Hi Amanda, you shouldn't have a problem - the front element of the mZD 14-150 doesn't move at all (apart from manually zooming in and out)... all focusing is internal.

E-P2 + mZD 14-150mm f4-5.6
1/40s f/8.0 at 100.0mm iso200


Cheers

Brian

__________________
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Against my initial instincts I grabbed one of these from B&H for the short period they had them in stock. I'd gone back and forth about what I wanted in a travel kit for a nearly month long European trip that begins next week. I'd tried the Pany 14-140 and, while a really fine lens, it was just more bulk and weight than I wanted as my primary walking around lens hanging off of the epl1. I was anticipating taking the kit, the 9-18, the 45-200, and at least one pancake and doing a fair number of lens swaps. I even briefly considered the idea of a second body so I'd always have two lenses readily available, but that sounded like I was getting too far afield from the whole idea of traveling light with an m43 setup. I hadn't given the 14-150 all that much thought because I didn't believe it would be available before we left

But when B&H suddenly had them in stock a couple of days ago, I jumped on it, figuring if I didn't like it I'd have plenty of time to return it before we left. It showed up early this afternoon and, for my specific wants and needs, its a keeper. Although on paper its only a little bit smaller than the Pany lens and weighs nearly 2/3 as much, in reality it looks and feels and CARRIES much smaller and lighter than that. Its really appropriately scaled for walking around with the epl1 all day. Went out walking around for a couple of hours and this lens WILL be the central piece of my travel kit. This and the 9-18 and the 20 ought to cover anything I'll encounter and will make for a small and light kit requiring relatively few lens changes, maybe just a handful of changes per day.

Back at home, I'll definitely keep the 45-200 because there are times and events I'll want that additional reach and the OIS - my daughter's college graduation a couple of weeks back was tailor made for the 45-200 and I probably would have left the 14-150 at home if I'd had it. A lot of sporting events and other performances would beg for the extra reach as well. It'll spend more time on the shelf and less time in my bag, but its not going anywhere. My kit lens, decent as it is, will probably never see the light of day again though. With both pancakes and the 14-150 available, I can't imagine a circumstance that would have me reaching for the kit over one of those.

I took a few snaps with the new lens, but nothing worth showing. I was going for the smallest aperture to see how sharp it could get, forgot to adjust the ISO, and ended up with a bunch of shots in bright sunlight at f22 and 1600 iso. Because I are sometimes stupid! But the whole point was to see how comfortable that camera/lens combo would be to carry, not so much for the shooting (Brian has already convinced me its a more than capable enough lens for my needs). So I'm perhaps among the first on my block...

-Ray

Ray,

I believe you posted those on Dpreview. From what I saw, they were still pretty good. Let us know how you like it.

Yeah I did. they were fine. But they were just a basic demonstration. Brian has posted so many better examples in much greater detail here, so not much point. I'm not generally a zoom kind of guy, but for travel photography, they're just too useful.

-Ray

Ray, thanks so much for sharing your experience here - I hope you will let us know how the kit performs on your travels... as I said, I think you've got the best set available for travel right now.

I walked with the E-P2 + mZD 14-150 yesterday... here are a couple of samples converted from raw using Capture One 5 PRO - which is my most capable raw converter (I don't use Adobe stuff, so can't compare but will be happy to upload the raw files if there's anyone out there who would like to try them for us) - CA & purple fringing correction is superb.

This first image was a challenge to get sharp at 1/125s, shooting in a stress position (kneeled down to get the composition level) and with a good breeze... ideally, I'd say you want slowest exposure of 1/150sec for sharp images at full zoom.

E-P2 + mZD 14-150mm f4-5.6
1/125s f/6.3 at 150.0mm iso200


1:1 crop


The next shot is to show the image quality at 14mm using Capture One 5 PRO to correct CA and distortion.

E-P2 + mZD 14-150mm f4-5.6
1/400s f/6.3 at 14.0mm iso200


and a 1:1 crop


Incidentally, I used the EVF for both of these shots... the first to improve stability, the second to get the framing I wanted.

Cheers

Brian

__________________
Founder, Olympus Photo Safari Group
http://www.ukphotosafari.org

Brian,

When I shot my insanely high ISO shots in broad daylight yesterday, I was ignoring (ie, not even noticing) the ISO in an attempt to compare higher speed shutter with a larger aperture against slower speed shutter with a smaller aperture. Here are a couple of 100% crops at 150mm. The first is at f13 and 1/200 (iso ONLY 1250!) and the second is at f22 and 1/80 (with the full 1600 iso). If you can see past the silly amounts of noise made much worse by the high iso numbers, I think the one with the smaller aperture at 1/80 is actually sharper, or at least as sharp. So I'm not sure that you do need to shoot at 1/150 for sharp images at full extension. Obviously faster is better, but so is smaller aperture, and in this case, the smaller aperture appears to help a bit more than faster shutter. Without the radical cropping, though, both look just fine, so this is probably all academic.

I LOVE that sculpture in your pics, BTW - wonderful concept.

-Ray

Well the stone masons yard above was at f6.3, focused on the lock so I don't think it's a narrow depth of field issue... probably more to do with me shooting in a stress position.

Did you use the EVF to frame your shot above? how were you standing?

Cheers

Brian

__________________
Founder, Olympus Photo Safari Group
http://www.ukphotosafari.org

Nope, no evf, but not in a stress position either. Basically just standing in a normal shooting position, not braced against anything.

-Ray

That's very interesting Ray - the intuitive thing would be to brace yourself firmly, to give the stabilisation as much help as possible... but we don't know how the algorithm has been tuned - it could have been optimised for the shooting position you used, in-fact, it could be optimised for your shooting position - and optimised for the 'three point contact' position when the EVF is active... i.e. when the camera is being held against the eye.

Definitely worth further exploration - with the E-P2 and with the E-PL1 too, to get an idea of how get the best out of the IBIS.

Cheers

Brian

__________________
Founder, Olympus Photo Safari Group
http://www.ukphotosafari.org

Brian,
I noticed some vertical motion on the 1:1 crop picture (see upper left corner), how well was your camera braced? Was your camera set for IS-1 or horizontal only IS-3?
George.