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Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm 1:4-5.6 R ED MSC
The Olympus tele kit lens for the mft - cameras - the newer version with "MSC" - motor, Olympus' implementation of an ultrasonic AF-drive. There are several different versions for fourthirds and micro fourthirds. It's very good optically and mechanically, especially for a cheap "KIT-"tele, but the Panasonic 45-150mm is even better built, smaller, a bit better optically and has stabilization, if or when you need it. The Panasonic is about 50% more expensive used, but that's still only € 150,- vs. € 100,- in very good condition with (used-)warranty, so for me, it's worth it. It's more than double that new.
I had this Olympus for about 3 month and had it with me in Australia, all tele-shots in my "Australia-Gallery" are made with this lens, then I sold it for the Panasonic.
It's build quality is very good, but all-plastics, including the mount.
It is extremely light and small, not only for a 300mm equivalent, being roughly the same size as a Canon EF 18-55m kit-lens and so can be taken "just in case" without any problems. But the Panasonic is smaller.
COMPATIBILITY
As a classic, genuine M.Zuiko, it works perfectly with every mFT camera, Panasonic or Olympus. There are no known issues in any combination, but remember, that, other than Olympus, most Panasonic-bodies don't have stabilization built in, so you don't have any with this lens. Because these cameras have sensors, that are smaller than 35mm - film, it gives you a field-of-view roughly like a 80-300mm lens would give on 35mm. But remember, that 35mm is 3:2 - while mft is 4:3 - format, so that it isn't exactly compareble, in fact a little less in height and a little more in width.
PRICE
This lens is usually sold in kits with a body for about € 150,- extra. Single winning bids start at around € 100,- on ebay.
ACCESSORIES
As usual, this original M.Zuiko is shipped without the shade, I wouldn't use anyway. They charge obscene prices for this cheap plastic-barrel, so I'd always buy third-party if you insist in having a fixed shade, or use my favourite, a collapsible rubber hood instead. For me, it'd destroy the advantage of the whole system, if I'd use a shade, because the only reason for me to own mFT-equipment is size.
It uses 58mm filters, which annoys me, because my 9-18mm uses 52mm ones. Another reason to own the Panasonic 45-150mm, which uses 52mm-filters, too.
Like on all mFT-lenses I know of, the focus-ring doesn't really move an optical element, but actuates the AF-motor, which, other than I expected at first, actually works fine and even has the advantage, that it can be progressive: The faster you turn the ring, the bigger it's steps are.
The filter - thread doesn't rotate, making the use of grads and polarizers uncomfortable.
I don't know and have never used any tele-converters for mft.
MECHANICS
Made in Japan.
Plastic lens mount, like the rest.
The plastic mount is, other than with the lighter standard - zooms, more of a problem here, simply because it is heavier and longer, making a bigger "lever", but it's still OK, I think.
Manual focussing is "by wire": When you turn the focus ring, it actuates the AF - motor. This is a bit strange when you do this for the first time, but other than in some lenses for Canon EOS and others, this implementation is actually very good and intelligent and - after you've got used to it - works better than a classic mechanical coupling. This is, because the manual focus ring works progressively: If you turn the ring fast for a significant distance, focus is moved by a comparitively long step, while, when you turn it really slow, very small steps are taken. The longer the focal length, the smaller the steps seem to be to deal with the lower depth-of-field. Pretty smart.
A nice side effect is, that the focus ring of course doesn't turn during AF and that full-time-manual-override is possible. The focus ring itself is perfectly usable.
The focus-ring feels exceptionally smooth and the zoom, even if a bit more "uneven", is great, too.
Not Canon-L-standard, but great for this price-class.
Plastic filter thread.
"MSC" is Olympus' version of an Ultrasonic-AF-motor, extremely fast and nearly completely silent. Fulltime manual override is possible. It doesn't "feel" as fast as on Canon DSLRs, but this is due to the system itself and not a fault of the motor: Contrast-AF (used in all cameras that focus relying on the sensor-image), while being absolutely precise, in comparison to phase-detection-AF used in most DSLRs, does not "know" in which direction to focus, so it always moves in both directions (near and far) before it locks, while in most situations, when focus isn't completely off, DSLRs at once turn in the right direction, but don't have such a high precision. AF-fine-tuning (or Micro-Focus-Adjustment, MFA, as Canon calls it) simply isn't necessary on mFT.
It's really great to have such a small and light construction with such a good feeling nonetheless, only the plastic mount seems to be a problem.
The Panasonic is even better built, but not worth the price-difference when new (€ 300,- vs. € 150,- at this moment on Amazon).
ERGONOMICS
As already mentioned, it is extremely small and light, especially for it focal length range. Size DOES matter, also see Lenses: What's important? so this is a real plus. It's size and weight alone would justify owning it for me, if the Panasonic wouldn't be even smaller. It is so small and light, that you can always bring it, even if you know, that you most likely will not need it. It fits in the pocket of a coat or in any bag I can think of.
It feels very good in every postion.
The lens extends significantly with zooming, but front does not turn when focussed, so the use of grads and polarizers is a joy. The 58mm - filters are very common and easy to get used.
There is no focus-scale, which would make no sense anyway, because of the progressive actuation of the AF - motor, see "mechanics", and no infrared-focus-indices or depth-of-field-scale.
Zoom- and manual-focus-rings feel very good, smooth and tight and even slightly dampened. The focus-ring is big enough to give you a good feel and grip and is in the right position.
Fulltime manual focus override is possible, as it always is on mFT, and you can turn the zoom-ring with one finger.
The main challenge with this lens' ergonomics is it's biggest advantage at the same time: It's size. It may sound odd, but it's actually quite hard to take sharp photos with this lens, even with image stabilization! It's not that it's not sharp itself, but the combination with a small mFT-body is so light, that I can't really hold it as steady as a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with a long tele, weighing 5 to 10 times as much. I usually have a benefit of 4 stops with IS in comparison to the 1/focal-length-rule, but I have a hard time getting a sharp shot at 150mm (300mm equivalent) at 1/250th with this lens on my E-PM2.
Overall: GREAT! But hard to handle.
OPTICS
You can read optical reviews all over the net, e.g. at photozone. Optics of this Olympus lens are very good. It's hard to find a tele-zoom with a similar range and this good for Canon EOS "fulframe", even among the Canon L - lenses for 10 times the price, in fact. This may partly be due to the automatic corrections, mft - bodies do in-camera, but the result is, what counts and what you see in your pictures.
So distortion, vignetting and CAs are low.
The fact, that CAs are visible at all, leads me to the thought, that this aberration may be uncorrected by my PEN, what would be quite strange, because this is easy to do in fact, but when corrected, it should be absolutely zero. It's near, one pixel at max with this lens. I'd always correct this in postprocessing, otherwise it annoys me.
The minimum focus distance is 0.9m, so at 150mm, the maximum magnification is aprox. 1:3.5 and as such very good, making a special macro-lens obsolete in most cases, at least on paper. In reality, I find the 0.9m still too much in some cases, especially at the short end. This may be because I have to hold my PEN in front of me because of the lacking finder, so that I "loose" half a meter of distance e.g. in the zoo... But maybe I'm an idiot.
The aperture is made of 7 rounded blades, giving you smooth bokeh and out-of-focus highlights with great 14-ray-light-stars, if you manage to get some at all. The smaller sensor of mft - cameras leads to a lot more depth-of-field than you would expect for the field-of-view provided and being used to 35mm film, because depth-of-field is always the same for a lens with a certain focal length and aperture, so is the same here as any 40-150mm 1:4-5.6 lens would provide on "fullframe". Therefore, it is a bit more difficult to blurr the background on mft, but with this lens, it diminishes nicely from around 80mm on wide open.
This lens is very usable for infrared-photography, it produces no hotspot under any conditions.
Flare, is nothing to worry about with this lens. While I think, that a lens less prone to flare and especially ghosting is not always better, as at least ghosts can be a very nice tool to show the lighting conditions in your pictures, this 40-150mm flares slightly and produces some ghosts with a bright source of light in or just outside the frame, but not at all on an annoying level. You can shoot directly into the sun and if you don't melt your sensor, the pictures look great all the time, with just some green ghosts in the opposite corner of the photo. I think, the relaively small front - element helps a lot here. I use this lens for a while now and I don't have one single shot, that is really blown out from flare - it doesn't "glow out" like many new kit-lenses, which can't handle simple candles without loosing contrast.
It's color reproduction seems to match most of my other lenses, despite some old Sigmas.
Sharpness is one of the most overrated qualities of lenses. That being said, this lens is very sharp for it's range. It's sharpness is really very good in the center even on 16MP. The borders and corners of the image are nearly as sharp as the center at all settings. The most remarkable thing is, that is does not get worse on the long end! Only the corners get a tiny bit worse at 150mm, on a level only visible when compared at 100% side-by-side, and the corners are irrelevant at such long focal lengths anyway. Even the Canon EF 70-200L USM 1:4 a friend owns is only marginally sharper on his 5D (classic, Mark I), with just a bit more contrast. WOW.
The Panasonic 45-150, while the same in the center, is even a bit sharper at the image-borders, which is even more remarkable, as it is smaller.
It really is astonishing, in what optical quality Olympus and Panasonic manage to built their lenses for these prices and sizes.
Here are some samples:
100% Crop from 16MP JPG, E-PM2, 92mm, f/5 (wide open).
100% Crop from 16MP JPG, E-PM2, 150mm, f/5.6 (wide open).
Bokeh, 90mm f/5.6, closed-down slightly.
Light enough to simply have it with you if it counts...
On mFt, stopping down usually, at least with lenses this slow, doesn't really help sharpness, because due to the smaller sensor, diffraction, meaning the purely physical effect of softening when closing the aperture, that has nothing to do with the lens' quality, already starts to become visible from around f/5.6 on, while it is f/8 or f/11 on APS-C and "fullframe". These lenses are still perfectly usable at f/11, of course, but already getting weaker.
Astonishing, really!
Alternatives
I'm not that deep in the mft - lineup as I am, for example, regarding Canon EF - lenses. There seem to be a lot of alternatives, especially by Olympus when adapted from fourthirds. All of these lenses are a huge lot bigger, so I'd always pick this one. But there is the Panasonic 45-150mm, which is even better in regard to the only point that counts for me, the only reason to own mFT-equipment at all: Size. So I'd always buy the Panasonic.
The only exceptions to this conclusion might be
- if you're on an extremely tight budget and want the cheapest possible lens, even if the difference is "only" € 50,- or
- if you want the Olympus for it's outer appearance - it looks a lot better with Olympus bodies and a lot more like a "classic" photographic lens or
- if you insist in buying new, what I could understand really well. Then the Panasonic is more than double the price of this Oly and no, it isn't worth such a difference.
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