Olympus 40-150 f2.8 PRO

It seems as though everyone that owns this lens has reviewed it, and I appreciate that as those reviews helped me decide on an expensive lens, so I won't go over the obvious stuff except to say that I certainly agree that it is optically excellent throughout it's zoom and aperture range-- and build quality is superb.

I agonized over whether to purchase this lens because of its size and weight and knocked off 1/2 star for those specs. In the end I bought it and am largely pleased-- very pleased actually. But if I use both lens hood and tripod collar I've had to go to a bigger bag-- the Tamrac bag I used to carry my FF Canon 6D gear in-- geez. I compared the new Oly to some of the bigger lenses I've owned in the past and it's notably smaller and lighter than the Canon 100-400 L, Olympus OM 300 f4.5, Canon 70-300 L, Tokina 100-300 f4 in OM mount, and some I've forgotten about. I'll get used to it for its virtues.

A primary buying point for me was the 40-150 f2.8s close focusing ability. At 28" it will focus to very near 1/2 life size in 35mm terms-- I tested it. I've posted a number of mushroom pics recently shot with this lens and it provides a really nice improvement in reach over my 60mm macro and is nearly as sharp, which is high praise for the zoom as my 60mm macro is one of the sharpest lenses I've ever used.

So, any sour notes? Well yeah, but they're mostly niggles that I can work around. I admire the way the lens hood was engineered, but that also makes it fairly large and heavy as lens hoods go. I'd rather have a thinner lighter reversible one. And the tripod collar could have been made smaller lighter too-- especially shorter. It's my guess that this lens is aimed primarily at sports/action shooters where lens, hood, and collar will be just fine on a mono-pod. When shooting mushrooms in the rain that long deep hood kept rain and tree drip off the lens front element. But mostly I'll probably carry it w/o hood, but leave the tripod collar on.

Bitching aside, this lens is not as big or ungainly as I had imagined-- at just over 6" and well under 2 lbs., it's pretty manageable. I started a thread about using it on a tripod but without the tripod collar and got toasted by a couple guys-- found out later that neither owned an OMD of any kind nor the 40-150 f2.8. So much for integrity. After that I looked really closely at my EM1 mount, and quite frankly I would note hesitate to use it w/o the collar-- the lens is simply not that long or heavy and the EM1 has a robust lens mount. My EM10s though are more lightly built and I don't think I'd use it sans collar w/ them.

Re tripods: My Arca-Swiss Mono-Ball is rated to support 130 lbs-- heh heh heh, and medium size Linhofs 42 lbs. I also have large tripod legs by Gitzo, Manfrotto, and Slik-- all very large and capable. But I think what I'll mainly use is a Giottos PRO lightweight head on medium legs. This is after-all for micro 4/3. No? I'll post some pics when I get to my editing computer.

Happy Shooting.

John

Some shots w/ 40-150 f2.8.  The seagull shot are OOC and the boat pics lightly tweaked and sharpened in PSP X7.

Oyster Barge coming in with a load of oysters

Off-loading the oyster barge

At 150mm and 2X TC-- sorry about cutting legs off, but this is 12 X equivalent-- not bokeh

As above but w/o 2X TC-- note "nervous" bokeh.  For both I was resting on a concrete pillar and high SS

A big tugboat moving a small dredging barge and crane up the bay.

I definitely think it is hand hold-able as long as SS is kept up-- and always considering the focal length being used.  I expect that's how I'll mostly use it.  I also have EM10s and expect to use it a lot w/ them as well as EM1.

It's the biggest m43 lens so far so folks are leery of the size and weight-- and that includes me.  I got into m43 for a small light kit.  That said, this lens is very capable-- very versatile and has already earned bag space to me.

John

Lightly tweaked in PSP X7.

Focus on near edge of bench.

I think the hood will stay on mine and the tripod collar will come off ,don't know the exact weights but I would imagine the collar being heavier ,the chances of lens flare would increase without it and the lens is a bit prone to this ,would imagine a outdoor event on sunny day could be an issue .

I am going to enjoy this lens at airshows and dogshows this year the extra length over my 35-100mm will be invaluable ,especially if paired with a t/c ,it will replace using multiple lenses .

mine will be either carried using a sling system or in my shoulder tarmac apache bag .

Cheezr wrote:

Very nice, when you say high SS you are not kidding! I am also interested in this lens for the close focus, do you think it is hand holdable with the tripod collar removed on an e-m10?

Of course I would hold the setup by the lens and not the body.

TIA

CZR

I  have  used mine on my gh4 with out ibis hand held at fast s/s results are fine ,

Which 2x TC would that be? The digital "tele converter"? I always thought that the DTC operated with a simple cropping of the shot. How does this helps to get a blurrier background? Interesting anyways.

JohnLock wrote:

At 150mm and 2X TC-- sorry about cutting legs off, but this is 12 X equivalent-- not bokeh

Canon 100-400 L gives 640mm with canon aps-c. No wonder 40-150 is smaller, it gives 300mm with even smaller sensor.

Really !

I'm also considering 40-150 f2.8 lens. When I compare your photos with mine which was taken with my previous gear SONY A6000 with E PZ 18-105mm F4, I'm a kind of missing my old gear. The photo I attached here is without any touching and straight from the camera JPEG. I may be a dummy but I don't really see the huge difference in IQ between those 2 lenses, but price is more than double.

David;  The 2X TC used is the digital one built into OMD bodies-- it's just a 2X crop of the jpeg, but then Olympus up sizes it to approximate an OOC jpeg-- so no change in aperture at all.  In full EXIF the TC shows up as 2X, but it does not show up in DPRs abbreviated format.  Both those gull pic were taken from the same spot a few seconds apart.  I have the 2X TC mapped to my EM1s movie button.

John

Yes, it is the digital TC built into the OMDs.  And the crop is from the center of the lens-- really quite good IQ IMO.  Then the Oly jpeg program up-rezzes the crop to near normal jpeg size.

John

Briefly, the Oly 40-150 f2.8 is a full stop faster and also considerably longer focal length, e.g 300mm f2.8.

John