Five months after the E-M5 presentation it’s still hard to find the E-M5 in Stock in US stores. According to BHphoto (Click here) all kits will be avialable on July 30th. And I guess this is just a rough estimation. At that point you may wait until mid-August to see how the new GH3 will look like 🙂
Yesterday I told you that the GX1 with 14-42mm kit lens sells now for less than $500 at Amazon (Click here) and that’s exactly $38 cheaper than the body only version! Today also the price of the GH2 with kit lens (Click here) is matching the price of the body only version (Click here). Sometimes marketing is a real mystery!
E-M5 preorder links:
Amazon, Adorama, B&H, Jessops, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Japan and Digitalrev.
22 Responses
I (a dedicated GH2 user) didn’t wait. I finally got my hands on a silver E-M5 and I am ecstatic. It’s all about the sensor for me–crisper colors, better noise (high and low ISO), and to my surprise, long time exposures have wonderfully low noise. (I love my GH2, but it is horribly noisy for long exposures.)
While I’m normally a Pany fanboy, I’ve gotta say that they need to do something special with their next releases if they want to keep people’s interests. If the G5 and GH3 regurgitate the same old sensors and image quality from previous models, they’ll be in trouble. They desperately need to improve their noise performance and dynamic range.
Now if Oly finally can keep up with E-M5 demand, I hope they’ll start making more batteries. I can’t find any (not-3rd party) anywhere! Pany had the same problem with GH2 availability and accessories. If the GH3 is announced in August, be prepared to wait another 6-12 months until you can actually purchase one. Seems none of the big camera makers can ship their top-tier items properly.
My long awaited Olympus spare battery arrived this morning here in the UK. They must be on their way to the USA sometime soon…………
If its all about the sensor why didn’t you buy a fuji x-pro 1 or a d800?
Both of which I’m considering.
For me, the number one reason for selling up out of m4/3 is the lack of quality optical viewfinders and stupid form factor going for a pretend mass market that just does not exist.
Panasonic and Olympus paid no heed to good advice they got from comments on sites like this, they could have made a design classic, any camera manufacturer could, all it takes is more thought and less reliance on bean counting as a design process.
Number one rule of marketing cameras in the days of ubiquitous computing is ignore your marketeers, listen to your market.
> lack of quality optical viewfinders
And look through hole which struggles to show fully correct framing and don’t show focusing or “magnification” of image changing with focal lenses is some ultimate quality viewfinder?
It has its advantages but is far from perfect.
Just like SLR’s through the lens viewfinder which can’t show actual exposure seen by sensor, needs bulky mirror box limiting design of shorter focal length lenses and doesn’t work with video.
There isn’t viewfinder which would be even close to perfect!
> Number one rule of marketing cameras in the days of ubiquitous computing is ignore your marketeers, listen to your market.
Good, so let’s check the facts:
In Asia/Japan this small retro fashion of mirrorless sells well and is now topping sales of DSLR while in Europe and North America DSLRs haven’t lost really any sales and Olympus has been lost market share for years because of stubborn PEN only strategy.
Time to make actually ergonomical high end mirrorless body capable to challenging DSLRs?
Or maybe you just want Olympus to do nothing and leave Canon and Nikon transform their domination from DSLRs to mirrorless future.
You don’t want to go to future, you want to return back to WWII era.
Personally I prefer to frame photographs with my eyes, this is more natural for me using an optical viewfinder, not a television or a monitor – we all spend far too much time staring at screens in this great future anyway, (the irony of writing this here is not lost on me 🙂 this is just my preference, but there’s clearly a lot of people who feel the same way. I find it more human.
The post world war 2 era brought a lot of good things into this world, much of which is currently being dismantled – the national health service (Est. late 1940’s) is but one example of an institution created to serve humanity not profiteers. Blindly seeking short term profit in a current misguided version of capitalism is the root cause of the majority of problems we all face as human beings.
This covers many industries, sectors and services. Camera manufacturing is one of them. People (the market) know when a product, service or endeavour has been done for higher reasons than just capital, more humane reasons; the optical engineer who aims to make the highest quality lens, the nurse who comforts the infirm, even the politician who actually gives a damn.
When people see these good things manifest in commodities, services and ideas they have respect, one side effect is usually profit for the creator, when this side effect becomes the driver it starts becoming open to corruption, not always, but corporate culture can corrode – we see this every day.
This post is a call to arms if you will, for those with influence and the means. Look long term, listen, create.
That side effect so sought will happen.
M4/3 has what? about 15 different models of camera so far, just try one with an optical finder, maybe even a rangefinder – the technology is there, the limitations are known. Even if it’s only suitable for focal lengths in the 28mm-90mm range the camera would still have the LCD screen for those extreme wide or telephoto lenses. If it was my money I’d take that gamble, I think it would pay dividends, and I’m rarely wrong. 😉
@Backshot… My “it’s all about the sensor” comment was in comparing the E-M5 to whatever Panasonic comes up with next.
Why didn’t I buy the Fuji or the Nikon D800? Well actually, I’m originally a Nikon shooter and I’m planning on getting the D800 for high-res work once the focus-point calibration issue is a thing of the past. But I value M43 for size, weight, and the array of lenses that are available. I wouldn’t consider NEX, NX, or X-Pro based on the lack of inspiring lenses. Maybe I’ll look again anybody makes a wide-angle zoom, but probably not.
The E-M5 is hard to find if you’re looking for it at the big online retailers – B&H, Adorama, Amazon, etc. Try checking the list of Olympus Premier Dealers.
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/oima_slr_premier.asp
I got mine from Dodd Camera. Didn’t even have to pay a premium price. Dodd’s been in business for over a hundred years, so you can count on getting pretty good service if you have a problem with your order. Watch the prices from some of the other dealers though. I’ve seen a couple of them overcharging when selling through Amazon.
It would be quite dumb to believe the BH estimate again, it’s nothing but to hook people into pre-ordering.
I say BH would be the very last place to ship your OM-D, because I think they most likely to have the longest wait list than anybody else.
I had to laugh when it was suggested people wait for the GH3. How long is it taking Olympus to fully stock stores after release…four months if we believe the July 30th date? Panasonic will take double or triple that if it is any kind of seller and everyone here knows it.
I was happy to get my EM-5 about 1.5 months from release via pre-order…that would be 4 or 6 months after release if I was waiting on a GH3. So half a year to fill pre-orders, one full year to put cameras in stock at every store…I sure hope for Panasonic’s sake it only comes in one color! =-)
I REALLY want the 1080 60P that will probably come on the GH3, but I want Better DR, ISO, and an improved JPEG engine for stills. If there’s not much improvement in those atea, I’ll wait for the next GH model and get the Olympus 60mm macro instead.
One area where I’m probably in the minority is that I don’t want an add-on battery/portrait grip for the GH3. I really wish cam manufacturers would work on battery tech to double the capacity of the current-size GH2 battery.
I bought my GH2 a little over a year ago coming from my Nikon D90, that I really like. I think Panasonic has a good thing going with the GH series…a great mix of external, menu, and custom controls and settings. I love the mode dials and levers, and the back of body controls are pretty good as well. Improve all of the imaging capabilities, and just some minor tweaks to ergonomics and I’ll buy it.
I got my E-M5 in mid May, by jumping from my preordered silver version to the black version. Overall, I am very happy with it — I came from rhe E-P3 where I used the EVF 95% of the time.
Still, there are a few things that could have been improved, so it is not perfect.
If I had a camera that was decent (e.g the E-P3 or better) and was drooling for the E-M5… if it was clear that I could not get it before August 1, anyway, I would probably wait and see what the GH3 is like. Then I would include guesstimates of image quality, delivery time, etc. before making my decision.
It should be said that in some European countries, Panasonic is run better than Olympus. So the situation in USA is not universally valid.
IBIS. Enough said.
The IBIS and fact Panny isn’t supposed to have global shutter ready for GH series just yet kinda firms up E-M5 for me. I may wait until GH3 has good availability anyhow though just in case there is maybe a bit of price point competition once both have good supply closer to Christmas hopefully.
“Sometimes marketing is a real mystery!”
It gives you the illusion, the product is cheap;)
People who bought camera with 14-42mm kit lens are usually new micro 3/4 owner. I think it is about gaining more market share & hope you will buy additional lens or accessories for the system.
heheh
so, Admin, your GH3 reference in the title is very appreciated but…tell us something more about it!!! 🙂
share share share ;P
read you soon and enjoy your stay in Pirenei
Sure, the GH3 might be announced in August, which means that here in the USA we might get it in April.
Will the Panny GH-3 have a Panny sensor? If yes, then I’ll pass. After years of using their crap sensors, I do not trust them. Especially after now owning the EM-5 withe the Sony wonder.
Looks like canons doing an aps-c mirrorless, not 4/3. Check out canon watch..
Canon Schmanon … I’ll take a D600!
Canon can’t even make a sensor that’s better than the one in the nearly 3 year old 7D. They really should have Sony make them for them instead.
Maybe they want the new tech in the 7D II but who knows when that’s coming.
I had my silver E-5 and Voigtländer 17,5mm in May. After a week I added the grip and a second original battery. I found everything in Venice area, without pre-ordering anything. (to be honest the silver OMD was the first in Italy and I really own a favour to a friend!) Maybe I was lucky???