Lumix lenses on Olympus Camera - Do I Now Have a Dual IS System? Just got a refurbished Olympus OMD E-M5 body from B&H yesterday. I have Lumix 14-42 & 45-200 zooms which have Optical...

joegim Loc: Long Island, NY

Just got a refurbished Olympus OMD E-M5 body from B&H yesterday. I have Lumix 14-42 & 45-200 zooms which have Optical Image Stabilization built into the lens. The Olympus has it's own 5 axis In Body Image Stabilization. Does the lens OIS still function when mounted on the Olympus? Do I now have a dual stabilized system or will the camera override the lens OIS? The good thing with the Olympus is that I can now use my Nikkor 55mm Micro lens with Image Stabilization.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

If, by some miracle, the lens IS system works with your camera and you activate the camera's IS system, you may find they fight each other. Similar to activating IS with a camera on a tripod.
--Bob

joegim wrote:

Just got a refurbished Olympus OMD E-M5 body from B&H yesterday. I have Lumix 14-42 & 45-200 zooms which have Optical Image Stabilization built into the lens. The Olympus has it's own 5 axis In Body Image Stabilization. Does the lens OIS still function when mounted on the Olympus? Do I now have a dual stabilized system or will the camera override the lens OIS? The good thing with the Olympus is that I can now use my Nikkor 55mm Micro lens with Image Stabilization.

Screamin Scott Loc: Marshfield Wi, Baltimore Md, now Dallas Ga

Olympus says to disable the in lens stabilization of Panasonic lenses when used on an Olympus M4/3rds camera.

dmsM43

I have an Olympus E-M1, and I use Panasonic lenses with it. The E-M1 and E-M5 both work the same way with Panasonic lenses. You have a choice between using the IBIS in the camera bodies or the IS in the lenses, but you can't use both in combination. As both of these cameras are "older" models, they do not have the capability of using both lens IS and IBIS together. You use one or the other, and quite frankly, I haven't noticed any difference between the two. To find all of this go into the Menu, then go into the "gear" menu, then to "Release", and then to "Lens IS Priority" and you can pick one or the other set-up.

bw79st Loc: New York City

The two systems will fight each other and I know that, not only from the manual, but from trying it to see what happens. My default position is to turn off the IS in the lens and not bother with the options in the menu. That way I don't have to reconfigure when I use an old manual lens.

dmsM43

bw79st wrote:

The two systems will fight each other and I know that, not only from the manual, but from trying it to see what happens. My default position is to turn off the IS in the lens and not bother with the options in the menu. That way I don't have to reconfigure when I use an old manual lens.

I don't know where you are getting your information, it's not in any Olympus manual that I have a copy of. The systems do not fight each other. These cameras pick one or the other, but not both. If you leave the lens IS on, but want to use the IBIS of the camera, the camera will ignore the lens IS. As I said before, I haven't seen any difference between one or the other with the lenses that I have. I only use the IBIS for my old manual focus lenses.
The newest camera from Olympus and Panasonic do feature dual IS systems with certain lenses, but the cameras that we are talking about here do not have that feature.

joegim Loc: Long Island, NY

dmsM43 My Lumix 14-42 does not have a OIS switch but the 45-200 does. When I turn on the OIS switch of the 45-200 there seems to be no difference in the IS performance. And it definitely DOES NOT degrade the IS performance. I called Olympus support regarding this and the lady was evasive about this issue saying they have no info regarding other manufacturer's lenses mounted on the E-M5. I find that a little strange because if there was in fact a degradation in the IS performance that rep would have definitely mentioned that. Maybe they don't want people to know that they can have dual IS on a E-M5 if they mount a Lumix lens with OIS?? I then called B&H tech support and the person said that the Lumix lens mounted on the E-M5 will have dual IS! Anybody has further info regarding this because I also heard on a You Tube video that such a setup will have dual IS.

You mentioned that the latest Olympus cameras have dual IS. Does it mean that Olympus now makes lenses with OIS?

bw79st Loc: New York City

dmsM43 wrote:

I don't know where you are getting your informatio... (show quote)

You are right. I checked a Lumix 14-45mm on my E-M5 and there was no problem. As a matter of fact, I could hear what seemed to be the body IS shutting down when I half depressed the shutter and then switched the lens IS on. At least there is a motor noise that stops when you do that. I then thought that maybe the condition I had noticed in the past was with a Lumix Leica 4/3 lens. I tried that on my E-M1 and there was also no problem. I did hear the same motor noise stop when I switched the lens IS on with the shutter half depressed.

I would swear I had an IS issue in the past. Maybe updates took care of it?

Cdouthitt Loc: Traverse City, MI

The 5 axis is better than the lens IS. Use the camera stabilization.

dmsM43

bw79st wrote:

You are right. I checked a Lumix 14-45mm on my E-M... (show quote)

That's a good test to find out which IS is working. The IBIS in the Olympus bodies makes a humming noise, while the lens IS is usually silent. As to Olympus making lenses with IS, the only one that I know of at this time is the 300mm f4. I was incorrect about that not working with the E-M1, it does give you dual IS with the E-M1, E-M5ii, E-M1ii, and PEN F, but not with the older E-M5.

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

Do not use IS in the lens with the IS of the camera on. As Bob has said one will fight the other.
I have Panasonic lenses for my Olympus, not all of them have IS but those that have it I keep it off and use in body IS.

johneccles Loc: Leyland UK

I have an EM10 and only use Panasonic lenses, if your lens has an Ois button, switch it to off and use inbody OIS only.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

dmsM43 wrote:

I have an Olympus E-M1, and I use Panasonic lenses... (show quote)

Best answer. It's "either/or." NO Dual IS when using Panny lenses on an Oly camera. Pick one. Lens IS may be better at 250mm and longer. Otherwise, stick with IBIS.

By the way, I have that same 55mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor. My 30mm f/2.8 Panasonic LUMIX Macro is sharper. It's also 35 years newer... and has a field of view closer to what the 55 had on 35mm film. The 55 on Micro 4/3 has the field of view of a 110mm on a full frame camera. That can be useful for photographing bees and spiders, but my macro work is mostly performed on a copy stand.

Morning Star Loc: West coast, North of the 49th N.

joegim wrote:

...snip...
You mentioned that the latest Olympus cameras have dual IS. Does it mean that Olympus now makes lenses with OIS?

There are at least two that I'm aware of. Now going strictly by memory (which is not as good as it used to be), I believe both are made for the OM-D E-M1 Mk II.
Recently I did a bit of reading about these lenses and the camera, and while they made my mouth water, I cannot justify the cost for myself...

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

One of the nicer things about Micro 4/3 as a camera platform is that the lenses are interchangeable across brands. Unfortunately, that does not mean that all functions of a given lens work on the other brand's bodies the way they do on their native brand. Check out this link:

http://hazeghi.org/mft-lenses.html (UPDATED on July 7, 2017, just two weeks ago.)

...It explains a lot about the special features of each camera manufacturer's lenses that don't cross over to the other brand.

Panasonic Dual IS and Dual IS 2 require Panasonic lenses with updated firmware and OIS, plus a body with the Dual IS or Dual IS II system built-in. The G85 and GH5 have Dual IS 2. A few older bodies have Dual IS.

One thing of note is that Olympus is the IBIS king... They get about as much shake reduction with IBIS alone as Panasonic does with Dual IS 2. That's great if you work in extremely low light and use third party lenses or adapted dSLR lenses.