Revisiting Old Gear: Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm f/4-5.6 R

Obvious statement ahead. Gear can be really expensive. I have bought used vehicles that cost less than some recent camera and lens releases. This latest round of camera releases has gotten me to thinking.

For more on this line of thinking please see the opener post for this “Revisiting” series. For this post I will cut to the gear list.

• One body and four (+1) lenses to start. (This turned into two bodies.)
  • Normal (50mm-ish full frame equivalent) prime.
  • Portrait prime.
  • Standard zoom (Original post).
  • Tele zoom. (This post)
  • Wide pancake prime. (New add.)
  • Tele portrait prime. (New add #2.)

I already chose a camera and will update this blog with that soon. The title of this post gives away the lens system. I started my interchangeable lens gear churn odyssey with micro four thirds and I still appreciate it. I will again point to that first post mentioned above for why I chose MFT and move on to the lens in question for this post. A tele zoom.

I have written about it briefly before. There are a few things that I will get out of the way.

• This lens is cheap. I mean dirt cheap. It can be bought for $99 brand new as I write this post. Can be had for as little as half that amount used.
• I have created some of my all time favorite images with this lens, even winning office photo contests with them.
• It is a ridiculously light and small lens. So much so that I do not mind the plastic build and mount. How many other 80-300mm full frame equivalent lenses can easily fits in a cargo pant side pocket are there?
• As a result of the bullets above I love this lens.

With that I will get on with the usual run down lifted from the This Old Lens posts with AF added.

• Flare
  • Have not witnessed any offensive flare with this lens.
• Sharpness
  • A sharp lens. This is not a surprise since I have never come across a bad Olympus lens.
• Colors
  • I really like the colors that this lens produces. Vibrant and accurate.
• Bokeh
  • I was surprised by this, because of the MFT sensor and modest aperture, but as with any tele zoom bokeh is possible if you put some space between the subject and the background.
• AF
  • Fast, silent, and accurate even with older bodies.

A great tele zoom all around lens. It served me well on a school zoo field trip years ago.

Here are shots from visits to my home state, NY.

Some shots from a family beach trip.

And now just a few random shots.

This last one is a personal favorite. My son was nine at the time and sitting behind me while we were picking up my daughter. He points the birds out to me and asks if he can take a picture. I put on the 40-150mm and pass it back to him and he returns this.

A solid lens. I will be adding more photos to this ongoing gallery soon.