Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150 mm F4-5.6 Lens, Telephoto Zoom, Suitable for All MFT Cameras (Olympus OM-D & PEN Models, Panasonic G Series), Black

Product Information

Falloff of illumination towards the corners is well controlled for a fast aperture telephoto zoom lens, and shouldn't pose too many issues. At 40mm and f/2.8 the comers are 0.7 stops darker than the centre of the image and at 150mm, the corners are 1.2 stops darker than the image centre. Stopping down to f/5.6 results in visually uniform illumination across the frame throughout the zoom range. The only thing to mention is that the 40-150mm makes your kit less discreet. From a distance, it doesn’t look much different from a D7100 with a 70-200mm f/4, especially from the perspective of a non-photographer. But you get less weight and more reach, so there is a benefit if we want to compare it to a medium-sized DSLR kit. I actually wrote a specific article about this topic recently which you can read here. The lens also has a Function button on the side that your thumb can easily reach. There are many options you can assign to the button just as with every other function button on the OM-D E-M1 body. I’ve mentioned how well balanced the M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 Pro feels when attached to the OMD EM1, the internal zoom mechanism means the the front of the lens doesn’t extend when you turn the zoom ring, maintaining the same overall length and balance. The front element doesn’t rotate when focusing so you can use a circular polarizer with ease. The lens has a 72mm filter thread.

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 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. At 40mm sharpness is already outstanding in the centre of the frame at maximum aperture, although performance towards the edges falls behind somewhat, only reaching fairly good levels. Stopping down improves performance across the frame, with peak sharpness across the frame being achieved at f/5.6. Here clarity is outstanding in the centre, and very good towards the edges. Corner shading isn't a real problem with this lens; the most noteworthy lens setting that produces any light falloff at all would be 150mm at ƒ/5.6, where the extreme corners are 1/3EV darker than the center. At any other setting, the falloff is less than that. While you're not going to get pro lens levels of detail, the 40-150mm R delivers good sharpness across almost the entire zoom range. As you'd expect, things get a bit soft at the long and wide ends, with peak performance reached in the mid-range –though there's some weakness in the corners throughout.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 Stopped down to even ƒ/5.6, image sharpness improves until it reaches its optimum sharpness at ƒ/8. According to our lab results, at ƒ/8, lenses don't get much sharper than this. Diffraction starts to set in at ƒ/16, with generalized image softness across the frame by ƒ/22; however, even then, it's still not exceeding 3 blur units. The OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F4.0 Pro is not really a macro lens, but it does offer a usefully close focus point of 70cm / 27.55in from the sensor plane and a maximum magnification of 0.21x. Bokeh The Olympus 40-150 mm f/4-5.6 ED M.Zuiko Digital performs reasonably well on autofocus. It is not the fastest Micro Four Thirds lens, but due to the low weight of the moving parts, it is still fairly smooth and rivals some larger, heavier full-frame lenses with this range. And what might be even more important is that the autofocus – thanks to the focus on the sensor – is very accurate with good repeatability.

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. At f/4 with the teleconverter, the sharpness actually decreases a little bit more at the longest focal length (150mm + MC-14 = 210mm) when the lens has to focus on a distant subject. E-M1, 1/400, f/ 4, ISO 200 – 210mm MC-14 Shooting action, the lens performed well in sequential low burst mode. Photographing a runner heading straight towards the lens, I had only about a ten percent miss rate shooting at 10 fps.

Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 Pro optics

Distortion is well corrected in camera, but without corrections applied, Imatest still only detected 0.342% pincushion distortion at 40mm being replaced with only 0.327% pincushion distortion at 150mm. This extremely mild amount of distortion should pose few issues for day-to-day shooting.