If you only ever need 150mm, the 40-150/f2.8 will probably give you better results. It has a faster aperture, which gives you more flexibility, and when stopped down to f/4 is sharper at 150mm than the Panasonic-Leica is (79 lp/mm vs. ~61 lp/mm) as it's closer to wide open. The only other control is a lens function button to which you can assign one of many functions, such as one-shot white balance, focus peaking, and a focus limiter. However, the functions available depend on your camera, not the lens. The lens barrel is constructed from a combination of metal and high quality plastics, with a glossy finish and the bayonet is metal with a rubber gasket to prevent the ingress of dust and moisture into the camera body. Despite the robust build and the telephoto range covered this lens only weighs 760g. As far as size and handling are concerned, this lens is a perfect match Micro Four Thirds cameras with a deep grip, such as the Panasonic Lumix G6, but it can feel a little unwieldy on smaller bodies, such as the Olympus OM-D E-M5 used for testing, when used without the optional grip. Of course, such a lens does come with some built-in downsides. While it’s absurdly light for a zoom of its capabilities, it’s still a big heavy lens by most other measures. Therefore, its leave-at-home factor is higher than the smaller, less capable Olympus 40-150mm F4 Pro. And, of course, the Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 is one of Olympus’s more expensive lenses. I have neither the Leica 50-200 nor the Oly 40-150 Pro, but I have had some experience using similar focal lengths for shooting kids soccer games. When they were young, my cheap 40-150 R was sufficient to capture the field, but when they got older, it was too short (because the fields got bigger). I tried the Pana 45-200 but didn't like it that much. I ended up with the 4/3rd ZD 50-200 SWD + EC-14. With or without the teleconverter, this lens is the winner. I chose it primarily because the 40-150 Pro would have been too short, and adding the MC-14 would have made the high cost even higher (four years ago when it was new). The used 50-200 SWD was much less expensive, and gave me great results with my EM1. With the EC-14, I could reach across the field, as they got bigger.

Ok... so I'm not sure that I made it clear with my prior post, but I find that the ZD 50-200 f2.8-3.5 ED + EC-14 is a superior optical combination over the mZD 40-150 f2.8 PRO + MC-20 (for my copies at least) . The focusing was swift and quiet, the optical stabilisation achieved up to six stops in my tests, and like all of Panasonic and Leica’s collaborations, the build quality is excellent with smooth mechanics and a weather-sealed body; and once again, that relatively compact barrel means it’ll squeeze into bags or pouches that other telephotos may struggle with. 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. Corner-to-corner sharpness is also tremendously good, with almost no change in sharpness from center softness at every focal length. The blur characteristics are very flat. For all intents and purposes, this lens is sharp, everywhere, all the time from ƒ/2.8 to around ƒ/11-ƒ/16, where we see minor diffraction softness coming into play.The 12-100 is a compromise. A great lens, by all accounts, but still a compromise. You already state very clearly that you find this lens slow. I think you might find it a compromise too far. Many of the posters state that they use the 12-100 more than the 12-40 when they own both. I would totally expect this. Much more of my shooting is in good light than indoors or in poor light. When it gets it right the 40-150mm f2.8 produces stunningly sharp detail. This time set to S-AF mode with the light fading, but still bright enough to shoot wide open at 200 ISO with the stabilisation enabled. With the focus ring in its normal position, manual focusing works just like it does on any other Micro Four Thirds lens. In MF, S-AF+MF or C-AF+MF mode – as set on the camera – you can simply grab the focus ring and rotate it to focus on your subject. In this position, the focus ring has no stops, hard or soft, at either end of the focus range – which is again typical of an MFT lens. If you shoot a lot of fast action in varying amounts of light, the twice-as-bright 40-150mm F2.8 Pro is more likely to get the shot while keeping those image-degrading ISO’s low. So I would say if you want a good closeup lens, the 40-150 Pro and a TC option is great, for sharpness differences at or around 200mm, any differences are minimal, aside for a slightly faster shutter speed.

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. The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm f2.8 Pro is a high-end telephoto zoom for the Micro Four Thirds system – as such it’ll work on any modern Panasonic or Olympus body. It was originally teased in September 2013 at the launch of the OMD EM1 and 12-40mm f2.8 Pro zoom, but took a whole year to finally come to market, officially being announced during Photokina in September 2014. As on the M.Zuiko 12-40mm f2.8 Pro, the focus ring can be used in one of two modes. A manual focus clutch mechanism is engaged by snapping the focus ring rearward, which also reveals a focus scale marked on the lens barrel. In this mode the lens is focused mechanically with physical stops at either end of the range. In the forward position the scale is obscured, you can still manually focus, as long as the camera is in MF mode, but turning the ring focuses by wire using the AF motors. The MC-14 extends the focal length to 210mm at the 150mm end, causing the angle of view to shrink to 5.8°, equivalent to that of a 420mm lens on a 35mm camera. Focusing

Ease of Use

Whether this is a sensible trade-off depends on your photography. If you shoot moving subjects in poor light, the twice-as-bright F2.8 will give you more light at faster shutter speeds, ideal for avoiding motion blur and noisy high ISOs. And because it passes more light, autofocus tends to work better.

I've had that debate internally for many months, hesitating to make to plunge either way. Panny zooms don't interest me so bother bringing them up. Similar to vignetting, geometric distortion is practically nonexistent on this lens. At all focal lengths, the level of barrel distortion sits just a hair above the zero mark. If you're looking for a distortion-free zoom lens for portraiture, for example, or don't want to stretch or crop your images with distortion correction post-processing, the 40-150mm ƒ/2.8 is a clear winner. You want a sharp zoom lens? You got it. The Olympus 40-150mm lens is not only stunningly sharp by zoom lens standards, but also sharp by prime lens standards. And this is wide open at ƒ/2.8 at practically every other focal length. So while the 40-150 lens is very sharp wide open at all focal lengths, our graphs indicate an extremely subtle drop in sharpness at 150mm ƒ/2.8. It's so minimal, though, that it will most likely not impact real-world shooting at all.

I'm seeing some artifacts and weirdness in places, but it's a pretty interesting result. It's nice to know it's there, but I'm not going to bank on using this very often at all. I can't stomach the storage requirements for something like this. With the lens set to its maximum aperture, you can see some light fall-off in the corners but it will not be overly noticeable in your real-life photos.