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Finally: In Europe and Asia you can separately buy the excellent new Panasonic 12-32mm. The lens is available only with the GM1 in North America.
Some stores selling the lens only are: Technikdirekt (Germany), Cameranu (Holland), [shoplink 42857 ebay]eBay (Japanese sellers)[/shoplink].
38 Responses
No black GX7, no 12-32, no GX7 20mm combo. What the hell does Panny have against the USA? Is the company run by the guy from Black Rain?
They give priority to the markets where they are (more)popular.
And, globally, as North America is shrinking in importance for sales compared to Asia and the rest of the world, then you can expect this trend to continue.
This happens with a lot of Asian consumer goods. Made for the EU market only.
I am pretty sure that Panasonic isn’t doing this without reason.
Maybe the correct question is: What do the average camera-buying people in the US have against Panasonic?
Or: What is Panasonic doing wrong that those people prefer brands?
Panasonic think US is radioactive, and so it stays pretty out of it: http://www.sansmirror.com/newsviews/panasonic-gm1-likes-big.html
Don’t get me wrong, I love their product, but their marketing is absolute crap (in the US, somewhere else, I dunno).
It’s a self fullfilling profecy: you can never-ever see a Panasonic m43 product on any shelf, so nobody buys them, so Panasonic drops out of the US market completely.
Olympus has a similar problem, but at least you can see their product once in a while (one in every ten stores, if you really ask about them and push the sale clerk, they may have it).
Now, before you start the “everybody buys online these days” thread, which is true. But people do that only after they have tried the thing in person in a real store. Sad for the brick and mortar industry, but Nikon and Canon understand this and in fact you can find their products even in a grocery store (I am not kidding, my neighborhood grocery store is Target and it does have Nikon DSLR and Nikon 1 on display!)
The flip side of this is we in the US often and earlier get bargain prices that others in Europe or Asia only dream of. Yet in spite of these fire sales of unsold inventory Pany and Oly have been failing to make much of a dent in the US market. I agree the problem is people want to be able to see and actually handle a product in a store first before getting it even if they buy on line.
I am a bit surprised Pany is offering this very compact zoom lens separately so early in the game to not undercut GM1 sales so they must have this lens volume cranked up. I can see this lens being a significant factor in making m4/3 more popular and desirable given it covers wa down to 12mm with very good IQ and will be a game changer.
“if you really ask about them and push the sale clerk, they may have it”
As I keep saying. People may have an idea of what they want, but they end up with the camera of the day. The exception being if they want something with a bigger margin.
I got a black GX7 ~ 20mm kit from Canada.
But It makes no sense that Panasonic doesn’t offer black bodies and kits in the US.
The US got the G6 14-42mm kit with the 14-42mm II, while in Europe the G6 is sold with the old 14-42mm. So it’s not always stacked against the US when Panasonic makes local variations of available products.
Must feed children. At least twice a day. All of them.
love!
Americans prefer BIG
Hey, be fair!
Not everyone here in the US of A is a fat, ignorant, lout…
… it only seems that way most days. 😉
Has anyone seen a photo of this lens on a camera (like a Pen) other than the GM1?
I am just curious how it looks on a larger camera ()as this lens has a small physical diameter.
there was a review linked here with a pic of the 12-32 on a em-5… awesome combo IMO
here
http://www.m43.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/P1020003.jpg
awesome maybe but ugh… (at least in silver and with the hood)
remove the hood, it’s not provided with the lens anyway. then pint it all black…
i think i’m in
Silver on black? Yuck!
Thanks for the link. WOW stark contrast…bright silver on black black….this is also the first time that I have seen the lens with its hood….looks much larger, but at least it travels small. Interesting.
Retracted, it’s about the same size as the 20mm.
Not by its diameter, though 😛
http://i.imgur.com/PXRU7u8.jpg
Note the picture is of the 20mm not 12-32 zoom. That is why Pany/Leica is coming out with a smaller diameter 15mm/1.7 with faster AF to fit the GM1.
I saw some with GX7 on Flickr. Look up user “Pedroboe”
Nice lens, but no buy at the moment. Going for the zuiko 12-40 first. Anyway, well done pany!
Glad that you can afford both! I do not. So I am struggling between less cost & portability vs. maximum quality and weather sealing but bulkier.
I still cannot make my mind!
Ah how many beautiful choices this system gives us!
Still no info about how to manual focus with this lens on Olympus bodies?
no way but using the touchscreen
Yes, but the real question is: do the Olympus bodies even support that yet? Or is there a firmware upgrade?
So far, Im not aware of any Olympus bodies that even allow manual focus via touchscreen.
hmm, 349€ is more than I expected. Let’s see if it comes down a little …
Perhaps you didn’t note the 345 Euro price included a 21# tax so would be cheaper in US?
GM1 Kit is the better deal I think.
agreed, 350€ for the em1 body is a fair price if u subtract the 350€ kitlens price
350 for the kitlens alone is too high. Even insane when u look at the aps-c kitlenses.this lens should be <200 if want to use it on my gf3
We’ll get it in the US when people buy the GM1 kit and sell the lens.
Nice kit lens. Very nice.
Though Panny has had some problems with zoom lens miniaturization (see 14-42X) and I would be waiting for the user feedback first, before making any decisions.
I want to know if gm1 will fire fl-300R flash.
Thanks
My guess is that Asian people have smaller body scale therefore they have smaller hands and easier to hold smaller camera. Traditional dslrs are better for Americans because they have larger hands.
So Americans could never manage with an slr? they had to wait for the dslr?