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Featuring a 35mm equivalent focal range of 80-300mm, the OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F4.0 Pro offers a constant maximum aperture of f/4 throughout its zoom range, plus fast and quiet auto focusing.
It has an optical formula comprised of 19 elements arranged in 9 groups, including two aspherical, two ED, one Super ED and one HR elements. The lens weights about 760g without the tripod mount, which is heavier than the E-M1 or any other MFT camera. I decided to use it with the E-M1 without the HLD-7 battery grip, not only to keep the combo as small as possible but also to see how the extra weight and size would affect the usability of a system known to be more compact than this. After carrying it around every day for my daily work for two weeks, I can say that in the end that the weight and size don’t make a huge difference, as the lens still fits nicely inside my primary camera bag, the Lowerpro Event Messenger 150. Yes, the lens is big but still compact enough for the zoom range it covers. I got this lens for my E-510, and for the price it's a great outdoor lens. But in the course of doing some experiments to try to work out various IS and focusing issues with legacy lenses, I had occassion to test it against a couple of Zuiko OM primes (135mm/f4.5 macro and 50mm/f1.4) and discovered, to my surprise, that at the "135mm" setting, the 40-150mm kit lens was considerably wider than the OM 135mm. It gets the same magnification only at its maximum "150mm" setting; and at that "150mm" setting, wide open (nominal f5.6), it seemed about a half-stop slower than the OM 135mm stopped down to f5.6." Olympus PEN-F + Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 R (45mm, 1/125 sec, f/4.1, ISO200) (Image credit: James Artaius) Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 R: Key features
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The 40-150mm is not designed as a macro lens, and its minimum focussing distance of 90 centimetres (almost three feet) makes this fact readily apparent. If you're intent on using it this way, you'll get a grand total of 0.14x magnification (0.28x in 35mm terms). It’s superfast on both of the cameras used in the test. Fast focus is essential for me because my subjects are rarely still, and catching the static moments seen in the pictures above took a degree of concentration – animals will sometimes only pause for a split second and I like to grab key moments as they happen. It’s also wonderfully accurate and better than the standard quality tele zooms I’ve been relying on so far. The autofocus slows down slightly in very dim light indoors, but not to the extent where it would bother you. This is quite a feat for a lens of this type. This version of the 40-150mm configuration has been replaced by the subject lens, and arguably, the price differential doesn't make it a worthy alternative. The more recent version of the 40-150mm has a superior sharpness profile and better resistance to vignetting; interestingly, the chromatic aberration profile has reversed, with the newer lens showing CA in the wide end, rather than the tele end as the f/3.5-4.5 version does. Not really worth considering this lens unless you absolutely need the extra half-stop of speed. Following an initial day of testing at the Cheltenham horse races with Ken McMahon, Gordon sourced a second sample of the lens and tested it for a month in a wide variety of portrait, landscape and action environments. He also retested the lens with the Olympus ODM EM1 updated to firmware 2.2 which claims to deliver superior AF precision with the 40-150mm. Read on to find out if this is the telephoto zoom Micro Four Thirds owners have been waiting for. Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 Pro design and build quality
The Olympus Zuiko 40-150mm F4 has a maximum magnification of x.042. Thus subjects can be projected onto your camera’s sensor at 42% of their original size. This impressive result makes the OM System 40-150 F4 Pro an effective lens for semi-macro work. Build Quality Having said that, I am thrilled with an extremely small, lightweight, fully weather-sealed TC that doesn't significantly negatively impact image quality or AF speed. But for the Olympus 40-150mm ƒ/2.8 Zuiko Pro or the 300mm ƒ/4 Zuiko Pro lens, the MC-14 teleconverter is a an accessory that needs to close the gap just a pinch.An inexpensive lens is of little use to you if the image quality is not at least a bit decent. The Olympus 40-150 mm f/4-5.6 ED M.Zuiko Digital scores surprisingly well on this point. What is visible is that jpegs benefit greatly from a boost in sharpness and contrast in the camera. The RAW files are also nice but do not reach the high values of the jpegs. The hefty sharpening ensures nice, sharp files with a lot of detail. They are perhaps a bit harder and less nuanced than shots you can get with the more expensive PRO lenses, but as long as you do not place them next to each other, the difference will not even be that visible. And that is a good recommendation for the Olympus 40-150 mm f/4-5.6 ED M.Zuiko Digital. Olympus also offers a 1.4x teleconverter especially for the 40-150mm which extends the reach to an equivalent of 421mm with a maximum aperture of f4. I’ve provided three samples with it in my gallery, but here’s one as a preview. You can find the same shot taken without the teleconverter for comparison in my gallery and note the aperture selected delivered the best result in this instance. Do remember that sharpness involves a number of parameters – your shutter speed for a start. It needs to be appropriate to the speed of your subject and appropriate to your own handholding abilities. With animals I tend to make sure I set a very high shutter speed – even if the animal is static for a given shot it might suddenly engage in rapid activity which I will want to capture as it unfolds – those moments will be gone if you set your shutter speed only for static captures. Whatever system you use, don’t be afraid of cranking the ISO, there’s no way around that in anything other than perfect light, and in my opinion people are far too fussy about a small sprinkling of noise (which is rarely noticeable in print).
There is of course an interesting alternative for those who don’t need that extra 50mm reach and want a smaller lens that won’t unbalance the kit too much: the Lumix 35-100mm f/2.8. And this is another positive aspect about the new zoom: Olympus has released something different from everything else out there to bring the MFT system a step closer to completion. These figures just correspond to the focal lengths marked on the lens; in actual usage, the widest aperture adjusts quite precisely in conjunction with the focal length setting. As you zoom in and out at the widest aperture, you can see the aperture changing in one-tenth increments.TTesting against the 50mm OM, the 40-150mm kit lens had to be set at "53mm" to get the same FoV (I didn't test exposure)." This lens isn't a ''constant'' lens, in that as you increase the focal length, the maximum aperture size decreases. The following table reflects the change as you zoom: Focal length Manual focusing is done in a traditional fashion, with the adequately sized focus ring mechanically coupled to the moving lens elements, although there are no hard stops at either end. Focusing is fully internal and the filter thread does not rotate on focus.
With the lens set to its maximum aperture of f/4, there is some light fall-off in the corners, requiring you to stop down by at least 2 f-stops to completely prevent it. The barrel of the OM System 40-150mm f4 Pro is mostly metal. The exception is that, when the lens is extended, the piece that protrudes from the barrel is plastic. There’s also a bit of plastic around the front of the lens and the lens hood is plastic.The Olympus M.ZUIKO Digital 40-150mm f/4-5.6 ED has a plastic mount that raises some questions as to its longevity, but contributes to the extremely light weight of the lens. The great build becomes especially noticeable when you start using the lens. First of all, the zoom and focus rings are both large, very smooth to turn and very precise to use. They are optimally placed on the lens body so that you can naturally reach one or the other with your hand. The focus ring is also great to use for manual focusing. Thanks to its clutch mechanism, you can instantaneously switch from auto to manual focus (like the 12-40mm f/2,8 and 12mm f/2). This features is very useful for shooting video. With stills, you might not find yourself using manual focus a lot because it can become difficult at the longest focal length, unless you are in an extreme low-light situation or using the lens in macro mode at its shortest focus distance. With video, while the AF works well on both Lumix and Olympus cameras, there are more situations where you might prefer to focus precisely with your hand, and to this end, the focus ring is very pleasant to use. Another very interesting characteristic of this lens is the closest focussing distance of 70cm throughout the entire zoom range. As such, you can focus at 70cm even at 150mm or when using the MC-14, since the minimum focus distance isn’t altered by the teleconverter. This expands the versatility of this lens even more because it allows you to take near-macro shots. E-M1, 1/60, f/ 8, ISO 200 I think the two pro lenses compliment the Omd EM1 really well - I have the Tamron 14-1500 for buzzing around the town with when i need a bit more discreteness.
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