Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm F4-5.6R with the LH-61D Hood
This is the cheapest zoom lens you can find in the Micro
Four Thirds system of mirrorless cameras, and I got this for a super low $99
from bhphotovideo. In my country, India,
this lens retails for about 19000INR ($283), which is just incredible and this
was the reason why I went on to order this from the US. Being a cheap lens,
this lens didn’t really make me expect a lot in terms of sharpness or color but
I didn’t know that I was in for a surprise.
BUILD & DESIGN
It sports an all plastic construction including the rear
mount and there isn’t anything fancy about this lens design either. It is a
generic lens and for this price that’s all it needs to be.
It is as generic as it gets. Monstrous hood though.
Plastic Mount and the Rear Lens Element
Front Element with my Pet Fungus
The moment I unboxed
this lens, I knew why this lens is sold at these prices. It’s tiny and weighs
just 220 grams. The lens extends to almost twice its normal size but it was
okay.
"Excite me and I'll go the extra mile"
(Check the photo comparing the lens to my good old 4.7”
Nexus4)
Like I said, its tiny
AUTO FOCUS
I was not expecting much from this lens in terms of AF speed
and maybe that is why I was in for a real
surprise. The AF speed cannot be compared
to the Pro lenses but it's definitely acceptable. The mechanism is silent and this makes video footage great
without any cracking AF noises.
Here is an example of the lenses AF speed and sound during
the video while using on my OM-D
E-M5 Mark 2.
This lens is good for zoom amateur birding as you can see in this video
IMAGE QUALITY (SHARPNESS WILL BE DISCUSSED BELOW THIS)
This is where this lens punches above its weight. It’s
absolutely incredible. It's almost
unbelievably sharp and if I’m post processing,
I can get sharper images without making the photo like an obvious over-sharpened mess. Here are some examples from
out of the camera jpegs.
150mm, F8, 1/125, ISO-200, +0.3
Crop of the above
150mm, F8, 1/160, ISO-200, +0.3
Crop of the above
150mm, F8, 1/200, ISO-200, +0.3
150mm, F9, 1/250, ISO-1250
150mm, F5.6, 1/100, ISO-200
Crop of the above
150mm, F7.1, 1/25, ISO-200
Crop of the Above
150mm, F7.1, 1/40, ISO-200
150mm, F8, 1/320, ISO-200
Crop of the above
150mm, F7.1, 1/160, ISO-200
150mm, F7.1, 1/800, ISO-200
Crop of the above
150mm, F7.1, 1/400, ISO-200
Crop of the above
The signature Olympus colors are well captured and most of
the time I get a feeling that the lens generally produces warm images, but I
like that tone so it is okay.
These are RAW edited to High Quality Jpegs with Adobe Lightroom.
150mm, F6.3, 1/60s, ISO-200 (cropped image)
150mm, F6.3, 1/40s, ISO-200 (cropped image)
150mm, F6.3, 1/100s, ISO-200
Crop of the above
111mm, F8, 1/50s, ISO-200
Crop of the above
150mm, F6.3, 1/160s, ISO-200
150mm, F7.1, 1/50s, ISO-200
Crop of the above
150mm, F5.6, 1/250s, ISO-200
Crop of the above
150mm, F7.1, 1/80s, ISO-200
Crop of the above
But not everything is excellent and the times the lens shows its cheap optics are when we shoot subjects that are far away and the subject that don't cover most of the frame. But at the same time, its not a day and night difference but it is noticeable if you have used any of the pro pr premium lenses from Olympus or Panasonic.
SHARPNESS
I wanted to write about sharpness after image quality because I want all the readers to first see the kind of images I got with this cheap plastic lens before discussing about the sharpness.
The lens from 40mm to 100mm is sharp even at the maximum possible apertures. But going above 100mm, I choose an aperture at least 1/3rd of a stop slower than the maximum possible to get the best out of the optics. At 150mm, my favorite aperture is F8. At this opening the lens is real sharp and I got considerably sharper images than when I use F5.6. Here is a comparison.
0.7MP Cropped from original 16MP Out of Camera JPEG. Look at the veins of the flower.
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