Think of a wildlife and sports lens and images of a big, bulky optic spring to mind, but these days, you don’t need heavy glass to capture subjects in the distance. A great example of this is OM System’s new M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F4.0 PRO, which was launched alongside the brand’s new flagship OM-1 camera.
Thanks to the 2x crop factor generated by the Micro Four-Thirds sensor, the effective focal length of this fixed max aperture zoom is actually 80-30mm, making it suitable for everything from longer landscape work, tight portraiture imagery and, of course, wildlife and travel photography, too.
Despite this long focal length, the 40-150mm F4.0 PRO tips the scales at just 382g and measures only 99.4mm long , which will be highly attractive to photographers looking to travel light. In fact, OM System claim’s the lens is ‘the world’s most compact, lightweight and high image quality telephoto zoom lens.’
Built around a ‘15 elements in 9 groups’ design, the construction includes 2 ED lenses, 1 Super ED lens, 1 HR lens and 2 aspherical lens to enhance image quality along with OM System’s ZERO (Zuiko Extra-low Reflection Optical) coating to counter flare and ghosting.
As its name suggests, the OM System 40-150mm F4 PRO is part of the brand’s PRO series of lenses and as such, includes some impressive weather sealing. In fact, the lens boasts IPX3 rated sealing that offers protection against dust and moisture. The optic is even freezeproof and can be used in temperatures down to -10 degrees.
Other features include compatibility with the Focus Stacking mode on Olympus cameras that enables photographers to shoot multiple images that will create a single file with front to back sharpness – useful when shooting smaller subjects. What’s more, the lens boasts a closest focusing distance of 70 cm across the entire zoom range, just like the M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F2.8 PRO lens that the F4 PRO sits alongside in the OM System range.
