Olympus 40-150mm f/4-5.6 ED M.Zuiko Digital

SLRgear Review
March 7, 2011
by Andrew Alexander

Olympus has produced a 40-150mm zoom lens for some time, but not in the M.Zuiko mount; introduced near the end of 2010, the Olympus 40-150mm ƒ/4-5.6 M.Zuiko makes an excellent companion to the 14-42mm kit lens.

The Olympus 40-150mm ƒ/4-5.6 M.Zuiko produces an effective field of view of 80-300mm when mounted on a compatible camera body. The micro four-thirds format will restrict compatible bodies to micro four-thirds mounts only; anything else would cause vignetting.

This lens isn't a ''constant'' lens, in that as you increase the focal length, the widest aperture is restricted (showing a higher f-number). The following table reflects the changes:

The Olympus 40-150mm ƒ/4-5.6 zoom lens takes 58mm filters and is available in a package with the E-PL2 camera, or separately for around $300.

Sharpness
The 40-150mm ƒ/4-5.6 offers very good performance, more to the wider range of its focal lengths than the telephoto.

Used wide open at its wider angle (ƒ/4 and 40mm), the lens offers decently sharp performance, with some light corner softness in the lower right hand side; given that this corner softness will change its position between settings, it's not unreasonable to assume this sample of the lens shows some signs of de-centering. Stopping down at 40mm produces an slight improvement in sharpness, getting almost tack-sharp if not for the right side. Sharpness performance is essentially as good at ƒ/5.6 as it is at ƒ/8, and diffraction limiting sets in after that; a reduction in sharpness isn't really evident until ƒ/16.

The mid-range of the lens (49-70mm) is where this lens really shines best, offering good performance wide open (except for a slightly soft left corner), and tack-sharp performance when stopped down to ƒ/5.6. Again, performance is excellent all the way to ƒ/11, where diffraction limiting has set in.

The telephoto end of the lens (100-150mm) feels somewhat tacked on, as the dramatic sharpness noted in the mid-range isn't really apparent here. Sharpness is still very good, but doesn't hit the sharpest levels found at wider focal lengths. At 100mm the lens still produces very sharp results at ƒ/8; at 150mm, the best it can produce is found at ƒ/8, but it's just not as sharp.

Fully stopped-down performance isn't great, but not as terrible as we've seen in some other lenses, probably because the lens is limited to ƒ/22 at all focal lengths.

Chromatic Aberration
There's some light magenta-blue fringing in areas of high contrast, noticeable most at the wide end (40mm). In the mid-range CA is fairly controlled, and only slightly evident at the telephoto end (150mm).

Shading (''Vignetting'')
Corner shading isn't a real problem with this lens; the most noteworthy lens setting that produces any light falloff at all would be 150mm at ƒ/5.6, where the extreme corners are 1/3EV darker than the center. At any other setting, the falloff is less than that.

Distortion
There's some light distortion evident in photographs taken with the 40-150mm; some barrel (bloated) distortion less than 70mm, and pincushion (squeezed) distortion between 70mm and 150mm. There is a nice point of parity just shy of 70mm where there is essentially zero distortion.

Autofocus Operation
The Olympus 40-150mm ƒ/4-5.6 M.Zuiko is very fast to autofocus, taking less than a second to go through its entire focusing range. The lens adopts the new MSC (Movie & Still Compatible) design, making it ideal for use in both still and video applications. The front element does not rotate when focusing, making life that much easier for polarizer users.

Macro
The lens isn't a dedicated macro lens, producing just 0.16x magnification. The minimum close-focusing distance is just under three feet (96cm). However, Olympus seems to have noted the absence of any macro options for the PEN series, and has developed a bayonet-mount macro adapter, the Macro Lens Converter (MCON-58). Using this adapter reduces the minimum close-focusing range to just 24cm (around 9 inches) on certain lenses (possibly including this one, but Olympus' press information doesn't make it clear); there doesn't seem to be any information at the time of writing concerning what magnification is offered by the adapter.

Build Quality and Handling
The Olympus 40-150mm ƒ/4-5.6 M.Zuiko is an all-plastic lens, quite small given the design parameters of the micro four-thirds system. The lens features a matte black finish with a silver band by the lens mount. A silver-barrelled version is also available. The plastic filter threads take 58mm filters, and the body mount is also plastic. There is no distance scale, and neither is there a depth-of-field scale.

The zoom ring is an inch wide, plastic with alternating raised ribs sections that run lengthwise to the lens. The ring turns about 90 degrees through its range of focal lengths, and is quite easy to turn. There is some significant lens extension as the lens is zoomed out towards the tele end; specifically, the lens almost doubles its length from 3 1/4'' to 5 3/4'' when zoomed out to 150mm. Zoom creep isn't a factor with this lens.

The focus ring is located at the end of the lens, an indented plastic ring that's a half-inch wide. The ring is a fly-by-wire design, controlling focus electronically, so there are no hard stops at either the infinity or close-focus ends. It's not the most friendly of manual focus designs, but the 100% magnification on the LCD really helps nail an accurate focus. Given that focus is electronically controlled, you can assign the direction of focus to be either left or right. The front element doesn't turn during focusing operations.

Our sample didn't ship with the LH-61D lens hood, which is a circular-shaped, bayonet mounted model that appears to be able to reverse onto the lens for storage.

Alternatives

Olympus 40-150mm ƒ/4-5.6 ED Zuiko Digital ~$280
The existing Olympus 40-150mm is usable on the E-P1 with an adapter, and while we can't guarantee the performance (not having used this lens/adapter combination ourselves) the micro four-thirds 40-150mm does appear to be noticeably sharper than the four-thirds version, and CA is noticeably less prominent as well. However, we might well be looking at an apples-to-oranges comparison here, as the use of an adapter could significantly affect how the image is created in a regular four-thirds camera.

Panasonic 45-200mm ƒ/4-5.6 MEGA O.I.S. LUMIX G VARIO ~$300
The Panasonic 45-200mm offers similar performance to the Olympus 40-150mm, with the addition of a slightly longer telephoto end. While CA is very slight on a Panasonic body, it's possible that when mounted on an Olympus body CA could be more prominent (as could distortion), as these results are adjusted automatically by the cameras.

Olympus 75-300mm ƒ/4.8-6.7 ED M.Zuiko Digital ~$900
The 75-300mm was announced with the original PEN (E-P1), and while we haven't yet tested it, it definitely makes an interesting alternative if you're looking for a telephoto option for your micro-four-thirds body.

Conclusion
The Olympus 40-150mm ƒ/4-5.6 M.Zuiko fared well in our tests, offering excellent performance up to 100mm, and above-average performance at 150mm. For the PEN system user looking for a portable telephoto option to supplement the 14-42mm kit lens, they should look no further.

Product Photos

Sample Photos

The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We shoot both images using the default JPEG settings and manual white balance of our test bodies, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens.

Still Life shot

VFA target

As appropriate, we shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame bodies, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and ƒ/8. For the ''VFA'' target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots launch in separate windows.