Our readers sent us to good news. First, as you see from the screenshot on top Adorama is now shipping the Panasonic-Leica 25mm f/1.4 lens. Hurray! Here you have more preorder links: [shopcountry 23110].
And another reader wrote: “Just wanted to let you know that the M.Zuiko 45mm F1.8 has started shipment here in the U.S. through BH Photo. I got my shipment notification today, but I also had made my pre-order when it was first announced so I don’t know how long the new order wait is. 🙂” Here you have more preorder links: [shopcountry 23577].
15 Responses
Order #: 9543156
Tracking #: 1Z0X….
You get the picture. You might want to completely cut out the numbers instead of just lining through them with a semi-opaque brush stroke in Photoshop.
My 25mm from Adorama is still showing back ordered, though I only placed my preorder 12 days ago. I hope they have enough stock to fill all the preorders quickly!
Yeah, I’m in the same boat. Fingers crossed!
Lets see 12mm 2.0 Olympus; 25mm 1.4 Panasonic/Leica; 45mm 1.8 Olympus. Wow.
Need a 65mm 2 .0Panasonic/Leica now. Then a 100mm 2.8 Olympus. I guess you can always go zoom for the teles, well for now.
We’ll probably have to content ourselves with excellent and inexpensive manual lenses to fill those gaps.
I honestly don’t see either Panasonic or Olympus releasing many, if any, prime telephoto lenses, since I doubt the market for such lenses would be that large. Zooms are what the mass-market expects and most longer primes seem to be “specialty” lenses at this point.
If you want to go manual to fill the gap, Voigtländer makes an excellent 75mm f1.8 with a Leica M mount.
I have a very nice Pentax SMC Takumar 105mm f2.8, that’s not very large or wide diameter (uses 49mm filter), a bit longer than the Nokton 25mm. KEH sells them for around $150 in EX comdition.
The cheaper Voigtlander 75/2.5 also works well in my experience, not as good as the 1.8 but still very good and compact (depending on your requirements)..
A 65mm could easily be made at f1.8 and a 100mm f2 would still be a manageable size. Look at how compact the FD 100mm f2 was.
Disagreeing mildly with Mr. Reee, I think it’s a chicken-and-egg problem: More people would want wide-aperture teles if they could try them, but they can’t because manufacturers aren’t making them. Manufacturers would make more of them if people demanded them, but people don’t because they’ve never tried them.
I use a 100mm f/2 Canon rangefinder lens on my M43 cameras, and it’s tremendously useful and gives excellent results. The equivalent 200mm lens on a “nostalgia-format” (36x24mm) camera is so gigantic and expensive that very few people buy them. However, a 100/2 for M43 could be much more compact and more reasonably priced, which could make it more popular… if only people had a chance to see what they could do with such a lens.
Manual lenses are really only a stopgap for the highly committed. Although I like using my 100/2, let’s face it — I would like it even more if it were a full-fledged M43 lens with AF and exposure coupling. That’s why, even though I love the results I get with my 50mm f/1.5 Nokton lens, I’ve already pre-ordered the 45mm f/1.8 Olympus. I suspect that most of us will retire our adapted manual lenses as fast as manufacturers fill those gaps with real M43 lenses.
Long fast telephoto (not of mirror design) is definitely going to be a gap in m43 mount. At these focal lengths you have to shoot from a tripod, and ideally gimbal mount, so size and weight is not that critical. With the low demand and what one can get in legacy FF frames lens, it is unlikely that anyone will build them for m43.
At last, though I had already cancelled both my Adorama orders and bought them from Japan (the 25 I have had for a good while now)..
They really made America wait didn’t they, this is probably the first time I have seen lenses (45mm) available in stores in Australia before the US.. :-O
The 45 F1.8 is available in Auatralia?
I know the retailers are taking preorders but don’t seem to have stock readily available.
In Digital camera warehouse they’ve listed it taking preorders
For a listed price of about $469 but it’s not in yet.
I pre-ordered the 25/1.4 from Adorama the following day (actually 2am on 6/15/2011) and my order still shows as pending. I was thinking this lens would be ideal to use when my daughter was born. She’s 9 weeks old now. Hope she’s still cute when I get it….
I don’t understand this post. I’ve had mine on order since 7/1/11, but I just got this email from them:
“Thank you for your inquiry on the status of your backorder.
“As for the Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 Leica DG Summilux Aspherical Lens for Micro 4/3 (order #______) , the manufacturer is not providing us with an ETA of when to expect this item, in turn, we cannot provide our customer’s with an ETA. “
I received my 45mm today from BH. I was probably one of the first people to pre-order since my card was charged the moment I pre-ordered it from them. Usually they charge you when the item is ready to ship.