Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 Micro Four Thirds 4/3 Lens (Refurbished) - $140 + FS

Quote from Groch : Lacking stabilization is a big deal if you are going to use it as a walkabout lens. Oly 23/4rds cameras have stabilization in the bodies, Panasonics like my new GX1 don't. For longer lenses I will be sticking with stabilized Pannys.

Quote from teaberry : Except the price is about 2x diff Don't get me wrong, I loved my 20mm and wish I didn't sell it. Also, for those w/ Panny bodies, I wouldn't get a 40-150mm Oly lens if you plan to do video. The reason Oly lenses are cheaper is partly because they dont have image-stabilization in the lens, Oly bodies have it so their lenses don't need it. Try to shoot a video or even pics hand-held at 150mm without stabilization.........it's not pretty.

I disagree with these. I use a Panasonic G2 with the Olympus 40-150mm lens, and don't have any issues. I feel like image stabilization is a gimmick selling point today, just like megapixels is to the average spending-$100-at-Best-Buy-or-Walmart camera buyer. Yes, it's useful to have it, but in most cases it's unneeded. There are so many more important factors of a lens like optical quality, focus speed, size, etc. etc. that when you're turning down a lens or choosing one lens of another because of image stabilization is a bit like choosing between a Suburban and a Civic based on the diameter of the cupholders; you're using the wrong metrics to spend your money. There are many more important things you should be looking at. Plus, image stabilization only helps you in a very specific situation: you're shooting handheld, AND you don't have enough light, AND your already at the ISO and aperture limits of your setup. So, if you are out shooting, and you would usually get blurry images below 1/125 second shutter speed, image stabilization will allow you to get reasonably sharp images from 1/125 second down to about 1/30 second or 1/15 second. It's basically a virtual tripod for those times when your shutter speed is just barely too slow. Image stabilization isn't the great equalizer that your local salesmen have made it out to be. Read this article from Thom Hogan. It is written for Nikon's VR system, but it is equally applicable to all image stabilization technologies:
http://www.bythom.com/nikon-vr.htm
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/indep...en-turn-it
http://www.picturecorrect.com/tip...reduction/
Back when I worked for a newspaper, when the IS lenses and digital were relatively new, we ended up buying ourselves the non-IS version of the 70-200mm f/2.8 Canon lens. For most shooting, IS was unnecessary, plus if you shot with it on it would slightly hurt your sharpness, and last if we really wanted stability, a true solid foundation like a tripod or even a $30 monopod gave 10 times better results than using image stabilization (heck, even just stabilizing against a rail, tree, bench, etc worked better than IS). Even with VR II, IS II, and all those other new editions of the technology out, it still holds true; they just increase the shutter speed decrease at which the system works, but you still have all the other shortcomings.