E-PM2/E-M1 the unswitched OIS can be used (gives a nice stabilised preview on my E-PL5 without needing to half press) and the camera logic prevents the IBIS and OIS interacting, no matter what you do only one (or none) will work at the same time.

Regards...... Guy

Nivedita wrote:

bgalb wrote:

The OIS does not activate on the E-M5. The E-M5 IBIS is arguably better anyway. (On this forum, definitely arguably .

Hopefully that is the case

I have used both lens based and sensor based image stabilizations in the past (Canon and Pentax). Based on my limited testing, for longer ranges I found the lens based stabilizations performs better. EM-5 is my first Olympus camera and now I am learning the 'different' menu system.

-Nivedita

In my experience (with EM5 and 100-300), the IBIS in the EM5 is even better than the in lens IS. I assume this is because the IBIS corrects for types of motion that the lens IS can't (like rotational). The IBIS in the EM5 is noticeably better than the IBIS in my Sony Alpha DSLRs too.

You can set the EM5 up so that it stabilizes on half press, which isn't as nice as always on lens IS, but better than nothing.

Michael Geary wrote:

Guy Parsons wrote:

With E-PL5/E-PL6/E-PM2/E-M1 the unswitched OIS can be used (gives a nice stabilised preview on my E-PL5 without needing to half press) and the camera logic prevents the IBIS and OIS interacting, no matter what you do only one (or none) will work at the same time.

The E-P5 works this way too (no surprise here, just mentioning it for anyone wondering since you didn't list it).

Ooops, I knew that but somehow missed typing it, sorry.

So the "modern" group in regard to firmware are indeed E-PL5/E-PM2/E-P5/E-PL6/E-M1.

The "early" group are the E-P1/E-P2/E-P3/E-PL1/E-PL2/E-PL3/E-PM1/E-M5 and they don't have unswitched OIS ability. The E-M5 being the odd one out in the "early" group with the more modern sensor and the better IBIS.

Regards...... Guy