Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-150 mm F4-5.6 II Lens, Universal Zoom, Suitable for All MFT Cameras (Olympus OM-D & PEN Models, Panasonic G-Series), Black

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But if you’re someone that needs an all in one option, then this lens will probably become your best friend. How to read our charts The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column. Why feel obliged to post comment on M4/3 forums, eg negative comparisons , disparaging remarks, messages of doom.

Olympus FT useres have always dreamt of such a Holiday-Lens with good performance, now its real - but not for FT - too bad! Generally, sharp images with this lens are best achieved with the lens in the middle of the zoom range (~50mm). Stopping down to ƒ/8 provides optimal sharpness. small and handy but I am not used to the extreme cheap-construction Level without lens hood and every few month I got dust between the lenses Over the past decade, mirrorless cameras have dramatically changed the landscape in the photographic equipment market. The likes of Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm, Olympus, Panasonic and Sony have built up compelling alternatives for photographers fed up of dealing with the size and weight of DSLRs, but unwilling to sacrifice image quality. Third-party lens manufacturers were initially cautious about producing their own mirrorless lenses, but now there’s a wide selection available, which continues to grow. We give the Olympus 14-150mm f4-5.6 II lens four out of five stars. Want one? B&H Photo has them right here for you. Recommended Cameras and AccessoriesPAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others.

The rear of the E-M5 III is largely unchanged, but some significant changes have been made to both the camera's top plate and the EVF. Tamron has a lot of experience in making superzoom lenses, and the 14-150mm f/3.5-5.8 Di III is a good example of the genre. It’s compact, nicely made and autofocuses well. As usual for this kind of optic it’s something of a compromise, with perfectly decent image quality at wider settings, but slightly less satisfactory results at the long end. Combined with its slow maximum aperture at telephoto, this means that if you expect to shoot distant subjects a lot – sports or wildlife, perhaps – a telezoom would be a better choice. Olympus lenses usually give very solid color rendition, and the this lens is no exception. However, the results are best with the JPEGs that their cameras put out. The lens delivers a fair amount of contrast, though nowhere as much as Sigma or Zeiss do. In Adobe Lightroom, we liked what we got when we applied Alien Skin’s Kodak Ektachrome color profiles to the images. The upshot is that while the Tamron works particularly well on Olympus’s OM-D cameras and Panasonic Micro Four Thirds mirrorless cameras that feature in-body image stabilisation, it’s poorly suited for use on small bodies without viewfinders, such as Panasonic’s GF series. Indeed, most Panasonic owners would be better served by the company’s optically stabilised Lumix G Vario 14-140mm f/3.5-5.8 OIS – a lens that was updated in 2019, adding a degree of splash and dust resistance. Meanwhile, Olympus owners who often shoot in wet conditions should take a look at the weather-sealed M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-150mm f/4-5.6 II. Tamron 14-150mm f/3.5-5.8 Di III review: Focusing Chromatic aberration is quite strong in this lens, but in terms of at what settings you'll notice it, it's all over the map. It's fairly good at 14mm, becoming more noticeable when the lens is stopped down considerably. The best performance (ie., absence of CA) is found at 25mm. At 45mm and greater, CA is strongest with the aperture wide open, and reduces as the lens is stopped down. At 70mm and 100mm, CA is very strong in the corners wide open at ƒ/5.4.So I can presume the Panasonic 14-140mm, specially mkii, is better IQ wise then? (Since it's generally thought to be better than the Oly 14-150). Falloff of illumination towards the corners of the frame is constant throughout the zoom range. Corners are one stop darker than the image centre throughout the zoom range at maximum aperture. Visually uniform illumination is achieved with the aperture stopped down by one stop from maximum throughout the zoom range.

The Olympus 14-150mm f4-5.6 II lens is a really good option for most photographers. It isn’t going to give you the absolute best images, but the images that it delivers are still quite good. If you need a superzoom with weather sealing and a pretty good zoom range, you can’t beat this one. Slap it into your camera and go shooting. You won’t be disappointed; and if you are, you can just fix it in post. The bad news is that the lens hood is an optional extra, but the good news is that many Olympus SLR owners will already have it. The 14-150mm shares the LH-61C hood with the ZD 14-42mm Four Thirds kit lens. For a lens offering a zoom range over 10x, this optic is incredibly compact and lightweight, weighing only 260g. The lens barrel is typical of Olympus' consumer and kit lenses although the lens mount is metal. As a result of its compact size and light weight this lens is a perfect companion for the Panasonic Lumix G3 body used for testing.Travel photographers are the ones that will make the most of this lens’s autofocusing abilities. Ease of Use Everything else looked awesome on the lens, great range, compact and pretty light weight, good build quality (but it’s not IPX rated, that’s advertised only recently for cameras like E-M1 X and Mark III and lenses like Olympus 100-400mm f 5-6.3 and 150-400mm f 4.5 Pro). Manual focusing is possible in a focus-by-wire fashion. This should not put you off using it as it feels pretty natural in use. The focus ring is slim but adequate for the job. Flare For creative photos, this lens seems way ahead of that 18-180 Four Thirds DSLR lens (remember that?) - it is waterproof, it has fast AF, it is not big at all - and for those times when you only want one single lens, not limited to a 25mm prime, again this lens would work as you have shown. The promise of the ZERO (Zuiko Extra-low Reflection Optical) coating applied to the surface of the front element was enhanced resistance to flare and ghosting – and indeed you need to frame your shots in a pretty awful way (see photo above) to see any ghosts or streaking. Our experiment shows that flare effects can definitely be triggered (if you go to great lengths to trigger them, that is) but they aren't likely to raise their ugly heads during normal, everyday shooting – especially if you use a lens hood. Chromatic Aberrations

Shot wide open at wide angle (ƒ/4 at 14mm), the lens shows good results for sharpness, with a good sweet spot in the middle of the frame (~1.5 blur units) falling off to slight corner softness (~2 blur units). Stopping down provides only a marginal gain in sharpness at this focal length at ƒ/5.6, and by ƒ/8 diffraction limiting sets in. By ƒ/11 the corners are creeping up to 3 blur units and the central sweet spot of sharpness is only a small point; by ƒ/16, sharpness is average (~2 blur units in the center, 4 in the corners), and by ƒ/22 the corners are reaching 6 blur units.The only exception would be specific kinds of photography that, for example, require a fast aperture, close focussing/macro capabilities or extreme sharpness. The lens isn’t nearly as compact as some of Olympus’ other offerings but it doesn’t matter as it covers nearly every focal length you’ll ever need. E-M1, 1/1250, f/ 5.4, ISO 200 E-M1, 1/320, f/ 5.6, ISO 1600 E-M1, 1/800, f/ 5.6, ISO 200 Examining the MTF readings from our Applied Imaging tests, we see that the lens gives sharp results in the centre of the frame at 14mm, although the corners are weak. Zoom in to 50mm and sharpness is still very acceptable, becoming more even across the frame. However, at 150mm, images are noticeably softer. Best results are generally obtained at f/5.6-8. Shading One feature missing, though, is built-in optical stabilization, simply because Olympus uses in-body stabilization for its Pen cameras. This means that Panasonic G-series owners won't get any form of stabilization at all with this lens, which is an important consideration for a relatively slow long zoom. This is the key distinction relative to the most obvious alternative, Panasonic's own Lumix G Vario HD 14-140mm F4-5.8 OIS; however the additional complexity of the stabilized lens results in a rather higher price. Let's see how the Olympus performs. Headline features At the 14mm end of the range, the diagonal angle of view is 75 degrees, which is similar to that of a 28mm lens on a 35mm camera.