Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 PRO Lens Review

Important Note:

1. I am an Olympus Malaysia employee. 

2. This is a user experience based review, based on my personal opinion which can be subjective.

3. All images were shot in RAW and converted directly to JPEG (High Quality) via Olympus Viewer 3.

4. General camera settings, Noise Filter = OFF, Contrast/Saturation/sharpness = 0, White Balance = Auto (with an option maintain warm color = OFF), Gradation = Normal

5. Minimal post-processing applied to the images, with slight brightness/contrast balance tweak. All images were almost as good as straight out of camera, with minimal cropping for better presentation.

Finally, the review sample for the long awaited Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 PRO lens has arrived, and I have found some time to go out and shoot loads of images with it. This marks the release of the second M,Zuiko Pro lens line-up, the first being the M.Zuiko 12-40mm F2.8. 

Here is a super brief summary of the key highlights of M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 PRO lens:

1) Very Small and Lightweight telephoto zoom lens - half the size and weight of Canon and Nikon's 70-200mm F2.8 lenses

2) Full Weather Sealing - splashproof, dustproof and freezeproof

3) Superb, sophisticated optics design - featuring 5 ED (Extra Low Dispersion) elements, one super ED lens, one EDA (extra low dispersion aspherical) lens and one HR (high refractive index and dispersion) lens. 

4) World's first Dual Voice Coil Motor (VCM) Focusing Mechanism, for super fast AutoFocus

5) Great Close-Up Shooting Capability, almost pseudo macro - minimum focusing distance at 50cm from the front element of the lens, with magnification of 0.41x. 

If you have not read my full introduction to the M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 Pro lens, kindly do so here (click) before proceeding with this blog entry. 

You may find the full specification of the lens at Olympus' official site here (click). 

I have written previously about the key highlights of the pro lens and my initial thoughts. I will not be repeating myself again here and in this particular blog entry I will jump straight into discussing the results and findings I have gathered based on my 2 full day shooting experience with the M.Zuiko 40-150mm Pro lens. For my review images, I have used the OM-D E-M1 body, with the HLD-7 battery grip holder attached to it at all times. Unfortunately I do not have the new telecoverter MC-14 with me at this moment, and I shall be testing the teleconverter separately in near future. 

So what did I do with the lens for the past 2 days?

I went to Zoo Negara, since it was the easiest access I have for animals, or anything resembling wildlife, which I believe this lens will be used for. Considering I grew up in a city/urban environment there is no way I am venturing into the jungle and get eaten by snakes. Or crocodiles. So I figured zoo would be the best place to try out the general capabilities of the M.Zuiko 40-150mm Pro, and they even had a newly opened butterfly garden inside the zoo, which was convenient for me to test the close up shooting ability of the lens. The second day was spent shooting portraiture, which I must say I am not very good at. I seldom shoot an arranged portrait of a model, but I do have experience shooting strangers on the street. I don't think zooming in across the street would do my lens test any good, and this lens is just not the right lens for the usual street shooting tasks. Therefore I arranged a model, Nicole whom I have worked with before in an Olympus event, and spent half a day blasting the shutter away on her. I have also walked around the city area with this lens, shooting whatever that caught my attention. 

150mm, 1/640sec, F2.8, ISO500

150mm, 1/1000sec, F2.8, ISO1600

150mm, 1/1250sec, F2.8, ISO3200

150mm, 1/250sec, F4, ISO200

135mm, 1/400sec, F4, ISO200

150mm, 1/640sec, F2.8, ISO500

130mm, 1/100sec, F4, ISO640

LENS SHARPNESS

Let's start with something that everyone wants to know about the lens: how sharp is the M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 Pro lens?

Looking at the MTF chart, the sharpness of this lens surpasses even the legendary Super High Grade ZD 150mm F2, and my expectation was indeed very high. I have shot enough images to conclude that the M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 Pro is extremely sharp, even at wide open aperture F2.8. The amout of fine detail this lens is able to resolve is amazing, with plenty of micro-contrast. Every single image I have shot with this lens came out richly detailed and there were a few moments I thought I was actually seeing results similar to what I would expect coming from the M.Zuiko 75mm F1.8 lens! 

Shooting at wide 40mm, all the way to 150mm, the lens showed no sign of softness, and I had a difficult time figuring which focal length was the optimum (I gave up). And like all Olympus M.Zuiko lenses the lens is already very sharp at wide open aperture F2.8, and it is even better at F3.5 and F4, which I often stopped down to when shooting subjects in near distance to achieve sufficient depth of field. The sharpness is also uniform from edge to edge of the frame, showing no corner softness. 

I know for sure that this lens is sharper than the 45mm f1.8, even without doing any side by side comparison. However, I would be very intrigued to find out if it performs better than the highly regarded 75mm F1.8 lens, perhaps in another blog extension of this review which I do intend to do (the review extension is now updated, go here)

You will see from the many 100% crops shown in this blog that Olympus is second to none when producing high performance zoom lenses. 

QUALITY OF BOKEH

One of the big advantages of using a long lens is the ability to render shallower depth of field, blurring the background off, allowing for subject isolation from cluttered environment, if necessary. The quality of the M.Zuiko 40-150mm Pro lens' bokeh does not disappoint, creating creamy, buttery smooth blurred out of focus area. The subjects in focus was easily "popped" out of the bokeh background, and looking three-dimensional. 

150mm, 1/250sec, F4.5, ISO200

100% crop from previous image

150mm, 1/320sec, F2.8, ISO500

100% from previous image

150mm, 1/320sec, F2.8, ISO500

150mm, 1/250sec, F2.8, ISO800

100% Crop from previous image

150mm, 1/400sec, F5, ISO500

100% crop from previous image

150mm, 1/500sec, F3.5, ISO200

150mm, 1/640sec, F3.5, ISO200

150mm, 1/500sec, F4.5, ISO200

AUTOFOCUS PERFORMANCE

In this session, I have only managed to test out the Single-Focusing (S-AF) of the lens. I shall make a note to try out the continuous focusing (with tracking) capability in near future. 

The focusing, was blazing fast. The M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 PRO did not show any hesitation, grabbing focus almost instantaneously in all shots. The focusing was definitely faster than what I have experienced from shooting with the older Zuiko Digital 50-200mm F2.8-3.5 in E-5 previously. It was fast to focus from far to near (and vice versa) and there was not much difference noticed shooting at various focal lengths. The focusing just works, and never failed me even once. (if it did, it was my own error, placing the focusing point at wrong area). The fast focusing was achieved by the Dual VCM (Voice Coil Motor) mechanism built into the lens, having two separate motors to drive the many glasses inside the lens for fast focusing. Whatever that was, it worked very well. 

Some examples from the zoo shooting session, the tiger, both swimming in water, and walking on land, were moving rather fast. I just kept refocusing (half-press shutter button, until I heard the "teet-teet" AF confirmation sound) and I managed to get all shots in focus, even when the tigers were moving rapidly. Similarly was done for the butterflies, as they did not stay still on the flowers at all, they were floating and moving around and I had to constantly refocus to ensure images were not out of focus. An important note: you must quickly (instantly, with no delay) fully press the shutter button once you have heard the "teet-teet" sound. If you waited even for half a second, the insect or animal may have moved a few inches away from the locked AF area and your images will be soft. 

Not only was the lens superbly fast, the focusing accuracy was admirable. I do not see much focusing errors, and even if there was, it happened so rarely that it was negligible. The main contributing factor to sharp images is focusing accuracy, and many DSLRs actually do suffer from back and front focusing issues, since they utilize phase-detect AF system. In theory (and proven in practice now that I have so many images here to show) the contrast detect yields much higher accuracy in focusing, which Micro Four Thirds system is using. You can just touch the screen (touch AF to shoot immediately) to focus, or take images instantly, and you will realize how fast the focusing is.

Another item worth mentioning, the focusing was completely silent!

CLOSE UP SHOOTING CAPABILITIES

The M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 Pro lens is able to shoot at minimum focusing distance of 50cm from the front of the lens to the subject, which is very respectable for a tele-zoom lens of this category. Rival competitor's lenses can only do 1.2-1.5m closest focusing distance. Having such close shooting distance allows interesting tele-macro shots, and it was indeed interesting to see this lens able to shoot up to 0.41x magnification factor. 

Although this is not a macro lens, which it is not intended to be, the close up shooting is a huge welcome, and a long tele close up shot can be quite interesting, creating very compressed shot with very little background, amplifying the subject isolation. I could go very near to the subjects, for example the butterfly shots, as well as the few images as shown after this paragraph. One disadvantage of using long lens for close up shooting is the need to narrow down the aperture to achieve more depth of field, which is often an issue (not having enough zone in focus). The longer you zoom and the nearer you are to the subject the shallower the depth of field. 

45mm, 1/50sec, F2.8, ISO400

150mm, 1/40sec, F4, ISO1250

40mm, 1/40sec, F8, ISO500

150mm, 1/160sec F3.5, ISO800

100% crop from previous image

64mm, 1/25sec, F2.8, ISO1600

150mm, 1/800sec, F5.6, ISO200

85mm, 1/800sec, F5.6, ISO200

48mm, 1/200sec, F5.6, ISO200

100% Corner Crop from previous image

100% corner crop from previous image

LENS HANDLING

The M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 Pro lens is perhaps the largest and heaviest of all M.Zuiko lenses up to date. Nevertheless, you acquire a long reach equivalent to 300mm in 35mm format, and a constant F2.8 aperture opening throughout the zoom range. The lens also has internal focusing and zooming mechanism, meaning the lens does not extend, or rotate when zooming and focusing. An equivalent offering from whichever DSLR equivalent lens would be far larger than this, and surely weigh much heavier (at least twice as heavy). 

The lens is very well built, feeling solid and confident in hand. The build quality is top notch, and the design is in-line with the "Pro" line-up, very similar as the M.Zuiko 12-40mm F2.8 Pro lens. 

I knew that handling this lens, I will need the HLD-7 Battery Grip Holder on the OM-D E-M1, and I was not wrong. With the HLD-7, the lens felt comfortable to hold, and I was using the lens and camera combo for full day shooting. The lens did not feel out of balance with this setup, and I could stabilize my shots even shooting at shutter speeds slower than my comfort zone. If you are using this lens on E-M1 and E-M5, please make sure you have the HLD-7 or HLD-6 battery grip pack on the camera for better handling. Trust me, you need that extra grip. 

OTHER TECHNICALITIES

It is quite difficult to find fault in the M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 Pro lens. There is no noticeable distortion which could have been software corrected. Also, there was no trace of Chromatic Aberration found, which was indeed amazing, even at high contrast shooting conditions (the water splashes frozen in mid air, for example), which normally would produce ugly purple and green fringing. Again, this could be due to the superior Truepic 7 image processing engine, optimizing the technical corrections in camera. Whatever the method was, I was happy to view images optimized straight out of the camera, with minimal or no need to do my own post-processing to compensate or correct the lens flaws. 

SHOOTING PORTRAIT 

I must admit right from the beginning I am not a good portrait photographer and I seldom do portrait shooting, not the ones that are arranged. Yes I do shoot strangers on the street but those were completely different scenarios and most of the time the street portraits were mostly spontaneous I did not have to do much but just shoot whatever I found on the street. Arranged model shooting is still new to me, but I told myself to take up the challenge and do it for the review of this lens. So yes, my portrait images may not be as good as expected, but view them in the interest of finding out how this lens performs, instead of me exercising my poor portraiture shooting skills. 

I have always favored long lenses for portrait shooting (any type), mainly due to the background compression effect, giving me less background to work with, and producing cleaner, less cluttered image with more ease. Also, the longer the lens is, the better the ability to render background blur (shallow depth of field) which is flattering for most portrait shoots especially done outdoor. I was fortunate to have Nicole with me! She was such an awesome model to work with. 

150mm, 1/60sec, F2.8, ISO320

150mm, 1/400sec, F2.8, ISO500

100mm, 1/500sec, F2.8, ISO500

150mm, 1/400sec, F4, ISO500

100% Crop from previous image

150mm, 1/1600sec, F2.8, ISO500

150mm, 1/200sec, F2.8, ISO500

150mm, 1/400sec, F2.8, ISO200

100% Crop from previous image

150mm, 1/400sec, F2.8, ISO500

115mm, 1/160sec, F2.8, ISO500

150mm, 1/400sec, F2.8, ISO500

100% Crop from previous image

75mm, 1/640sec, F2.8, ISO200

97mm, 1/500sec, F2.8, ISO200

As usual I am providing you with FULL RESOLUTION images (JPEG, converted straight from RAW in Olympus Viewer 3), for your pixel peeping pleasure. 

M.ZUIKO 40-150mm F2.8 PRO SAMPLE IMAGES DOWNLOAD (CLICK)

I acknowledge that there are several important aspects which I have not tested for this lens:

1) Using the 1.4x  Teleconvertor MC-14

2) Continuous AF with tracking ability - I did not have the right environment to test this (no, I am not going to ask Nicole to run toward me, that is too.... weird). 

3) Comparison with at least one or two M.Zuiko prime lenses (45mm F1.8 and 75mm F1.8 come in mind)

All of the above, I do intend to do in my coming review extension. 

So is this M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 Pro lens near perfect? It certainly is. I am scratching my head hard to find the flaws, which, honestly I dare say, is almost non-existent. The lens is incredibly sharp, capable of capturing amazing amount of fine detail, with almost no technical imperfections (well controlled Chromatic Aberration, distortion, etc). The bokeh quality is excellent, and handling with E-M1 (using HLD-7) is great. Focusing was extremely fast and accurate, with respectable close up shooting performance. You have all that in a pro lens, which is weather sealed against the elements, in much lesser size and weight than competition. Furthermore  it is about 20-25% cheaper too. 

What do I wish this lens could be better? 

My only wish, which is a bit of a stretch, is for a longer reach of maybe 200mm instead of 150mm. I do not mind having to start at 50mm or 70mm, but having a default 200mm longest reach would make a world of difference for many photographers who appreciate it. Also, perhaps, an F2 constant aperture zoom lens? I know that by the laws of physics, demanding a longer reach and wider aperture can only mean much larger and heavier lenses. But hey, I want to believe that Olympus can do it, and they have been doing the right things in their lenses recently. 

At this moment in my personal scoring system (well, this is very subjective, so I am declaring this personal), M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 is the BEST Micro Four Thirds lens ever!!

150mm, 1/8000sec, F2.8, ISO640

125mm, 1/160sec, F2.8, ISO800

I will work on the extension of this review soonest possible. Stay tuned for updates! 

UPDATE THE REVIEW EXTENSION IS PUBLISHED (click here). 

Special thanks to Nicole (the beautiful model)

If you have found this review useful, kindly consider purchasing Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 PRO lens from B&H (click here). 

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