Both Olympus Malaysia employee, Robin Wong, and Mathieu and Heather, the dynamic (and independent) duo behind Mirror Lessons, recently tested out the new Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150 f/2,8 Pro m43 lens.
Mathieu's and Heather's impressions are here.
Robin Wong's impressions are here.
DPReview's m43's forum is rife with surprise and anger about the lens's bokeh. DPReview member, JimLinder, person even said:
“A very positive review and the lens looks very good, but this bokeh looks a little harsh to me almost reminiscent of a mirror lens.”
Full comments to Robin's review can be found here.
To Jim: no. It just looks like the type of bokeh you get from a long lens whose effective aperture width is equivalent what you get on a small aperture long zoom lens.
No surprises here. It is, after all, a 40mm - 150mm lens, that system included, acts like an 80-300 f/5,6 lens. Lenses in that range, and with effectively slow apertures, generally are not picked for the quality of their bokeh. They are picked because they are light, small, and dirt cheap. (Of course, at around 1500$ USD, this lens isn't cheap, nor is it small.)
Yes, the out-of-focus highlights do tend to swirl. As you know, I like that in wide to normal lenses. And, especially for a lens with an effectively narrow field of view, there isn't a lot of subject-from-background isolation. But there is enough. And the swirls aren't pointed by bright blobs. Highlights blend well, and the swirls cast centripetal haloes around their subjects.
Just check out how angelic this orangutang is.
Robon Wong: 150mm, 1/640sec, F2.8, ISO500
Close in, OOF high smooth out (as they tend to do), and subjects and their backgrounds get convivial.
Robin Wong: 150mm, 1/250sec, F2.8, ISO800
If you prefer ducks, here's a duck.
Mirror Lessons: E-M1, 1/200, f/ 2.8, ISO 200 – 130mm
The point is that the quality of the new 40-150 f/2,8 Pro's bokeh depends on many things. Firstly, subject to camera distance trumps everything. Next, a nice background that isn't right on top of the subject is right important. If the background's got loads of details, expect OOF elements to have it, too.
All in all, the new 40-150 2,8 lens looks like a decent, if effectively slow, large-range telephoto zoom.