Telephoto Len's (Olympus E-400)

Jonbon

Jonbon

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Hey guys, i just brought the Olympus E-400 and im very happy with it. I want to get a telephoto lens for it ive found Two but im unsure which to go for, one is the Olympus 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 another is the Sigma 55-200mm f/4-5.6 DC (Olympus)

Now im not sure on the sigma one as i cant find any reviews about it so if anyone has it what is it like, does the price reflect the quality. Ive found the Olympus lens on ebay for around £100. Ill be using it for portrait photography by the way.

Any help would be great.

Sorry if its already been answered i couldn't find anything about them.
 
Im afraid I can't really help you with the lenses as I don't use an Olympus. However looking at the focal lengths, it seems the 55-200mm might be a little long for portrait photography. As far as I know, the sweetspot for a portrait lens lies in the 85-110mm range. With the x2 cropfactor of your camera taken into accoutn, the 55-200mm becomes 110-400mm. If I was you, id look for a prime lens around the 50mm length. Is there any reason why you want a telephoto lens?
 
Well ive read that you can get a shallower DOF with Telephoto len's, is that true?
 
I was thinking right then lol, because this lens has a wider Aperture field than the lens my cam came with.
 
Jonbon said:
I was thinking right then lol, because this lens has a wider Aperture field than the lens my cam came with.
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I think focal length does also affect the dof. Im not sure if one exists for Olympus fitting, but if you could get hold of something like a 50mm f1.8, then this could be an ideal portrait lens.
 
Yeah ive found that if i zoom in on the subject then the DOF is greater.

Cheers for all the help guys
 
hypnotic said:
That would be because both of the lenses start off at f/4 at the short end and finish at f/5.6 at the far reach.
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Isn't the dof more pronounced with longer focal lenses due to the increase in magnification? Ie a 300mm f2.8 would have much more evident dof than say a 30mm f2.8.
 
Depth of field is actually pretty well constant regardless of lens focal length- there are slight differences but they're negligible for all practical purposes.

In practice we actually see DOF being apparently greater with shorter lenses and less with longer ones, but any image is only sharp at the actual plane of focus - either side of that point the image becomes increasingly less sharp (the circle of confusion as the effect is called) although depending on how big the reproduced image is it can still appear sharp. The larger you print or otherwise view the image, the more the fall off in DOF will be evident.

CLICKY
 
I had the 55-200 on my E300. I really can't recommend it. Not bad between 55-100 but from thereon up it gets softer and softer. At the 200 end it was pretty useless. It is very cheap though and felt pretty rugged. Nice, smooth action on the zoom ring. Dust seemed to get sucked into it like nobody's business.

If you can offord the Olympus standard telezoom, I would get that.. a bit shorter at 150mm, but much better quality.
 
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