First impressions Oly 40-150mm f2.8

Last week I was able to buy this lens 'cheap', because of an error on a website of a camera store. They mis-priced it by 400 euro's, I was the only one to react in time. I did not complain. This weekend I had my first outing. Took it to the streets of Amsterdam. All on an EM-1, raw processed in Lightroom.

Shooting down from a dock on a frantically moving swan in a feeding frenzy. Stopped down a bit to acquire a bit more depth-of-field to increase chances of the head being in focus. The detail of the water droplets on the head is great.

Out of focus areas nicely have low contrast, good texture on the seahorse. Zoom in on the head and notice the spider webbing... No abberations.

Excellent natural color rendering. Would have liked a bit more DoF here, and the out of focus areas a little less contrasty. Great sharpness.

A good example why shallow DoF is nice, but not always good. The guy on the left is in focus, the other one isn't. Distance, some 8 meters. Slightly cropped image. Nice color rendering!

Don't know if this shot tells anything about this lens... just a fun shot... reflection of the banana-bar in the red light district  (flipped and rotated in post).

Again nice color rendering. Texture on the coat is nicely preserved. The fence is slightly out of focus, again shallow DoF. Distance was some 15 meters. Cropped image, 2/3's.

A nice example of the amount of detail this lens is able to resolve. Just pixel peep the bottom of the red neon letters. This lens will be great for landscapes! And... It answers most 'M4/3 good for landscape?' threads

Nice sharpness across the frame, see the people and street lamps. Focus was on the couple at the right. The out of focus tree branches are a bit to busy (bokeh) for my taste though.

Focus was around the center on the shadows. The two sitting, in the corner, are reasonably sharp! So no problem with corner sharpness.

Focus was on the girl looking right at me. Nice contrast, sharp enough. Would have liked a little less contrast in out of focus areas.

Look at the detail in his face through the dreads, and his hand.

Focused on the sun flower. Nice shallow DoF. Smooth bokeh. Distance was about 6 to 7 meters.

Nice contrast (increased a tiny bit in post).

Had some more shots with my wife in the picture, she did not like the lens... it was to sharp, showed to much detail of here face (pores, hair, etc.)

I find the lens to be tack sharp. You can get shallow DoF if you need to. Getting close to your subject helps of course.

Of course, shooting street with this lens, it is difficult to capture images that tell a story, most of the times the FoV is to narrow. But it is great for portraits. It costs an arm and a leg, but I think I will be happy with it.

Will be shooting some more the next couple of weeks.

Thanks for all these samples, I've been thinking of getting this lens. I like the focal range of the 14-140mm but the lens lacks sharpness in a big way.

They size and weight of the lens is tough to swallow too. The price is par for the course given the IQ from this lens.

Demonstrating the lens's performance -- and your ability! -- nicely. Looks like we can look forward to some interesting pix from this combination.

Well then why not the obligatory (or not so much) dog shot!

Thank you for the time and effort on the review.  That lens is a joy to have, to be sure.  

Well, totally convincing on the sharpness issue. Also convincing that you have to think a fair amount about depth of field.

I wonder what you think about lightening up some of your subjects, like the swan, the people on bridge, and the dreadlocks (possibly even seahorse)? In cases where you have a lighter background, you could squeeze a little contrast out of it (e.g., via flattening curves at the high end of brightness) for a better emphasis on the subject. I left these images in (below) so that people don't have to look back

With that discount, I might be temped, too. But, at the moment, I'm considering it a specialty lens that I might rent for trips where it would be extremely valuable (big game).

pocoloco wrote:

This one seems perfect for lightening both subjects and background (hence more backgrounding the background. Easily accomplished with curves, I think.

Like some others, the subject looks a little dark to me (though I'm using a not-great laptop screen). Again, worth a try to background the background even more by pushing it to a high key.

Thanks much.