Wow, you are doing the best reviews by far (and I've seen zillions over the years}. Clear and correct speech, covering the exact topics/ cameras/ lenses I'm interested in and following a logical, methodical, thorough process without waffle or filler. It shouldn't be rare, but it is. Hugely impressed. Having just recently acquired the Oly 40-150mm because it seemed great bang for buck and worth a try, I'm pleased to see that it did well as my first results with it have greatly exceeded my expectations. Also found your E-M1 C-AF test with f/w 4.6 to be so v. useful as I'm considering changing to that. Keep up the good work and very best wishes.

I have the Olympus 14-150mm f4-5.6 (mark I) which is quite good but not as sharp as the 40-150 f4-5.6 that I sold. I also use a 4/3 Olympus 50-200mm f2.8-3.5 with an adapter on my E-M1 with great results, far sharper than the 14-150. Great comparison, I am enjoying your videos.

Its a really interesting comparison, amazing what that Olympus 40-150 f4-5.6 can produce in fairness - bang for buck a lovely bit of kit, the panasonic 50-200 is obviously better in every way realistically as you said - stop it down slightly and its out doing the oly, go beyond 150 and its game over. I like these videos, keep them coming!

I have the Panny Lumix 45-150 and seldom use it, only when my Panny Lumix 100-300 feels too big to take with me. Thanks for your comparison work in this video!

Great video. You pretty much went through every detail that i needed. Recently got myself Lumix 45-150 f/4-5.6 and im very happy with the photos considering the price. That's what i like about MFT lenses that even kit and cheap ones are made well and good optically. Thank you for the review.

Nice job. For me, the main reason to use MFT is the weight savings of lenses. The 50-200 is so bulky and heavy that I would not want it. It’s nice to see that going with the smaller choices results in little loss of image quality. My favorite in this range in the Panasonic 35-100 f/2.8 that I use on my LUMIX G9. It’s more expensive than the cheaper lenses in your video but much cheaper than the 50-200. Thanks for your work!

I have the Olympus 40-150 zoom lens that I picked up for $60 USD on MPB. II wasn’t expecting to be impressed, but I was blown over by how well it performs. Of course it’s slower and not likely as sharp edge to edge as a PRO lens, but the bang for the buck is phenomenal. I agree with you regarding pixel peeping. If you’re getting shots that you find are creatively satisfying then what more do you need out of a lens. I recently read a great suggestion, pixel peep less and print more. The sense of the quote was more about megapixels, suggesting that the pixel count doesn’t appear to be so critical when you print your images. Relating that to your lens tests, perhaps the same could be said. It would be interesting to run the same lens test and compare the images as prints versus on a computer screen.

Interesting comparison in a practical situation. Keep posting!

thanks for this! love to see these types of tests and comparisons!

Olympus 40-150 f4-5.6 is the first lens that I use to attach with my Olympus OMD EM5 mark I. Until now I'm still using it because of its sharp image.

Cool tutorial all the way around! Spectacular photos in the intro to boot (as always!)

Very good video. Good to see differences.

Great comparison, thanks. I think you would have been surprised & impressed with the Panasonic 45-175 f/4-5.6, which is small, light, and less than $500. I've owned two of them, and I love their sharpness. The crispness is present from 45 to 150mm, after that (i.e., from 150-175mm) the results are okay-ish but not great. BTW I'm using the Pana 45-175 f/4-5.6 on an Olympus EM5 iii.

Thanks for the test, can tell a lot of work and thought went into this video. The softness at 100mm on the 50-200 is bizarre, especially considering how much it sharpens up when minimally stopped down - it almost looks like there was some shake or shutter shock on the 100mm 3.6 photo! Though you said you've repeated the 100mm wide open test a few times and got similar results? While the 14-140ii might lose out in ultimate sharpness, I definitely think it makes up for it in versatility - wide to telephoto with less need to faff with lens swaps. It functions very well as a sunny summer holiday lens, where one can stop down to f 7.1 - 8 for maximum IQ.

You've helped me make up my mind. I'll be looking for the Oly on KEH or MPB. Thanks!

Excellent comparison, well done. Extremely informative

Olympus 40-150 F28 has a buttery sharp lens that it is what pushed me towards it vs the Panasonic 50-200 mnm. The Panasonice was the origi nal intent. Excellent review!

Brilliant comparison, very well done

I’m surprised you didn’t include the Oly 14_150 MK II in your testing especially against the Panny 14-140mm, a surprising versatile,lightweight and sharpish lens that I believe matches the Oly 40-150mm in performance. Thanks for the video, a good topic to bring to the table.

You repeatedly mention image stabilization, but as far as I know, with an Oly camera you have to decide to use either lens or in-body stabilization with Panasonic lenses. How do you deal with that?

Well done with your tests, I must admit that have put some of these lenses to one side for a while for irrational suspicions that they were a little soft. Only to re-assess the order later. Confusingly I believe there are 3 different revisions of the 14-140mm Panasonic, although two of them are supposed to be identical other than cosmetics.

5:54 The panny picture is a bit brighter on the lighter tones. May be a little more contrasty? At 150mm.

Great reviews. I have been looking for such reviews for long. I am a Olympus shoot with mainly Panasonic lenses. I am looking for a high end telephoto zoom lens, namely either the Olympus 40-150 f2.8 and the Panasonic 50-200. The Olympus one has slightly shorter reach. Also, from many review sites, I can see that the performance with the 1.4x teleconverter is weaker than the Panasonic at the long end. In addition, the weight and size benefits are really attractive for the Panny. However, the weather sealing on the Panasonic lens is worrying. All my panasonic zoom lens with weather sealing cannot prevent water from getting into the lens barrel. Just a simple test. Put a little bit of water on the lens barrel when the lens is zoomed out. Then zoom in. To my testing, all the Panny lenses pushes the water into the lenses and it stays. One Olympus lens that I tested, 100-400mm lens, can almost perfectly wipe out all the water. This gets me very upset and wants to fully move to Olympus for all my lenses.

Hi. I liked the video, and the plastic fantastic does it again! I got that lens early (2012) but it never really worked for me. I rather took the 75-300, for its longer reach. I think there are two reasons: the slow speed and long closest focusing distance. When the 40-150 pro came out it quickly became my favourite, due to the 'fake macro' ability. That seems to be my kind of shots ...🤷

If you ever decide to update this review, please include the Olympus/OMS 14-150mm f4-5.6. It has exceptional sharpness from end to end, much better then the Olympus/OMS 40-150mm f4-5.6 that you tested, but the same size.

I would be very interested in adding the Olympus (OM-system) 40-150mm F4 Pro to this test; it is a lot more compact and should be very sharp...

Interesting findings about the Lumix Leica 50-200mm.

I own the PL 50-200, and love it. Most of the images I take just seem to make sense with that lens.

great work. however, I think that the distance is playing its part in the test results. The longer the distance the larger the risk of getting unsharp images due to the air inbetween having (slightly) different temperatures dependent on what the surface beneath consists of (water, stone, wood, etc. and shadow and sunny areas). This will somehow "bend" the light beams ever so slightly and will give you not the sharpness that you would probably get in a lab controlled environment. Of course, this affects every lens. But one can argue that from a budget lens one doesn't expect it to be tack sharp while one finds a premium lens rather "soft" in these situations. I would say that (probably due to the distance) the best possible image quality one could get in these circumstances is worse than what a top lens could produce in top conditions. Hence, the difference between the lenses is still visable (because of different qualities of the lenses) yet much less than one might expect. Probably you should repeat the tests with subjects much closer and / or when its cloudy, so when the air between you and the subject is evenly "heated". Just my thoughts. But good work, anyway!

I'd be curious to see a comparison at closer ranges, for example wildlife at 20-30m, such that atmospheric distortions could be minimized. That said, it's impressive how well the cheaper lenses do.

Nice comparison. Would like to see this done for other lenses such as the Lumix 25 1.7, Leica 25 1.4, Sigma 30 1.4 and Zuiko 25 1.8

should compare panny 50-200 vs Oly 40-150 f2.8 pro +mc14, that will be a better comparison, but of course the Oly pro lens are lot more heavy and also with a heavier plus the extensor weight too.

Great video, but would’ve been nice to see comparisons at the same aperture on the PL v the Olympus (such as 5.6).

Hi Jon, You mentioned using the OIS in the Panny lens while shooting with your EM5, for your action shots. I know that the OIS and the IBIS cannot work together, but do they work against one another? In your test shots, did you have OIS and IBIS turned on? Perhaps you could repeat a small subset of the tests with various combinations of OIS and IBIS stabe? And since you were on a tripod, your could try all stabe off? Thanks for the video, Cheers, Martin

nice review. how about for video? i am interest to buy oly 40-150 for my gx85 b

Why did you not consider the LUMIX 45-175mm zoom in this test. I have just bought a 2nd hand version to replace a pristine version of the 45-150mm zoom and find the longer reach power zoom quality and the fact that the length doent change make for a superior lens!

Nice lens but I'd spend a bit more and get the Olympus 40-150 f2.8 which is a superior lens because of it's speed and weather sealing and that's before you throw in the Olympus x2 tele converter which makes ir a 300m mm lens

Great video!!!

What software are you using to compare the photos?

Panasonic Lumix G X Vario PZ 45-175mm f/4-5.6

I would always strongly suggest to shoot a test chart - NO "real world" things. And especially not 1000 m away - as you cannot make sure that the air inbetween does not infect the sharpness. Like pollution, water etc.

Hm. Think I'll buy a little (less than 4") Olympus 40-150 f4 Pro ;-)

All I can say is that rather cheap Panasonic 45-150 makes 12 years old 45-200 completely obsolete in every way: it's like two times lighter, smaller and 45-200 is sharp up to 100 or 120mm or so. From that point further zooming does not bring any extra resolution. Also my comparison between 12-35 f2.8 and 12-60 f3.5-5.6 were not decisive in terms of sharpness, I guess they are more or less equal and not perfect at 16MPix resolution (not far from being perfect neither and no one sees photos in the full resolution anyways)

Olympus 12-200 ??

Conclusion - buy Olympus :)

Very interesting video. Thank you. I am amazed the Olympus 40-150 performed so well. I have one but have never used it, although mine is the older ED MSC non "R" version (not sure what difference the "R" makes?). I guess I'll have to take it out for a spin and see how it performs.

Not apples to apples with differing apertures? Not a good comparrison at all. What a shame, could have been great if done right. Same for Same values to compare.