bluevellet
Senior Member
Pros:
While the F/4 maximum aperture may put you off for this type of application, this is quite a decent portrait lens.
If you're kind of new to photography, short telephoto zooms are not the kind of lens you get first. You initially try out standard/normal zooms or wide/normal primes to shoot interiors, people and vistas, the kind of range you usually get with a half decent smartphone. But short telephoto zooms can be a great second lens, giving you much more zoom range to shoot typically outdoors stuff like events, sports and some wildlife.
Compact and Solid
My first impressions upon seeing/handling this F4 zoom were very positive. Compared directly against the 40-150 f4-5.6 R (the popular, low-end telephoto lens many Olympus users are familiar with), the Pro lens adds about a centimetre in length and has more girth. Definitely comparable, superficially.
Of course, like all Pro lenses from Olympus/OMDS, you also get weather-sealing, something that is such a no-brainer for a lens that you are most likely to be shooting with outdoors. It should be standard with every lens of this type, but that is often not the case. So I am just glad that it's included here as I live in a country that often has wet and cold weather.
To quickly illustrate how the collapsible and internal zooming design compares to cheaper alternative lenses, I've made this collage pitting the 40-150mm F4 Pro versus the 14-150mm f4-5.6 II and the 40-150 f4-5.6 R. First photo shows the 40-150 F4 Pro collapsed whereas the other lenses are at their widest. Second photo shows all lenses at 40mm and ready to shoot. Last photos shows all three lenses at 150mm and ready to shoot.
Design and build quality are two other big and obvious improvements. Like other Pro products from OMDS/Olympus, the F4 lens has an all black design, with a much sturdier construction. Whereas the low-end rival is all plastic (down to the lens mount even), the Pro lens is a mix of a metal frame (lens mount included) and a hard quality plastic exterior. The smoothness of the zoom ring is one of my personal highlights about it: It feels so nice and dampened.
However, the F4 Pro cheats in a way. Continuing the trend started by the Olympus 8-25mm F4 Pro, the 40-150 F4 is also a collapsible design. That means that the lens can retract itself to be at its shortest (at around 10 cm), easier to store and carry, but can not used in that form. To actually take photos, you need to twist the lens to make it come out of its collapsed position, adding 4 cm to its length. This can be irritating to some people because it adds a step to picture taking. A fair point. However in this case, I see the glass as half full because you merely have the option to put it in its collapsed form, but you don't have to. I keep mine ready to shoot at all times, unless it is really, REALLY... in storage.
But unlike the 8-25mm F4 Pro, once in its shooting position, the 40-150 F4 Pro stays that size. Zooming/focusing is all internal so the lens stays the same dimension regardless of the focal length. This is also in stark contrast to all low-end options, 40-150 R included, that go telescopic when zooming all in. This is hardly the first telephoto zoom that keeps it all internal, certainly the big Olympus F2.8 lens does it as well, but I think it is still a neat feature to have here.
View attachment a9b169b94a8445f48fa9a3a85eaa0c28.jpg
Although the zoom range of the 40-150mm F4 Pro can get you close to wildlife, it is often not enough for serious birding. Here a sleepy seagull luckily let me get closer and use hand-held high resolution mode to take a photo.
Shoot Sharp and Colourful Photos
When you jump right into picture taking, this is where the lens shines. AF is typical of many recent high-end m43 lenses. It's very responsive and seems only limited by the AF system inside whichever camera body you are using and your actual personal settings. So with better camera body tech and software in the future, the lens AF will only improve accordingly.
Photos are sharp, with saturated colours and overall beautiful rendering straight out of the camera. It is well suited for some wildlife, daylight events, landscape and what is too often neglected with that type of telephoto zooms: portraits.
Like most modern lenses, it is software corrected. That means that the optics in the lens create some distortions, aberrations and vignetting that are corrected in-camera after pictures are taken. The results matter more than how it is achieved so with straight-out-of-camera JPEGs, you get photos with little to no distortion and no vignetting to speak of. When you work with RAW files, your photo editor needs a lens profile for this lens to carry over the same software corrections you see in JPEGs. If not, or if you turn them off, you see the flaws. Though ironically, I often tone vignetting correction down because some vignetting help when your subject is at the centre of the frame. At least it looks better to my eye.
The OM System 40-150mm F4 Pro delivers sharp, colourful photos and the quality of the out-of-focus areas is smooth and visually pleasing.
If I am picky though, there is one small flaw with software corrections: Chromatic aberrations are clearly visible in some high contrast scenes, at least in JPEGs. It's funny because all those aberrations automatically disappear when I open the RAW files in a program like DXO Photolab. I'm not sure which corners are cut in the in-camera JPEG engine, but shooting in both JPEG and RAW is definitely the way to go with this lens. Beyond fixing that flaw, I think it pays to work with the RAW files to extract quite a bit more IQ punch overall.
To be fair, the same could be said with many of the low-end telephoto zooms on m43, many of which are priced cheaply but pack a surprising amount of IQ. Working with RAW files can also enhance their output, but they can require more work. Sometimes, you do hit a wall with softness/coarseness. I find that, overall, if you've hit that same wall before and wanted to a step-up in image IQ, the 40-150 F4 Pro can be a way to "break through".
Is F4 Enough?
Indeed, F4, even constant F4, can be a downside for some people as not "fast/bright" enough. I think if we're talking strictly about exposure, then that can be a fair point. At the long end in not so ideal lighting conditions, (in-body) image stabilisation can only do so much (and there's no extra optical stabilisation in the lens to fall back on), you need a faster shutter speed to get sharp photos. To compensate, either aperture has to be brighter or ISO settings will be raised for proper exposure. One could argue that, at its maximal focal length of 150mm, the 40-150mm F4 Pro outmatches any of the low-end options by being a whole stop faster (f4 vs the typical f5.6) so it does help, but maybe not enough for some people. Hence why the 40-150mm F2.8 Pro lens exists. It depends on your needs and what you expect to do with a lens. A demo in the streets in broad daylight? F4 is no problem. An after-school, soccer practice for your kid? Same thing. Football match in the evening though? f2.8 might be preferable. Indoor concert? Maybe a bright prime then.
Works fine with pets.
However, I am a lot more lenient with F4 when it comes to subject separation. In the old days when using compact cameras with tiny image sensors and slow lenses, the old trick of zooming all in could get you decent results. I've always found it ridiculously easy to do this with m43. Even full body shots at 100mm-150mm at f5.6 are well separated. Even more so at F4. Portraits are really beautiful with this lens.
However, if you're the kind of photographer who wants backgrounds completely obliterated, then I don't know why you're with m43 and why you are reading this review at all, just go straight to FF, get a prime over 100mm and something at least as fast as f2 and you might get something more to your liking.
Here comes the "diet" part
But not all is sunny with this lens. One particular sticking point for me is the missing features from most other Pro lenses, namely the function button and the pull-up manual focus clutch. Olympus (now OMDS) has been a bit erratic about which lenses have them or which ones do not. There is no official reason for the omission with this lens. It can't be for size concerns in this case since the 40-150 is bigger than some other Pro lenses that do sport those features. And i doubt it adds much cost to manufacturing, particularly the function button. This looks like a home goal to me. Now, it is true that some people don't like or don't use those features so this is a non-issue for them. Fair point, but since those features can be turned off, you would think a product that has the most optional features is more likely to attract a wider variety of potential buyers. Apparently Olympus/OMDS do not share that sentiment.
Even if you live in a sunny place, summer weather tends to bring people closer to water and the elements so weather resistance is still handy.
Another oddity is the lens was launched/announced alongside the OM-1 camera, a camera that sports an IP53 weather-sealing rating and can shoot with AF at 50 fps. The 40-150mm f4 can match that IP53 rating, yet is not compatible with the 50 fps shooting option (supports the more "standard" 25fps). Why? They went a bit too far with cost-cutting, affecting AF performance? I can only speculate. It seems like a missed opportunity in any case.
Furthermore, all the Olympus Pro telephoto lenses up to this point had the option of using Olympus teleconverters to extend their zoom range. As another puzzling omission, the 40-150mm F4 Pro does not officially support teleconverters. I suspect the reason is that it would have required to physically extend the size of the lens by a few centimetres to accommodate the protruding teleconverter lens element. I don't personally use teleconverters, so this is not a biggie now but I would have liked the option to change my mind. It won't happen with this lens though.
And a slight disappointment of mine is the minimum focusing distance. To put it in perspective, it's not that bad, it's more middle of the road for m43 optics. But most of the lenses on the Olympus/OMDS Pro line-up got me used to pseudo macro abilities and the 40-150mm F4 Pro does not meet that standard. In fact, it is even beaten by the "non-pro" Olympus 14-150mm f4-5.6 II (the 40-150mm f4-5.6 R performs much worse though).
What Do You Value?
Finally, the issue of price is interesting and may cause some dilemmas in some people. If you take US pricing as a benchmark, the 40-150mm f2.8 Pro sells officially at 1500 bucks, but the F4 Pro is a bit over half of that at 900 bucks. But if you compare the F4 Pro to the low-end 40-150 f4-5.6 R, the Pro lens is over 3 times as expensive. It's already being established the IQ is better in the Pro lens, but is it worth paying 3 times as much for it? Things get tricky with used prices. Currently, at the time of writing of this review, the faster yet older 40-150mm F2.8 Pro can be had for roughly the same price as the f4 Pro lens brand new. Being still relatively new, savings are more limited if you find the F4 Pro used and get you nowhere near the price of the 40-150mm f4-5.6 R brand new. Overall, just looking at the Olympus options, the 40-150 mm f4 Pro may be the poorest value for the money.
Although not exactly in the same category, I think super zooms are a strong alternative to strictly (short) telephoto zooms. A classic lens like the Olympus 14-150mm f4-5.6 II offers the same telephoto range as the 40-150mm F4 Pro on top of the missing 14-40mm wide to normal range. If you are willing to tolerate an image quality and speed hit, this is a tempting option for anyone looking for a single lens solution. Even if your standards are high, you also have the legendary Olympus 12-100mm F4 Pro (not pictured in this review as I do not own it!) which trades 100-150mm for 12-40mm while adding all the missing Pro features (focus clutch, function button, close minimum focus) and even adds the sorely missed optical stabilisation. The ultimate jack-of-all-trades kind of a lens on the system.
So, to sum up my thoughts, I believe the basics of this lens are solid. Good IQ, AF and construction. All things that make a lens worthy of consideration. Where it falters a bit is in their effort to trim the fat off of the bigger 40-150mm f2.8 Pro, it feels like the F4 version of that lens had a little much taken out of it. Not essential things that could sabotage it, but things that are still nice to have. Things that Olympus/OMDS spoiled us with in the past and that we rightfully expect to have again in the future.
- sharp, punchy IQ
- snappy AF
- well built, weather-sealed construction
- all internal focus/zoom
- constant aperture
- reasonable physical size for the specs
- maximum aperture is F4
- fits better on larger camera bodies
- collapsible design will not please everybody
- missing features from the Pro lens family
- doesn't support 50 fps continuous shooting (OM-1)
- exhibit chromatic aberrations in JPEGs
While the F/4 maximum aperture may put you off for this type of application, this is quite a decent portrait lens.
If you're kind of new to photography, short telephoto zooms are not the kind of lens you get first. You initially try out standard/normal zooms or wide/normal primes to shoot interiors, people and vistas, the kind of range you usually get with a half decent smartphone. But short telephoto zooms can be a great second lens, giving you much more zoom range to shoot typically outdoors stuff like events, sports and some wildlife.
Compact and Solid
My first impressions upon seeing/handling this F4 zoom were very positive. Compared directly against the 40-150 f4-5.6 R (the popular, low-end telephoto lens many Olympus users are familiar with), the Pro lens adds about a centimetre in length and has more girth. Definitely comparable, superficially.
Of course, like all Pro lenses from Olympus/OMDS, you also get weather-sealing, something that is such a no-brainer for a lens that you are most likely to be shooting with outdoors. It should be standard with every lens of this type, but that is often not the case. So I am just glad that it's included here as I live in a country that often has wet and cold weather.
To quickly illustrate how the collapsible and internal zooming design compares to cheaper alternative lenses, I've made this collage pitting the 40-150mm F4 Pro versus the 14-150mm f4-5.6 II and the 40-150 f4-5.6 R. First photo shows the 40-150 F4 Pro collapsed whereas the other lenses are at their widest. Second photo shows all lenses at 40mm and ready to shoot. Last photos shows all three lenses at 150mm and ready to shoot.
Design and build quality are two other big and obvious improvements. Like other Pro products from OMDS/Olympus, the F4 lens has an all black design, with a much sturdier construction. Whereas the low-end rival is all plastic (down to the lens mount even), the Pro lens is a mix of a metal frame (lens mount included) and a hard quality plastic exterior. The smoothness of the zoom ring is one of my personal highlights about it: It feels so nice and dampened.
However, the F4 Pro cheats in a way. Continuing the trend started by the Olympus 8-25mm F4 Pro, the 40-150 F4 is also a collapsible design. That means that the lens can retract itself to be at its shortest (at around 10 cm), easier to store and carry, but can not used in that form. To actually take photos, you need to twist the lens to make it come out of its collapsed position, adding 4 cm to its length. This can be irritating to some people because it adds a step to picture taking. A fair point. However in this case, I see the glass as half full because you merely have the option to put it in its collapsed form, but you don't have to. I keep mine ready to shoot at all times, unless it is really, REALLY... in storage.
But unlike the 8-25mm F4 Pro, once in its shooting position, the 40-150 F4 Pro stays that size. Zooming/focusing is all internal so the lens stays the same dimension regardless of the focal length. This is also in stark contrast to all low-end options, 40-150 R included, that go telescopic when zooming all in. This is hardly the first telephoto zoom that keeps it all internal, certainly the big Olympus F2.8 lens does it as well, but I think it is still a neat feature to have here.
View attachment a9b169b94a8445f48fa9a3a85eaa0c28.jpg
Although the zoom range of the 40-150mm F4 Pro can get you close to wildlife, it is often not enough for serious birding. Here a sleepy seagull luckily let me get closer and use hand-held high resolution mode to take a photo.
Shoot Sharp and Colourful Photos
When you jump right into picture taking, this is where the lens shines. AF is typical of many recent high-end m43 lenses. It's very responsive and seems only limited by the AF system inside whichever camera body you are using and your actual personal settings. So with better camera body tech and software in the future, the lens AF will only improve accordingly.
Photos are sharp, with saturated colours and overall beautiful rendering straight out of the camera. It is well suited for some wildlife, daylight events, landscape and what is too often neglected with that type of telephoto zooms: portraits.
Like most modern lenses, it is software corrected. That means that the optics in the lens create some distortions, aberrations and vignetting that are corrected in-camera after pictures are taken. The results matter more than how it is achieved so with straight-out-of-camera JPEGs, you get photos with little to no distortion and no vignetting to speak of. When you work with RAW files, your photo editor needs a lens profile for this lens to carry over the same software corrections you see in JPEGs. If not, or if you turn them off, you see the flaws. Though ironically, I often tone vignetting correction down because some vignetting help when your subject is at the centre of the frame. At least it looks better to my eye.
The OM System 40-150mm F4 Pro delivers sharp, colourful photos and the quality of the out-of-focus areas is smooth and visually pleasing.
If I am picky though, there is one small flaw with software corrections: Chromatic aberrations are clearly visible in some high contrast scenes, at least in JPEGs. It's funny because all those aberrations automatically disappear when I open the RAW files in a program like DXO Photolab. I'm not sure which corners are cut in the in-camera JPEG engine, but shooting in both JPEG and RAW is definitely the way to go with this lens. Beyond fixing that flaw, I think it pays to work with the RAW files to extract quite a bit more IQ punch overall.
To be fair, the same could be said with many of the low-end telephoto zooms on m43, many of which are priced cheaply but pack a surprising amount of IQ. Working with RAW files can also enhance their output, but they can require more work. Sometimes, you do hit a wall with softness/coarseness. I find that, overall, if you've hit that same wall before and wanted to a step-up in image IQ, the 40-150 F4 Pro can be a way to "break through".
Is F4 Enough?
Indeed, F4, even constant F4, can be a downside for some people as not "fast/bright" enough. I think if we're talking strictly about exposure, then that can be a fair point. At the long end in not so ideal lighting conditions, (in-body) image stabilisation can only do so much (and there's no extra optical stabilisation in the lens to fall back on), you need a faster shutter speed to get sharp photos. To compensate, either aperture has to be brighter or ISO settings will be raised for proper exposure. One could argue that, at its maximal focal length of 150mm, the 40-150mm F4 Pro outmatches any of the low-end options by being a whole stop faster (f4 vs the typical f5.6) so it does help, but maybe not enough for some people. Hence why the 40-150mm F2.8 Pro lens exists. It depends on your needs and what you expect to do with a lens. A demo in the streets in broad daylight? F4 is no problem. An after-school, soccer practice for your kid? Same thing. Football match in the evening though? f2.8 might be preferable. Indoor concert? Maybe a bright prime then.
Works fine with pets.
However, I am a lot more lenient with F4 when it comes to subject separation. In the old days when using compact cameras with tiny image sensors and slow lenses, the old trick of zooming all in could get you decent results. I've always found it ridiculously easy to do this with m43. Even full body shots at 100mm-150mm at f5.6 are well separated. Even more so at F4. Portraits are really beautiful with this lens.
However, if you're the kind of photographer who wants backgrounds completely obliterated, then I don't know why you're with m43 and why you are reading this review at all, just go straight to FF, get a prime over 100mm and something at least as fast as f2 and you might get something more to your liking.
Here comes the "diet" part
But not all is sunny with this lens. One particular sticking point for me is the missing features from most other Pro lenses, namely the function button and the pull-up manual focus clutch. Olympus (now OMDS) has been a bit erratic about which lenses have them or which ones do not. There is no official reason for the omission with this lens. It can't be for size concerns in this case since the 40-150 is bigger than some other Pro lenses that do sport those features. And i doubt it adds much cost to manufacturing, particularly the function button. This looks like a home goal to me. Now, it is true that some people don't like or don't use those features so this is a non-issue for them. Fair point, but since those features can be turned off, you would think a product that has the most optional features is more likely to attract a wider variety of potential buyers. Apparently Olympus/OMDS do not share that sentiment.
Even if you live in a sunny place, summer weather tends to bring people closer to water and the elements so weather resistance is still handy.
Another oddity is the lens was launched/announced alongside the OM-1 camera, a camera that sports an IP53 weather-sealing rating and can shoot with AF at 50 fps. The 40-150mm f4 can match that IP53 rating, yet is not compatible with the 50 fps shooting option (supports the more "standard" 25fps). Why? They went a bit too far with cost-cutting, affecting AF performance? I can only speculate. It seems like a missed opportunity in any case.
Furthermore, all the Olympus Pro telephoto lenses up to this point had the option of using Olympus teleconverters to extend their zoom range. As another puzzling omission, the 40-150mm F4 Pro does not officially support teleconverters. I suspect the reason is that it would have required to physically extend the size of the lens by a few centimetres to accommodate the protruding teleconverter lens element. I don't personally use teleconverters, so this is not a biggie now but I would have liked the option to change my mind. It won't happen with this lens though.
And a slight disappointment of mine is the minimum focusing distance. To put it in perspective, it's not that bad, it's more middle of the road for m43 optics. But most of the lenses on the Olympus/OMDS Pro line-up got me used to pseudo macro abilities and the 40-150mm F4 Pro does not meet that standard. In fact, it is even beaten by the "non-pro" Olympus 14-150mm f4-5.6 II (the 40-150mm f4-5.6 R performs much worse though).
What Do You Value?
Finally, the issue of price is interesting and may cause some dilemmas in some people. If you take US pricing as a benchmark, the 40-150mm f2.8 Pro sells officially at 1500 bucks, but the F4 Pro is a bit over half of that at 900 bucks. But if you compare the F4 Pro to the low-end 40-150 f4-5.6 R, the Pro lens is over 3 times as expensive. It's already being established the IQ is better in the Pro lens, but is it worth paying 3 times as much for it? Things get tricky with used prices. Currently, at the time of writing of this review, the faster yet older 40-150mm F2.8 Pro can be had for roughly the same price as the f4 Pro lens brand new. Being still relatively new, savings are more limited if you find the F4 Pro used and get you nowhere near the price of the 40-150mm f4-5.6 R brand new. Overall, just looking at the Olympus options, the 40-150 mm f4 Pro may be the poorest value for the money.
Although not exactly in the same category, I think super zooms are a strong alternative to strictly (short) telephoto zooms. A classic lens like the Olympus 14-150mm f4-5.6 II offers the same telephoto range as the 40-150mm F4 Pro on top of the missing 14-40mm wide to normal range. If you are willing to tolerate an image quality and speed hit, this is a tempting option for anyone looking for a single lens solution. Even if your standards are high, you also have the legendary Olympus 12-100mm F4 Pro (not pictured in this review as I do not own it!) which trades 100-150mm for 12-40mm while adding all the missing Pro features (focus clutch, function button, close minimum focus) and even adds the sorely missed optical stabilisation. The ultimate jack-of-all-trades kind of a lens on the system.
So, to sum up my thoughts, I believe the basics of this lens are solid. Good IQ, AF and construction. All things that make a lens worthy of consideration. Where it falters a bit is in their effort to trim the fat off of the bigger 40-150mm f2.8 Pro, it feels like the F4 version of that lens had a little much taken out of it. Not essential things that could sabotage it, but things that are still nice to have. Things that Olympus/OMDS spoiled us with in the past and that we rightfully expect to have again in the future.
