I have owned the lens for over 2 years and have made thousands of high quality images with it. It is a very good lens for travel at a very good price. I would highly recommend it.
This was the second lens I bought for my EM-5 mk II some years ago. Although it was an ideal lens for me at the time, the zoom ring more or less seized up within a year. Fortunately repaired under warranty. I swapped it out for the Olympus equivalent after this. I would advise not to leave this lens attached to an Olympus body if doing a camera firmware upgrade as this can render the lens unuseable that will require a return to Tamron for repair. Just a couple of unfortunate snags that cropped up. I had no issues with the lens performance otherwise.
What's good about Olympus it is lens offering. Few groups of lenses - PRO, Primes and all arounders. Quality and price points leaves very little room for third party manufacturers like Tamron or Sigma. Sigma is actually doing better, having few primes which ain't bad, for example 56/1.4. Personally, I think even Panasonic Leica lenses which do have they charm, still can't match optical quality of Olympus glass. But, Peter, thanks a lot for review, it is always nice to see how other manufacturers, lens designers are doing.
Thanks for that review. I'm one of the folks who already has this lens and was curious to hear your opinion on it. One odd thing I have noticed recently is a slight vignetting caused by the hood at 14mm. I don't think I had that previously, but there aren't any focusing problems either. Quite odd. Love this lens and it is sharp at all focal lengths.
Peter, I've used this lens a lot over 4-5yrs on E-M10Mki & ii and had really good results, a nice sharp (for zoom) lens. Only changing now as I've bought an Olympus 14-150 as part of kit purchase with E-M5iii to be all weather sealed as you mention in video. Your review is very accurate in regards this lens. It was, and the Oly will be, the lens attached to my camera in the bag and ready for use. To be fare I've settled with this range lens partnered with an Oly 75-300 and a 30mm Macro as all I really need.
Thanks for sharing Peter l was unaware Tamron made a M4/3 lens. No snow in Helsinki has spring arrived? Also did you find that lingerie you were after in Sofia (10:49)?
Thanks for the review of this lens. I am hoping to see some of the other lens manufacturers get into the MFT game myself. Competition is definitely a good thing.
Use the new Panasonic LUMIX GH7. You get amazing stabilization, autofocus, there is a new electronic internal zoom which increases 50-300%, you can do photo or video, & can pick whichever zoom lens you want. If you use a focal reducer, you can use S35 or Full frame zooms, giving you even more options with a Full Frame field of view. I recommend a variable zoom over the fixed ones because you don’t really know how far away your subject is going to be so you can adjust that on the fly
I required a cheap zoom in order to take photographs of my grandson. I decided to purchase an Olympus 14 - 150mm f4 - 5.6 for my EM1X and it works really well. I am very pleased with it - even more so given that it only cost £249 brand new. I wasn't aware that Tamron produced such a lens, but I doubt I would have purchased one in preference to the Olympus model. I have owned a fair few Olympus lenses - mainly PRO, and have loved all of them.
@@catrionathomson8981. No: I purchased my 14 - 150mm f4 - f5.6 mark II brand new from HDew cameras for £249. I have been using them for 6 years and rate the company very highly. I also own a 40 - 150mm f2.8 + MC14, which I purchased from them as a kit for £879 and an FL900R for £299 - all three brand new. Works for me.
Hi Peter. Thanks for the review of this lens. Which lens is sharper 14 - 150mm f4 - f5.6 (first version) or Tamron 14-150mm F/3.5-5.8 and 14 - 150mm f4 - f5.6 vs 14 - 150mm f4 - f5.6 mark II ? I have Olympus OM-D E-M10, kit lens (14-42mm and 40-150mm) and 45mm 1.8
Hi there Peter. - a different lens I have is the Voigtlander 25mm f0.95. Its a real old school manual lens for mft. There’s something special about it for me. It seems to give some beautiful light and colours which seem old style. And is very sharp. Have you tried it? They also make an equivalent 35mm and a wider one but I just have the 25. Regards Malcolm
I may have missed it - is the Tamron zoom motorised or manual? On my Olympus SH-1 pocket zoom, motorised zoom is all you get, and the focus keeps up with the zoom. My Olympus 40-150 kit lens zooms manually, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Continuous Auto Focusing on my E-M10 II gets simply caught out at night when I zoom manually.
Peter does the 300 f4 pro with teleconverter 2x give more zoom reach than the superzoom lens 12-200mm from olympus? Wich is best for photograph and filming something that is far away?
Yes, it does. Without the teleconverter it already has a 300mm (600mm FF equivalent) and with it 600mm (1200mm FF equivalent). It will also cost you at least $2000 more for that reach though).
The 300 f4 will give equivalent angle of view as a 1200mm lens on a FF body. The 16X means that zoom range is 16X (12mmX16=192mm). The 300mm f4 has more reach than the 12-200mm.
Quite a contrast in music and photo style (and slideshow effects) between the two sets of images! Rocking out in Sophia! Was checking out lenses on Amazon (US) and the M.Zuiko 40-150mm is $99 (US)! Wow. I have a Panasonic G85 and already have the Panasonic Lumix G 45-150mm (f4-5.6) and it's an OK lens (under $150). Is there anything really appealing to the M.Zuiko 40-150mm? Thanks again for a great video! And I'd like to see more reviews of 3rd-party Micro-Four-Thirds lenses -- even some of the oddball manual focus lenses.
Thanks. I try to have a style in my images which reflects my feeling at the time I was making the images. I am planning on making video a about third party lenses also. If I only can get a hold of them.
@@ForsgardPeter -- Yeah -- it will be more difficult to borrow lenses from vendors other than Olympus! Also try out adapted classic lenses (I use a lot) -- of course you need the adapters. One "cheap" lens that I have used and actually works well (all things considered) is the SLR Magic 8mm f4.0 manual lens. It is small, and a little quirky to adjust, but it is rectilinear (so no real fisheye effect) and really wide. Pretty sharp. For some reason it works really well for B&W photos and video. Thanks Peter!
Thanks you for the review of a lens for MFT not made by Olympus or Panasonic. I wish there were more! Better for competition! I agree, the differences (eg f/3.5 v f/4 and f/5.6 vs f/5.8) just don't seem to be that exciting.
Since Panasonic and Olympus make very similar focal length lenses, just why did Tamron thing this was the M4/3 lens to market? I have two of the Panasonic 14-140 lenses and they are my most used lenses for day to day casual use.
@@ForsgardPeter I remember it being launched and, although time seems to go ever faster, I'm pretty sure it wasn't more than three years ago. Just gone and checked on DPReview and it was launched in 2013 and they tested it in early 2015. That's scary and means time is slipping by even faster than I thought. Especially scary as I've just returned from a friend's funeral :-(
Thanks for this. It looks like a nice lens but it isn't different enough or that much cheaper than the Oly and Pany options. I think third party manufacturers need to make something different because for M43 we have a lot covered already.
Shame Tamron don't make more lenses for MFT. I have a couple of Tammy APS-C lenses, and apart from quite a lot of CA, they're very affordable and very decent in many ways. Their 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses for FF and APS-C systems are perhaps best in class in terms of bang for the buck, so I wish they'd make a good 35-100mm f/2.8 that undercuts the price of the Panasonic offering, and also a 12-35mm f/2.8. At least Sigma do make MFT lenses, but while they are very good in terms of image quality, they're typically rather big and heavy (no matter what system they make them for), and this really doesn't work too well with the MFT "smaller, lighter, good enough" ethos.
@@ForsgardPeter so, if that's the case, then Sigma don't really make lenses for MFT, in a way ;) To be honest, I find their APS-C lenses to be a bit too big and heavy also. That seems to be their main drawback, but the optical performance is usually really nice.
I would buy such a lens if at least the aperture goes from 2.8 to 4. And I would definitely buy it if the focal length starts at 12 mm! The DXO marks for this and the equivalent M.Zuiko lens are equally bad. the 40-150 4-5.6 was one of the two kit lenses I bought with the EM-10 M ii and I confess to use both hardly.
Other things being equal, 12-200 is better than 14-150. However, in addition to the extra cost, the 12-200 is noticeably bigger and heavier. You could carry an f 1.8 prime lens in addition to the 14-150 and still have a kit that weighs less than a 12-200. It depends on what your priorities are. Too bad there is no lens that covers all the bases.
When doing a lens review, photos as well as videos should be in full color. Black & White is an artistic and creative effect but it takes away from viewing color science for a lense.
I like the wider angle tbh. At the long end all these big zooms are a bit soft and whether it's 150 or 200 will be pretty much the same. But if you ever need the 24 eq., the ones that start at 14 just don't have it. And for a 'tourist lens' wide angle can be needed indeed.
Looks like the US price is $100 under Olympus sale price = $399 for Tamron. It is possible that the Olympus at full zoom ( 150mm ) is better / sharper. Does anyone here know the best price on the Olympus last year --- my guess it was lower than current sale price of $499 -- maybe it was $399 --- anyway close enough ;) I think the Tamron is made in Japan -- looks nice. DXOMARK is 14-5 sharpness whereas Olympus is 13-5 sharpness. Tests may indicate however that at zoom of 150 the Olympus wins the game. For sharpness, it appears that the $99 Olympus on sale in a 40-150mm takes the cake! Heck, my Panasonic 45-150mm is also pretty sharp compared to the Tamron and Oly super zooms, but that range could be handy at times, where you miss the 14mm - 40mm gap between zoom and super zooms, thus two lenses required.
This is a good price. There are two problems when comparing prices on a video. First it is impossible to find out all the prices and then the prices also changes over time.
You may have felt like taking black and white but what percentage of people here do you think want to see the colours produced by the lens? Disappointed from Tunbridge Wells.
I think I loosely mentioned this lens in a comment somewhere in one of your videos recently... anyway, here's a shot I made with it a few days ago: www.flickr.com/photos/ilovetazzus/49632401092
I have owned the lens for over 2 years and have made thousands of high quality images with it. It is a very good lens for travel at a very good price. I would highly recommend it.
This was the second lens I bought for my EM-5 mk II some years ago. Although it was an ideal lens for me at the time, the zoom ring more or less seized up within a year. Fortunately repaired under warranty. I swapped it out for the Olympus equivalent after this.
I would advise not to leave this lens attached to an Olympus body if doing a camera firmware upgrade as this can render the lens unuseable that will require a return to Tamron for repair. Just a couple of unfortunate snags that cropped up. I had no issues with the lens performance otherwise.
That is interesting to hear about the firmware upgrade. Thanks for sharing.
Good and comprehensive review with some nice images too. Thanks for sharing, Peter.
Thanks.
Peter, appreciate you to test mtf lenses of other brands. Hope you can do more in future. Cheers！
I will try to get hold of other lenses too.
The lock is there to prevent the lens to zoom out by gravity when you carry your camera around.
What's good about Olympus it is lens offering. Few groups of lenses - PRO, Primes and all arounders. Quality and price points leaves very little room for third party manufacturers like Tamron or Sigma. Sigma is actually doing better, having few primes which ain't bad, for example 56/1.4. Personally, I think even Panasonic Leica lenses which do have they charm, still can't match optical quality of Olympus glass. But, Peter, thanks a lot for review, it is always nice to see how other manufacturers, lens designers are doing.
Thanks for that review. I'm one of the folks who already has this lens and was curious to hear your opinion on it. One odd thing I have noticed recently is a slight vignetting caused by the hood at 14mm. I don't think I had that previously, but there aren't any focusing problems either. Quite odd. Love this lens and it is sharp at all focal lengths.
I did not notice any vignetting because of the lens hood.
Peter, I've used this lens a lot over 4-5yrs on E-M10Mki & ii and had really good results, a nice sharp (for zoom) lens. Only changing now as I've bought an Olympus 14-150 as part of kit purchase with E-M5iii to be all weather sealed as you mention in video. Your review is very accurate in regards this lens. It was, and the Oly will be, the lens attached to my camera in the bag and ready for use. To be fare I've settled with this range lens partnered with an Oly 75-300 and a 30mm Macro as all I really need.
Witch lense do you prefer the Tamron or the oly?
Thanks for sharing Peter l was unaware Tamron made a M4/3 lens. No snow in Helsinki has spring arrived? Also did you find that lingerie you were after in Sofia (10:49)?
It has not been snow at all this "winter" here in Helsinki. It feels like spring, but it is not quite there yet.
No I did not find anything for me! 😂
Thanks for the tutorial. Btw: some beautiful b/w photos.
Thanks.
Thanks for the review of this lens. I am hoping to see some of the other lens manufacturers get into the MFT game myself. Competition is definitely a good thing.
Use the new Panasonic LUMIX GH7. You get amazing stabilization, autofocus, there is a new electronic internal zoom which increases 50-300%, you can do photo or video, & can pick whichever zoom lens you want. If you use a focal reducer, you can use S35 or Full frame zooms, giving you even more options with a Full Frame field of view. I recommend a variable zoom over the fixed ones because you don’t really know how far away your subject is going to be so you can adjust that on the fly
If I still had my MFT gear I would most likely get a GH7. It would be the best option for video.
Excellent video 😮!
Thank you very much!
I required a cheap zoom in order to take photographs of my grandson. I decided to purchase an Olympus 14 - 150mm f4 - 5.6 for my EM1X and it works really well. I am very pleased with it - even more so given that it only cost £249 brand new. I wasn't aware that Tamron produced such a lens, but I doubt I would have purchased one in preference to the Olympus model. I have owned a fair few Olympus lenses - mainly PRO, and have loved all of them.
Honestly you got a 14-150mm for £249 brand new, perhaps you mean the 40-150?
@@catrionathomson8981. No: I purchased my 14 - 150mm f4 - f5.6 mark II brand new from HDew cameras for £249. I have been using them for 6 years and rate the company very highly. I also own a 40 - 150mm f2.8 + MC14, which I purchased from them as a kit for £879 and an FL900R for £299 - all three brand new. Works for me.
After APS-C 16-300 and 18-400 Tamron lenses one would expect MFT 12-200 or 14-300 lens to be available.. :)
Hi Peter. Thanks for the review of this lens. Which lens is sharper 14 - 150mm f4 - f5.6 (first version) or Tamron 14-150mm F/3.5-5.8 and 14 - 150mm f4 - f5.6 vs 14 - 150mm f4 - f5.6 mark II ? I have Olympus OM-D E-M10, kit lens (14-42mm and 40-150mm) and 45mm 1.8
I would say that M.Zuiko 14-150mm would be the best choice.
Thanks for the review, good to see one from another manufacture. Hope you do some more if you can get hold of the lenses.
Maybe the Lensbaby odities ?
Lensbaby would be nice to test. I have a very old Lensbaby and that could be used with my Olympus with an adapter.
Hi there Peter. - a different lens I have is the Voigtlander 25mm f0.95. Its a real old school manual lens for mft. There’s something special about it for me. It seems to give some beautiful light and colours which seem old style. And is very sharp. Have you tried it? They also make an equivalent 35mm and a wider one but I just have the 25.
Regards
Malcolm
I have not. I have a 0,95 25mm from SLR Magic. th-cam.com/video/O49i2CFQva0/w-d-xo.html
I may have missed it - is the Tamron zoom motorised or manual? On my Olympus SH-1 pocket zoom, motorised zoom is all you get, and the focus keeps up with the zoom. My Olympus 40-150 kit lens zooms manually, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Continuous Auto Focusing on my E-M10 II gets simply caught out at night when I zoom manually.
Manual zoom.
How do the versions of the Zuiko 14-150 compare, mainly image/optical quality, beside the weather sealing?
There is not much of difference in image quality compared to Olympus 14-150mm lens.
@@ForsgardPeter By asking I mean the difference in IQ between the 2 Olympus lenses, the old version versus the new one.
Thanks for a nice review!
Thanks.
I like the background music, especially in the first sequence of photos, the colour ones....
Thanks.
IInteresting, I have a quick question, are there the same limitations as with Pana optics ... especially for ProCap L mode?, thank you.
ProCapture worked just fine. Tested the ProCapture H.
Interesting, I have to take a closer look at this lens.
Thanks ....
Peter does the 300 f4 pro with teleconverter 2x give more zoom reach than the superzoom lens 12-200mm from olympus?
Wich is best for photograph and filming something that is far away?
Yes, it does. Without the teleconverter it already has a 300mm (600mm FF equivalent) and with it 600mm (1200mm FF equivalent). It will also cost you at least $2000 more for that reach though).
@@andywitt5860 but the 12-200mm has like 16x magnification. How powerful is the 300mm with 2x teleconverter? Have you tested them both?
The 300 f4 will give equivalent angle of view as a 1200mm lens on a FF body. The 16X means that zoom range is 16X (12mmX16=192mm). The 300mm f4 has more reach than the 12-200mm.
what adapter can i use for em10 mkiii to tamron lenses thank you
No adapter needed for this lens. It is the only MFT lens from Tamron.
Quite a contrast in music and photo style (and slideshow effects) between the two sets of images! Rocking out in Sophia! Was checking out lenses on Amazon (US) and the M.Zuiko 40-150mm is $99 (US)! Wow. I have a Panasonic G85 and already have the Panasonic Lumix G 45-150mm (f4-5.6) and it's an OK lens (under $150). Is there anything really appealing to the M.Zuiko 40-150mm? Thanks again for a great video! And I'd like to see more reviews of 3rd-party Micro-Four-Thirds lenses -- even some of the oddball manual focus lenses.
Thanks. I try to have a style in my images which reflects my feeling at the time I was making the images. I am planning on making video a about third party lenses also. If I only can get a hold of them.
@@ForsgardPeter -- Yeah -- it will be more difficult to borrow lenses from vendors other than Olympus! Also try out adapted classic lenses (I use a lot) -- of course you need the adapters. One "cheap" lens that I have used and actually works well (all things considered) is the SLR Magic 8mm f4.0 manual lens. It is small, and a little quirky to adjust, but it is rectilinear (so no real fisheye effect) and really wide. Pretty sharp. For some reason it works really well for B&W photos and video. Thanks Peter!
Hey Peter... Is there a link to the gloves?
Not to those that I got from Olympus way back. But there are similar ones: amzn.to/3abuDeL (Affiliate link)
Was it Lordi playing on the b/w pictures? 😊
No. It was a music clip from epidemicsound.com
No way, i would step inside an Mexican Gastro Bar. Great review, as i was not aware of Tamron making M4/3 lenses. I hope they plan more.
Thanks for this review Peter! Very interesting, I was considering this tamron, but gave up... How did you decide to go to Sofia? Did you like it?
Yes, Sofia was quite nice. My wife had a business trip to Sofia and since I had never been there I decided to travel with her.
I have the Olympus equivalent to this lens and do experience "lens creep" so that lock mechanism is needed on this lens.
Thanks you for the review of a lens for MFT not made by Olympus or Panasonic. I wish there were more! Better for competition! I agree, the differences (eg f/3.5 v f/4 and f/5.6 vs f/5.8) just don't seem to be that exciting.
Since Panasonic and Olympus make very similar focal length lenses, just why did Tamron thing this was the M4/3 lens to market? I have two of the Panasonic 14-140 lenses and they are my most used lenses for day to day casual use.
No idea, the lens is quite old.
@@ForsgardPeter
I remember it being launched and, although time seems to go ever faster, I'm pretty sure it wasn't more than three years ago. Just gone and checked on DPReview and it was launched in 2013 and they tested it in early 2015. That's scary and means time is slipping by even faster than I thought. Especially scary as I've just returned from a friend's funeral :-(
Is it like other third party lenses which are essentially APSc with a mft adapter built in?
Thanks for this. It looks like a nice lens but it isn't different enough or that much cheaper than the Oly and Pany options. I think third party manufacturers need to make something different because for M43 we have a lot covered already.
That is true and that is propably the reason Tamron has not made any other m4/3 lenses.
Shame Tamron don't make more lenses for MFT. I have a couple of Tammy APS-C lenses, and apart from quite a lot of CA, they're very affordable and very decent in many ways. Their 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses for FF and APS-C systems are perhaps best in class in terms of bang for the buck, so I wish they'd make a good 35-100mm f/2.8 that undercuts the price of the Panasonic offering, and also a 12-35mm f/2.8.
At least Sigma do make MFT lenses, but while they are very good in terms of image quality, they're typically rather big and heavy (no matter what system they make them for), and this really doesn't work too well with the MFT "smaller, lighter, good enough" ethos.
I think the Sigma MFT lenses are APS-C lenses with MFT mount. Thats why those Sigma lenses are a bit big.
@@ForsgardPeter so, if that's the case, then Sigma don't really make lenses for MFT, in a way ;)
To be honest, I find their APS-C lenses to be a bit too big and heavy also. That seems to be their main drawback, but the optical performance is usually really nice.
I would buy such a lens if at least the aperture goes from 2.8 to 4. And I would definitely buy it if the focal length starts at 12 mm!
The DXO marks for this and the equivalent M.Zuiko lens are equally bad.
the 40-150 4-5.6 was one of the two kit lenses I bought with the EM-10 M ii and I confess to use both hardly.
It would be a quite a big lens, but other wise why not a f2.8 to f4 version.
Refreshing music for a TH-cam video^^
Thank you.
Beautiful place to do a review!
Thanks. It is one of my favorite parks in the eastern part of Helsinki.
I don't think those lenses makes anymore sense since Olympus release the 12-200
Other things being equal, 12-200 is better than 14-150. However, in addition to the extra cost, the 12-200 is noticeably bigger and heavier. You could carry an f 1.8 prime lens in addition to the 14-150 and still have a kit that weighs less than a 12-200. It depends on what your priorities are. Too bad there is no lens that covers all the bases.
Jeanpierre Moscardin the Olympus shop.eu still sticks the 14-150 II @ £549.00
When doing a lens review, photos as well as videos should be in full color. Black & White is an artistic and creative effect but it takes away from viewing color science for a lense.
The difference with the new "superzoom" 12-200 is like 130 euros. Isn't that a better deal?
It is hard to say. The 12-200mm Olympus lens is weather sealed. That could be a thing that matters?
I like the wider angle tbh. At the long end all these big zooms are a bit soft and whether it's 150 or 200 will be pretty much the same. But if you ever need the 24 eq., the ones that start at 14 just don't have it. And for a 'tourist lens' wide angle can be needed indeed.
Looks like the US price is $100 under Olympus sale price = $399 for Tamron. It is possible that the Olympus at full zoom ( 150mm ) is better / sharper. Does anyone here know the best price on the Olympus last year --- my guess it was lower than current sale price of $499 -- maybe it was $399 --- anyway close enough ;) I think the Tamron is made in Japan -- looks nice. DXOMARK is 14-5 sharpness whereas Olympus is 13-5 sharpness. Tests may indicate however that at zoom of 150 the Olympus wins the game. For sharpness, it appears that the $99 Olympus on sale in a 40-150mm takes the cake! Heck, my Panasonic 45-150mm is also pretty sharp compared to the Tamron and Oly super zooms, but that range could be handy at times, where you miss the 14mm - 40mm gap between zoom and super zooms, thus two lenses required.
This is a good price. There are two problems when comparing prices on a video. First it is impossible to find out all the prices and then the prices also changes over time.
Should I dump my Olympus 14-150 f/3.-5.6 MKII?
No reason you should unless you do not need it.
You may have felt like taking black and white but what percentage of people here do you think want to see the colours produced by the lens? Disappointed from Tunbridge Wells.
5.8?
Yes at the long end.
I think I loosely mentioned this lens in a comment somewhere in one of your videos recently... anyway, here's a shot I made with it a few days ago:
www.flickr.com/photos/ilovetazzus/49632401092