Advice using Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 with Panasonic G7

Hi all,

I currently use the Olympus 75mm f1.8 prime with my G7 and I am very pleased with the results. I am however looking at adding the Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 for shooting sports action including Cricket , Football and Athletics in good outdoor light for the most part.

So I am wondering if anyone has purchased the 40-150 f2.8 and uses it successfully with the G7, G6 or G5 and has found that it is useable at 150mm without any in body stabilisation?

The natural step would be to probably add the GX8 or GX80 over the coming months but I cannot afford to purchase both the lens and a new body currently.

Would perhaps a monopod offer a solution in the short term and help deal with camera shake?

Thanks for advice

Neil426 wrote:

Hi all,

I currently use the Olympus 75mm f1.8 prime with my G7 and I am very pleased with the results. I am however looking at adding the Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 for shooting sports action including Cricket , Football and Athletics in good outdoor light for the most part.

So I am wondering if anyone has purchased the 40-150 f2.8 and uses it successfully with the G7, G6 or G5 and has found that it is useable at 150mm without any in body stabilisation?

The natural step would be to probably add the GX8 or GX80 over the coming months but I cannot afford to purchase both the lens and a new body currently.

Would perhaps a monopod offer a solution in the short term and help deal with camera shake?

Thanks for advice

I have G7 and lenses that go up to 150mm and beyond (and to 140mm).

Which shutter speeds you plan to use? If you are planning to freeze the motion and shoot at something like 1/500s, you don't need IS the get sharp images. The bigger problem is that the LCD/EVF display will not be stabilized while. It should not be a great deal at 150mm.

Actually I find Olympus style stabilization too efficient for action shooting. Too much stabilization makes the image lag behind when you pan the camera. No such problems with OIS. BTW, I have never heard this argument before, so maybe it's just me?

I expect at long telephoto range, IBIS is very useful. I believe G7 has no IBIS.

the cheaper oly 40-150 works well with panasonic g7 for sports, so you should do well with the better lens.

i don't know if you have to do anything different with that lens.

Sometimes I shoot with my GH4 paired with 40-150 pro plus MC-14. Shutterspeed is important due to the missing stabilization. On the other hand, shooting BIF for instance needs no stabi at all, only speed.

here is my flickr test album that I built, when i got the GH4 (bad weather conditions):

https://www.flickr.com/gp/97351775@N02/XpzgvC

all CAF and medium burst!

I sold the 45-200 when I got the 40-150 pro. The MC-14 is very good (sharp), gives you more reach and focuses fast. You can get it in a bundle together with the lens a little sheaper.

By the way, I think, that 1/2000 sec is perfectly sufficient in order to compensate for the missing IS. I just wanted to be on the safe side.

Yes, made me wondering as well. DFD is not activ with Oly lenses. But I just kept the single focus frame on the target and fired away and it worked. My assumption is, that the 4k power of the GH4 (two processors) together with this fast lens is completly enough for fast focus acomplishment, even without DfD. The same should be valid for the G7. I didn' t use tracking, just CAF. CAF+tracking doesn't function fast enough.

Skeeterbytes wrote:

Cipher010 wrote:

I expect at long telephoto range, IBIS is very useful. I believe G7 has no IBIS.

Not really with field sports. The needed speeds to freeze action render IS moot. For more artistic pursuits such as panning and international blurring, it's invaluable and I'm happy to have it.

Cheers,

Rick

Yes, if the shutter speed is very high. However, IBIS is an invaluable feature for me in many situations.