Olympus 14-150 II f4 vs Panasonic 14-140 II f3.5

From a previous thread, I decided to buy the Panasonic 10x zoom and bring along my Panasonic 20mm/f1.7 lens for travel in Sweden and Croatia. Then, on another website I saw some very sharp photos with the new Olympus 14-150 II f4 lens. I have one Olympus body (E-M1) and one Panasonic body (the GX-7).

From what I can glean, the Olympus' advantage is its weather-resistance, while the Panasonic has OIS and is marginally faster. I am not sure how quickly the maximum aperture changes on each lens as one zooms.

• The Olympus closest focusing distance is 50mm, the Panasonic 30mm
• The Panasonic weighs 20 grams less
• The Panasonic is shorter by 8mm but has a larger diameter by 3mm
• The Panasonic comes with a hood, the Olympus does not
• The Panasonic has reported to produce shutter shock, especially on the GX-7, which is the one thing that has held me back from buying it before now

Does anyone have experience yet with both lenses? Or do you have any more information on the lens' properties? There are only a couple of short, incomplete reviews as yet.

kpevav wrote:

From a previous thread, I decided to buy the Panasonic 10x zoom and bring along my Panasonic 20mm/f1.7 lens for travel in Sweden and Croatia. Then, on another website I saw some very sharp photos with the new Olympus 14-150 II f4 lens. I have one Olympus body (E-M1) and one Panasonic body (the GX-7).

From what I can glean, the Olympus' advantage is its weather-resistance, while the Panasonic has OIS and is marginally faster. I am not sure how quickly the maximum aperture changes on each lens as one zooms.

• The Olympus closest focusing distance is 50mm, the Panasonic 30mm
• The Panasonic weighs 20 grams less
• The Panasonic is shorter by 8mm but has a larger diameter by 3mm
• The Panasonic comes with a hood, the Olympus does not

Yes, it does.  (The Mk.I didn't.)

I really like my 14-150II, but have no experience with the Panasonic.

Bob

• The Panasonic has reported to produce shutter shock, especially on the GX-7, which is the one thing that has held me back from buying it before now

Does anyone have experience yet with both lenses? Or do you have any more information on the lens' properties? There are only a couple of short, incomplete reviews as yet.

I use the 14-140 II f3.5 on my GX7. I like it very much as a walk-about lens, though I admit I don't go above 100mm a lot. I too noticed many comments about shutter shock, and I decided to avoid the risk: I set the electronic shutter and just forget about it. And having done that, I find I really like using the electronic shutter anyway, it is so quiet. I haven't got any examples of shutter shock to date - though I do have one or two slightly shaky hand examples, despite the OIS.

Robert Deutsch wrote:

kpevav wrote:

...

• The Panasonic comes with a hood, the Olympus does not

Yes, it does. (The Mk.I didn't.)

I really like my 14-150II, but have no experience with the Panasonic.

Bob

Thanks for the correction about the hood!

Yes, I have read that people just use the electronic shutter and that avoids any potential for shutter shock.

see below

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/55675361

JL

Thanks for the link. I wish I could try each one of them, but the camera store locally probably only carries the Olympus.

I'd like to know too as the Panny is Superb optically but the new Oly is Weathersealed and I`m back to a W/Sealed OMD again ...... also the Oly not having OIS can`t suffer OIS Video jitters and won`t shutter shock on a GX7

So is the Oly optically as good as the fantastic Panasonic through the range and especially across the frame wideopen at full zoom ???? . if it is then I may have to move over to it

They only tested the Mk I, but as I understand it, the optical design didn't change.

I knew the Mk1 wasn`t as good as the Panny Mk2 at the long end , it loses all the way through on contrast too but I thought the Mk2 Olympus was a totally different optical design

I have the Panasonic and the GX7.

I think some of the Shutter Shock may vary with each copy. I notice if I pixel peep that sometimes my images are not as sharp in the 1/100-1/200 with the mechanical shutter as they are with the electronic. That being said, you can only really see it at 1:1 or higher magnification. I find even these photos to be fine for most "snap shot" situations.

I use electronic shutter most of the time unless I need flash or I am under artificial lights that may cause banding.

I find the lens to be very sharp throughout the range. As good or better than the pair of lenses it replaced. (The Panasonic 14-42II and 40-150) Having this much range in an optically great lens is wonderful for walkabout use. No lens changes. I have primes if I need better low light performance. For reference, on my Nikon DX system I had the Nikor 18-200, and I find this lens to be SO much better even with the mechanical shutter, and not even in the same league with the electronic shutter.

This site lists the aperture as zoom increases. It only hits 5.6 at the very end of the range...

This all being said, I have not been able to use/see the Olympus lens to compare.

I went ahead and ordered the Tamron 14-150 f3.5. I liked the looks of some of the photographs from it and the 6-year warranty. I also saw some positive reviews, though admittedly there is not too much available.

My past experience with Tamron was not good - colors were not true to life and there was a lot of purple fringing - I can see evidence for this in the samples of this Tamron lens. The images with the Olympus lens seem to be free of these problems.