But the thing is, how many high-performance, weather-sealed, and optically gorgeous 80-300mm F5.6 full-frame lenses are there? Of course, you can buy a similar sized 70-200mm F4 for your full-frame camera, but you lose a 100mm, the metal construction, and the dual-motor autofocus speed. Another alternative is the absurdly compact Nikon AF-S 300mm F4 PF. However, this excellent Nikon won’t zoom. What I'd like to share with everyone is my experience with the new to me Olympus mZD 40-150mm f2.8 Pro + and MC-20 2x converter coming from owning and loving the Olympus ZD 50-200mm f2.8-3.5 ED (non-SWD) + EC-14. It's going to be a lengthy post / rolling review with a few images and may take a couple of days to add some things that I want to share. What I really want to highlight for others is what living with the 40-150 f2.8 is like with the MC-20 and what to expect. I welcome others with this lens + TC to add to my comments and let me know if that's what they have experienced as well. I'm no expert lens reviewer by any imagination and won't be posting shots of newspaper (though I've done that comparison and my real world shooting has confirmed it).

The size of the focus ring is fairly modest compared to the large zoom ring, but this didn’t prove to be a cause for concern in use. Olympus 40-150mm First Look – The best MFT telephoto lens to date? Sell the kit you’re not using to MPB. Trade in for the kit you need to create. Buy used, spend less and get more. Buy. Sell. Trade. Create. For me though, I will be keeping the 40-150 + MC-20 combination even though it's more difficult to get sharp shots, requires more post processing, and is optically inferior. Why would I do this?Both focusing and zooming are fully internal, meaning the lens' optics adjust within the constraints of its outer barrel, so the length of the lens remains the same regardless of zoom and focus settings. The zoom and the focus rings are smooth in action without being loose. The Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 Pro is a high-performance telephoto zoom for micro four-thirds. With a focal length ranging between 40 and 150mm, the Olympus 40-150mm Pro will serve your camera’s sensor an angle-of-view of between 30.2 and 8.2 degrees – similar to that of an 80-300mm lens on a full-frame camera. Read What is Focal Length in Photography. The Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 is excellent for getting close to shy subjects.

MPB puts photo and video kit into more hands, more sustainably. Every month, visual storytellers sell more than 20,000 cameras and lenses to MPB. Choose used and get affordable access to kit that doesn’t cost the earth. I've owned this lens for several years, and together with the M.Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, is one of my two favourite micro four-thirds lenses. I've found it to be reliably sharp wide open, at every focal length. It's 40mm to 150mm range makes it a versatile optical tool. It is competent for bird and animal photography, so long as the subjects are not a long way off. In a limited number of circumstances, it even makes a good landscape lens. All that said, it really excels in portrait and news photography, allowing one to achieve beautiful portraits, head shots, and more. I love the clean detail and accurate eye focus I routinely achieve when taking photos of people using this lens and the E-M1. Finally, in addition to all of its other strengths, the 40-150mm f/2.8 Pro makes for a useful and very sharp close focusing lens. While not a true macro, at 150mm it will focus close enough to allow sharp and detailed images of subjects that might not appreciate closer inspection from true macros, or lenses with shorter focal lengths. The M.ZUIKO Digital ED 40-150mm f/2.8 is a particularly pleasing lens to operate. Everything from its smooth zoom ring to push pull AF/MF ring works well. The zoom ring motion is as smooth at its widest focal length as it is at full telephoto and offers a pleasing fluid motion that I found just a fraction stiffer than AF/MF focus ring. If I have any complaints about this lens, it is the somewhat busy bokeh that can appear in certain images when the lighting and distances conspire in just the right way. I have also found that the retractable lens hood, while very convenient, should be treated with some respect. The hood mechanism definitely doesnt like the kind of fine grit that can accumulate in some sandy and windy locales. That said, the lens seems very comfortable in wet or cold conditions.Storm clouds and drizzle early in the day looked like the perfect conditions for putting the lens’s weather sealing to the test, but the sun broke through in true British fashion so we’ll just have to wait until our final review sample arrives (hopefully in the next few weeks) before we can subject it to a soaking and see how it performs in this respect. The Panny 35-100 F2.8 ii would, for many, get you the range 12-100 F2.8 in a smaller combo, but, since you only want to buy Oly lenses, the two Oly Pro zooms would be my recommendation.

The most obvious alternative to the Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 is the Olympus 40-150mm F4 Pro. While the Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 Pro is more capable thanks to its faster F2.8 aperture and dual AF motors, the much lighter and cheaper Olympus 40-150mm F4 does, broadly speaking, the same thing. https://www.ephotozine.com/article/leica-dg-vario-elmarit-12-60mm-f-2-8-4-0-asph-review-30597#Performance If you take the same lens with the same aperture and focal length and take the same photo with both full-frame and µ4/3rds cameras having the same pixel size, they will have identical depth of field!The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm can be bought on its own, or in a kit with the MC-14, a 1.4x teleconversion lens that goes between the lens and the camera body, as shown in the picture below. Mobility that comes from a fixed-length compact body outfitted with fast aperture lens and splash & dust proof construction The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm f/2.8 Pro telezoom ships with a detachable tripod collar. When attached, it allows camera rotation, eliminating the need to tilt the tripod head for switching from landscape to portrait orientation or vice versa. There are markings on the lens barrel to show 90° rotation points. The size of the foot is well matched to the weight and bulk of the lens. To summarize, I find that the MC-20 at the probably >225mm lengths is going to be better than cropping the bare lens, provided that there is enough light. Maintaining a maximum aperture of f/2.8 across its zoom range, the construction of the lens is made up of 16 elements in 10 groups, with 1 Aspherical ED lens, 2 Aspherical lenses, 1 SED lens, 3 ED lenses and 1 HD lens making up the design.

While not technically a macro lens, the Olympus 40-150mm ƒ/2.8 is rather unique for its close-focusing ability. From the end of the front of the lens, photographers can focus down as close as 20 inches (though considering the length of the lens, the true minimum focus distance to the focal plane is 27.6 inches, or 0.7 meters). This provides a magnification ratio of 0.21x (1:4.8) or 0.42x (1:2.4) in 35mm eq. for some great near-macro shooting capabilities. Nevertheless, the Olympus 40-150mm F/4 Pro is the better lens. The samples and MTF charts show that the F4 lens delivers vastly superior image quality. Furthermore, the Olympus 40 150 F4 Pro benefits from flare and dust-resistant lens coatings while the cheaper lens does not. Source: Olympus But if 150mm is long enough and you typically shoot in good light or static subjects in any light, the tiny Olympus 40-150mm F/4 Pro might be all the lens you need. A little heavy for the m4/3 system but not too much so. Keep in mind it is equivalent to an 80-300 F2.8 full frame angle of view. A collapsible circular hood is supplied with this lens, which does an excellent job of shading the lens from extraneous light that may cause issues with loss of contrast or flare. Even without the hood in place, this lens is very resistant to flare and contrast levels are retained well when shooting into the light.Professional lenses are always expected to be able to survive a bit of a battering from those it’s used by, and there’s nothing to suggest the M.ZUIKO Digital ED 40-150mm f/2.8 will get damaged easily. Even a collision with a solid spectator barrier, albeit a glancing blow, failed to damage the lens in any way during our hands-on experience.