If I recall well there was a problem getting exactly that optic for the Olympus. We had in mind this when we took the test. But I still fail to see, at least in my opinion of it, where does the optic affect the amount of noise in the Olympus images in comparison to the other cameras for example.

I took some shots with the SWD 55-200 which is in itself a very decent optic (I actually comment about it in my Flickr page) and I would still not buy the Olympus over the other two.In fact, the shot of the lemons and limes you see in the mag, I took that with the SWD 55-200. It's not that the Olympus is a bad camera, it is just that the competition is particularly good. For what it is and whom its aimed at, I would not choose it over the other two.

Perhaps you were expecting the Sony to be last, but ultimately, I could perhaps get used to the smudginess of the Sony images at higher ISOs than the noise of the Olympus at medium to high ISOs.It is also higher resolution (even if 2MP difference corresponds to bearly anything, but it's still more for the money). Also other factors like the dynamic range were taken into consideration, the Sony apart from offering stabilisation like the Olympus also offers Dynamic Range Optimisation which the Olympus despite improvements in this area, could use. It's the smaller sensor folks!

For me the deciding factor was image quality and no, it's a 3rd ranking from me in comparison to the other two.

But that's only my side of it.

PS: Three of the pics were taken with similar optics at similar focal lengths in my review.