I received my OM System 40-150mm f4 today. I took a few test shots on my OM-5, and my initial impression is that it is pretty underwhelming at best. I was debating between getting either the OM System 45-150mm f4 or the Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8. I went with the OM System 40-150mm f4 after many folks on other forums recommended it over the Panasonic version.
I'm not a fan of the contrast, bokeh or color rendition. I'm probably going to keep it because I need this focal length for travel. However, I regret not going with the Panasonic version instead. Here's a sample shot taken with this lens on my OM-5:
Sandy, this is a 931x1163, 1.1MP sRGB image that may look genuinely underwhelming as such.
If you provide the raw file via Dropbox or similar, this would help evaluating the image quality.
I have the f2.8 version of this zoom that, while being slightly softer on the wide side, gives very nice image quality on the longer side. I wish I could comment on the F4 zoom but I have no experience with this one. My general concern, whether justified or not, is about the possibility that F4 on FMT is when there is already might be some slight softening due to diffraction. I don't have any scientific evidence to support this, but MFT F4 is equivalent to FF F8 for everything except ISO (or SS). I know from careful testing that on my Sony A1 the peak resolution is reached by F5.6 and I saw slight softening at F8 presumably due to diffraction. If these equivalence considerations are correct then MFT lenses should be similarly slightly affected by diffraction at F4, that may or may not be noticeable on the 20MP sensor. I am probably prejudiced, but I don't like the idea of F4 lenses for MFT in general (except the long telephoto lenses).
I am a pretty amateur photographer. I think your sample picture looks good. It is sharp. I think the color is good, although I was not there when the picture was taken. Is the bokeh not what you like? I bought the 40-150 f4 because it is small, light and sharp. It is wonderful to have a short telephoto that is so easy to carry around.
ruthenium wrote:
Sandy, this is a 931x1163, 1.1MP sRGB image that may look genuinely underwhelming as such.
If you provide the raw file via Dropbox or similar, this would help evaluating the image quality.
I have the f2.8 version of this zoom that, while being slightly softer on the wide side, gives very nice image quality on the longer side. I wish I could comment on the F4 zoom but I have no experience with this one. My general concern, whether justified or not, is about the possibility that F4 on FMT is when there is already might be some slight softening due to diffraction. I don't have any scientific evidence to support this, but MFT F4 is equivalent to FF F8 for everything except ISO (or SS). I know from careful testing that on my Sony A1 the peak resolution is reached by F5.6 and I saw slight softening at F8 presumably due to diffraction. If these equivalence considerations are correct then MFT lenses should be similarly slightly affected by diffraction at F4, that may or may not be noticeable on the 20MP sensor. I am probably prejudiced, but I don't like the idea of F4 lenses for MFT in general (except the long telephoto lenses). ...Show more →
The picture I posted is heavily processed in Photoshop. The original was quite dull. I decided to post this image after editing because the last time I posted a " straight out of camera" image when testing a Pana/Leica 9mm f1.7, everyone provided critiques on how to improve my photo editing skills. My goal was to show a faithfull rendition of images taken with that camera and lens. So, for this post I photoshopped the image by adding more contrast, vibrance, and sharpness to the image.
A slower aperture lens on a MFT camera is something that worried me a bit before buying this lens. From personal experience owning lenses of other brands in other formats, it is rare that any lens shows good, sharp contrast while wide open.
After reading several responses on posts regarding this lens, I thought it would perform well wide open. I'm not so sure it performs as well as others boasted about. I am seriously considering returning it and getting the Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8. I'll do some more testing with it before making up my mind whether to keep it or not.
Looks good to me as it appears on Flickr. I don’t really care what it looks like unprocessed. If you are looking for special magic a picture taken in full, direct sunlight is unlikely to provide it.
snegron7 wrote:
The picture I posted is heavily processed in Photoshop. The original was quite dull. I decided to post this image after editing because the last time I posted a " straight out of camera" image when testing a Pana/Leica 9mm f1.7, everyone provided critiques on how to improve my photo editing skills. My goal was to show a faithfull rendition of images taken with that camera and lens. So, for this post I photoshopped the image by adding more contrast, vibrance, and sharpness to the image.
A slower aperture lens on a MFT camera is something that worried me a bit before buying this lens. From personal experience owning lenses of other brands in other formats, it is rare that any lens shows good, sharp contrast while wide open.
After reading several responses on posts regarding this lens, I thought it would perform well wide open. I'm not so sure it performs as well as others boasted about. I am seriously considering returning it and getting the Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8. I'll do some more testing with it before making up my mind whether to keep it or not....Show more →
My suggestion was to provide the unprocessed raw file, not a SOOC jpeg. It is understood that raw files require
processing, sometimes heavy processing. There is nothing unusual about this. Looking at raw files from a lens is a better way of evaluating the lens quality than looking at a low resolution
jpeg. I merely wanted to be helpful in my response. I shall be happy to look at the raw file and return my comments. I thought this (receiving comments) was what you wanted by linking the 1MP jpeg in the first place.
ruthenium wrote:
My suggestion was to provide the unprocessed raw file, not a SOOC jpeg. It is understood that raw files require
processing, sometimes heavy processing. There is nothing unusual about this. Looking at raw files from a lens is a better way of evaluating the lens quality than looking at a low resolution
jpeg. I merely wanted to be helpful in my response. I would be happy to look at the raw file and return my comments. I thought this (receiving comments) was what you wanted by linking the 1MP jpeg in the first place.
Thanks, but I didn't shoot the original from this post (the owl shot) in RAW, only jpeg.
The previous "test" that I was referring to was shot in RAW+JPEG. That's the one from the Pana/Leica 9mm f1.7, images from several spots throughout Madrid, Spain.
The reason I shot this owl in JPEG was to have my OM-5 do as much processing as possible since this is an OM System lens (unlike the 9mm f1.7 from the previous "test"). My theory is that this lens most likely relies heavily on software, and that software is 100% compatible with the software for lens corrections in my OM-5.
I have gotten beautiful JPEGs from my OM-5 with Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 attached in the past. My assumption was that I should also be able to capture great JPEGs with this lens as well.
Please don't misunderstand my comment regarding the critiques I've had in the past. My point was to clarify that this time around , for this "test" of my new 40-150mm f4, I wanted people not to focus on the "potential" of the image if edited properly, but to focus on the final, already edited, image itself.
The lack of contrast/sharpness is extremely difficult to truly fix in editing, especially if the image was not sharp to begin with. Bokeh is also very difficult to improve in post processing, especially if the lens didn't capture it right to begin with. These characteristics can easily be observed even in a low resolution image like the one I provided.
snegron7 wrote:
Thanks, but I didn't shoot the original from this post (the owl shot) in RAW, only jpeg.
The previous "test" that I was referring to was shot in RAW+JPEG. That's the one from the Pana/Leica 9mm f1.7, images from several spots throughout Madrid, Spain.
The reason I shot this owl in JPEG was to have my OM-5 do as much processing as possible since this is an OM System lens (unlike the 9mm f1.7 from the previous "test"). My theory is that this lens most likely relies heavily on software, and that software is 100% compatible with the software for lens corrections in my OM-5.
I have gotten beautiful JPEGs from my OM-5 with Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 attached in the past. My assumption was that I should also be able to capture great JPEGs with this lens as well.
Please don't misunderstand my comment regarding the critiques I've had in the past. My point was to clarify that this time around , for this "test" of my new 40-150mm f4, I wanted people not to focus on the "potential" of the image if edited properly, but to focus on the final, already edited, image itself.
The lack of contrast/sharpness is extremely difficult to truly fix in editing, especially if the image was not sharp to begin with. Bokeh is also very difficult to improve in post processing, especially if the lens didn't capture it right to begin with. These characteristics can easily be observed even in a low resolution image like the one I provided. ...Show more →
I understand your reasoning, except that I don't know why the final jpeg had to be resized to 1MP.
I should question the statement "the lack of contrast/sharpness is extremely difficult to truly fix in editing." For "decent" (and certainly good quality) lenses this is usually not a problem, assuming that the subject is in focus and there is no motion blur. Of course the "decency" of a lens can be ambiguous, but generally I find over-sharpening and over-contrasting to be more common problems than struggling with irreparable image softness or lack of contrast. Should you be interested, we can look at any suitable representative example from your new lens that should have a subject displaying fine details. Given access to the raw file, I can process this and return the resulting jpeg that you would be able to compare to the corresponding out-of-camera jpeg (you will have to shoot raw+jpg). Should you happen to like the result, I shall be happy to share the details of the processing. Naturally, this is a bit of a gamble - maybe your new lens is not of "decent" quality, and the images are going to look like garbage, but there is nothing wrong about trying and the observations can be useful, potentially.
snegron7 wrote:
From personal experience owning lenses of other brands in other formats, it is rare that any lens shows good, sharp contrast while wide open.
A ridiculous generalized statement like that indicates it is the photographer, not the lens.
I use my 40-150/4 with my OM1M2 for landscape. I only shoot raw and process in DXOPL8. I am happy with the contrast and color. I often have trees in my photos and the images show very good details of the needles. I considered the Panasonic 12-35 & 35-100 but never tried them since they do not work with the OM focus stacking.
I had the 40-150/4 with my OM-1 around teh time it originally released, and while I had a few complaints with it, IQ was certainly not one of them. Sharp, good colour, average OOF rendering. It's not as nice as the 2.8, but it's also much smaller and lighter.
The average MFD and lack of the AF/MF clutch were my main complaints
snegron7 wrote:
it is rare that any lens shows good, sharp contrast while wide open.
The problem is the same as with your image. You post a low res, highly processed jpeg which proves nothing.
And then you say things like this about lenses which proves that clearly, you have no meaningful experience.
Because historically, good lens wide-open have existed: Leica was well-known for it.
But nowadays, almost any lens-maker achieves this and this is especially true with micro43.
snegron7 wrote:
The lack of contrast/sharpness is extremely difficult to truly fix in editing, especially if the image was not sharp to begin with.
No. You do not have the right tools or do not know how to post-process files.
snegron7 wrote:
Bokeh is also very difficult to improve in post processing, especially if the lens didn't capture it right to begin with.
Bokeh may be harder but once again, with the modern tools, it is not that difficult.
I'm having a hard time understanding what you meant by "if the lens didn't capture it right to begin with": by definition, bokeh is a characteristic of the lens.
pmeheut wrote:
The problem is the same as with your image. You post a low res, highly processed jpeg which proves nothing.
And then you say things like this about lenses which proves that clearly, you have no meaningful experience.
Because historically, good lens wide-open have existed: Leica was well-known for it.
But nowadays, almost any lens-maker achieves this and this is especially true with micro43.
No. You do not have the right tools or do not know how to post-process files.
Bokeh may be harder but once again, with the modern tools, it is not that difficult.
I'm having a hard time understanding what you meant by "if the lens didn't capture it right to begin with": by definition, bokeh is a characteristic of the lens. ...Show more →
You are amusing! 😀
1. I purchased my 1st camera in 1979. Were you even born back then? I have owned more cameras and lenses from different brands and formats than most people on this forum, including you. 😀
2. Your somewhat defensive/condescending remarks might indicate you probably are a cult-fanboy, or that you work in some indirect way for OM System distripubtion or marketing.
3. Based entirely on your antagonostic feedback, I am now definitely returning this lens.
4. Lear a bit about gear before posting silly nonsense.
snegron7 wrote:
From personal experience owning lenses of other brands in other formats, it is rare that any lens shows good, sharp contrast while wide open.
Goes to show the lack of credibility the OP has with evaluating lenses. Guess all the photographers with all those excellent f2.8 and f4 lenses never got "good, sharp contrast while wide open."
snegron7 wrote:
1. I purchased my 1st camera in 1979. Were you even born back then? I have owned more cameras and lenses from different brands and formats than most people on this forum, including you. 😀
2. Your somewhat defensive/condescending remarks might indicate you probably are a cult-fanboy, or that you work in some indirect way for OM System distripubtion or marketing.
I'm impressed: you know nothign about me but your only answer is to suppose a lot. And all of it is wrong.
So :
- you are not capable of providing one single picture to backup your claim even when asked
- you do not know that many lenses are sharp wide-open
- you never answer simple facts, you go straight to insults
You can pretend that you know a lot about photography but all evidence to the contrary. And you clearly do not have the right mindset to test any kind of gear because you confuse your beliefs with facts.
I'm sorry for you and I will stop this non-conversation right now.
snegron7 wrote:
After reading several responses on posts regarding this lens, I thought it would perform well wide open. I'm not so sure it performs as well as others boasted about. I am seriously considering returning it and getting the Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8. I'll do some more testing with it before making up my mind whether to keep it or not.
Why not rent the PL for a day so you can do a head to head?
It's very unfortunate you didn't receive mine when you bought. I find mine truly excellent no matter how I use it. Never had to 'molest' in post to get great images.
1. I purchased my 1st camera in 1979. Were you even born back then? I have owned more cameras and lenses from different brands and formats than most people on this forum, including you. 😀
2. Your somewhat defensive/condescending remarks might indicate you probably are a cult-fanboy, or that you work in some indirect way for OM System distripubtion or marketing.
3. Based entirely on your antagonostic feedback, I am now definitely returning this lens.
4. Lear a bit about gear before posting silly nonsense.
1. I purchased my 1st loaf of bread in 1976. Were you even born back then? I have eaten more sandwiches from different brands and types than most people on this forum, including you. 😀
What do I win?
I've never seen, touched, or, smelled the 40-150/4 but I would hardly believe, unless it was a defective copy, that it wouldn't be acceptably sharp and so forth, wide open, when used correctly.
"Based entirely on your antagonostic feedback, I am now definitely returning this lens."
you would like a bunch of strangers on a web forum to believe that one other stranger's opinion caused you enough angst to return a camera lens.
absolutely return the lens if you don't want it but the strange slagging of it, a well regarded lens, and evidently, yourself, on a gear forum is odd.
