Canon EF-S 55-250 STM + Viltrox EF-M1 + Panasonic G9 (might update regularly)

My original post is over on micro43.org.

Picked up my new-to-me Canon 55-250 STM this afternoon. Shot the mergansers on the way home, then this evening I saw the fox in the field next to my house. The fox was cropped by about 60% and the mergansers by 70%.

I shot aperture-priority and used S-AF. There’s a slight amount of motion blur with the foremost merganser. AF speed was fairly reasonable IMO; however, I am a longtime Pentax shooter and I think most of us know about Pentax’s history of slow AF, so surely that influences my perception.

I’ll continue documenting my experience with the 55-250 in this thread.

This morning I walked around my yard with the 55-250 and the Panasonic 45-150.

With both lenses set to 150mm, the Panasonic focused at least 3x faster. I would first focus near my feet, and then on a tree about 30 yards away. The Panasonic was dramatically faster locking focus, and also the Canon would sometimes - maybe 25% of the time - require a second attempt to lock focus on the tree. This did not occur if I aimed at something closer.

Even just randomly pointing the lenses at branches, grass, etc. the Panasonic felt nearly instantaneous when locking focus, whereas the Canon would take a beat or two, and the infamous DFD “wobble” was quite pronounced.

Sharpness between the two lenses seems similar. Haven’t done any careful comparisons yet, though.

The maximum magnification between the two lenses is, well… Canon (250mm) on the left, Panny (150mm) on the right…

I did some testing with the same lens on my EM5 Mkiii and you SAF results with the G9 seem more consistent. I'll try with my G9 this week and see how it goes.

It would be cool if you could add your pics and impressions to this thread.

I'm liking the image quality this lens produces... but C-AF does not seem to work (not that I expected it to).

Did a few quick SAF tests with my G9. This lens works much better with the G9 than what I recall with the EM5 Mk iii.

Here are a few of the pics.

This afternoon - very sunny, albeit quite windy - I made a casual comparison between the Panasonic 45-150 and Canon 55-250 STM.

I took several dozen photos with each lens, shooting in bursts and refocusing between the bursts. All the Panasonic shots looked identical, whereas maybe 25% of the Canon shots looked slightly soft, as though maybe critical focus was not attained.

The target was about 50 yards away.

The Panny was shot at 150mm f/5.6, the Canon 149mm f/5.6. DXO Optics Pro is my RAW converter. I disabled all the lens corrections that I could: vignetting, “Lens Sharpness”, and CA.

First pic, Panny is on the left, Canon on the right. To see full-size images, right-click and select "open image in new tab".

Panny 100% center crop:

Canon 100% center crop:

Agree that several times critical focus in SAF is just a bit off even though the small single zone was green. The optics are quite sharp when the focus is nailed.

My dog pic had good focus while the wasp nest was just out of focus.

What I also experienced was in strongly backlit scenes, the small single zone would be green but the main subject was significantly out of focus.

I should also note that the manual focusing by wire actually worked quite well.

Also, I estimate the maximum magnification about x0.25 but I will confirm the numbers a bit more scientifically when I have some time. I was hoping for something closer to x0.3.

With this lens on the G9, I think I can use it for butterfly/moth photography as a lighter/more portable replacement for the PL100-400mm with a minor but noticeable drop in sharpness. I do like how the 55-250mm renders colours and also the background blurring which is not harsh.

I think it is a good lens for the price on MFT. Naturally would be a no-brainer on a Canon body.

According to Canon, the maximum magnification is 0.29x, and this seems reasonable to me because when I compare images at minimum focus distance with my Lumix 12-60 (0.27x max mag), the image from the Canon is slightly larger.

Evening fox...

My overall take on this lens is if you already use it on a Canon camera, it is a useful adapted addition to a MFT system. The IQ is very pleasing. However there are better options on the second hand market that will be much more reliable from an autofocus perspective (75-300mm and any of the xx-200mm lenses).

I expect this would be a great lens on the Canon R10.

I agree, but I wish there were a first-party equivalent to this lens... the close-focusing ability is mighty useful.

Heya. Very nice images!
Indeed the 55-250mm STM is quite a gem for the money one can find it for. I learned this week it is a discontinued lens. Sooo, need to get it ASAP too.

I see that MPB UK has 32 of them, so I am sure you won't have any issue finding one.