Short break from the Photokina coverage because there is a surprising $200 price drop on the 12-35mm X lens at Amazon (now sold out!) and Samys (Still in Stock!). That’s a nice 15% price drop and makes the X lens sudenly much more attractive.
And the second good nes is that there are over nine Olympus 75mm lenses in Stock at [shoplink 33718 ebay]Cameraland eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] for the normal $899 price.
Sub $300 cameras:
Brown GF3 with 14mm pancake for $279 at [shoplink 33719 ebay]Vnoel eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]
Olympus E-PM1 with 14-42mm lens at [shoplink 33720 ebay]Cameraland eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]
31 Responses
Foto Erhardt in Germany is selling it for € 999, so it seems to be quickly approaching a reasonable price level. Good news!
Thanks for the info! Will post that too.
thanks for the heads up wanted the 12-35 and the $200 made me pull the trigger !
Hope to get a better deal when this lens comes together with GH3!
WTF !!!
I really hate this kind of marketing plan. What about people buying this lens before this price drop?
The perils of the early adoptor.
It is not FF lens, it is smaller then APS, therefore it should be cheaper then such lenses f/2.8.
Moreover, there is strong competition after Photokina – NEX6 and much more lenses then before for NEX, Fuji with EX1 and more lenses – there is necessary to get more users. Good prices for 12-35/2.8 and 35-100/2.8 will make u43 more attractive. 1000$ is it still too expensive, but better then previous price.
if you judge price by size then Leica is in serious trouble 🙂
Lenses for a smaller sensor with a higher pixel density need to provide a significantly higher resolution, so your comparison doesn’t work well.
When looking at 135 format sensors with a higher pixel density such as the 36mp sensor in the d800, you’ll start seeing that most affordable lenses do not provide sufficient resolution either, and m4/3 has almost twice that density (16mp sensor)
So.. if you’d be comparing to lenses that cn actually provide sufficient resolution for the d800 you’d be about halfway there.
wow, i hope the price of 35-100mm lens can drop to this level
btw, the 7-14mm lens was sold for ￥4000 (about $630) in china several months ago
I’m possibly waiting too on a gh3 bundle. Maybe a $800 lens bundled…? Although I’m not sure the gh3 is for me. I’m not seeing huge advantages over the gh2 with hacked firmware. I’ll likely wait to see how Vitally does with the hack.
Waiting to see what if any bundles will be announced in the us with the gh3. Although will wait awhile to see how the gh3 pans out and if vitally gets around to hacking its firmware. I don’t see any huge advantages over the hacked gh2 right now.
Looks like the rebate only applies if you buy a camera as well. A good deal if you’re looking to buy both.
Samy’s had two rebates. One when purchasing a camera and one 9/20-9/26 without. Both were $200 rebates. Unfortunately, they are out of stock now. 🙁
I figured that the price would stabilize at about $1000 sooner or later.
Oh well, bought it about a month ago.
gray market here in Taiwan is about 30,000ntd which is about 1k usd. As soon as the market starts splitting up the gh3 kits I expect the price to drop some more. Check e-bay as soon as the GH3 ships for some deals on this lens.
Just an FYI to add to your purchase decision:
http://www.slrclub.com/bbs/vx2.php?id=olympus_e10_forum&page=1&divpage=80&ss=on&keyword=%B9%E6%C1%F8&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=429364
So, someone was crazy enough to test out the weather proofing on this lens and found that the sealing was quite poor. I wonder how effective it would be in real world use.
No idea how they tested this but generally, weather sealing only works for the camera + lens combination. Lens alone is generally not weather sealed, because it counts on the sealing of the bayonet to protect the rear side of the lens.
Just like a camera will only be weather sealed when a properly weather sealed lens is mounted.
True. But what you said applies to the mounting part of the camera/lens. Weather sealed lens should be properly sealed at its front-end as well. Otherwise, water/moisture can smear into the lens from the front element.
Absolutely, the front should be sealed. Additionally, something has to be done to prevent water coming in through the telescoping mechanism of this kind of lens.
I can’t read whatever they are writing there, so again no idea what they did to the lens, but ‘splash and dust proof’ usually means it will deal fine with (heavy) rain, but not with water under pressure. Putting it under a tap might or might not work out well.
Anyway, some explanation of what they did to the lens would help a lot 🙂
Roughly, it says that the user found some moisture build up in his lens after using it in the rain. Doubting its weather sealing, he opened it up, and found that there was very little weather sealing. The only thing that was filling up the gap between the lens element and the lens body was a thin strip of velcro-like fabric. When he poured water into the front element/body of the lens, as you can see from the pic, the water just leaked through. Of course, it’s NOT water-proof, so you can expect some leakage when water is poured in, but not the way it shows on the pic. Slow leakage, fine. Flow through, eh… Makes you doubt. 🙂
Thanks.
Odd story tho, if it was used in the rain and is supposed to be splash and dust proof, send it back for a warranty claim, opening it up is kinda.. oh well, guess whoever did it didn’t mind 🙂
When I was buying mine (the day before $200 price drop) I had option to buy for about $150 USD cheaper with no warranty. That was from HK, maybe in Korea had similar options?
Still, that’s a bit disappointing. Now more tempted by Olympus 75 f/1.8 than waiting for the Panasonic 35-100 – since sounds like the Panny weather sealing isn’t something you’d really want to rely on.
Just an FYI to add to your purchase decision:
http://www.slrclub.com/bbs/vx2.php?id=olympus_e10_forum&page=1&divpage=80&ss=on&keyword=%B9%E6%C1%F8&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=429364
So, someone was crazy enough to test out the weather sealing on this lens and found that the sealing was quite poor. I wonder how effective it would be in real world use.
Very interesting. Thank you. I’ve always wanted to know the level of weather proofing each camera company has.
Get this news the day after I bought it in HK 🙁 Oh well, I only paid ~ 1,100 USD for it anyway including 1 year intl warranty. Also had the option to buy it for about $950 without any warranty (except initial testing in shop) but preferred to pay the extra for peace of mind.
This lens feels much lighter than I was expecting, but haven’t had much chance to use it much yet.
It’s still overpriced, lenses with small image circles should be way cheaper.
Yes, but having to provide a much higher resolution makes them more expensive again.
I bought my 12-35 a week ago at B&H and paid 1299. Today I contacted them and FORTUNATELY got a $200 refund!! Admin… where can I donate?…. 😀
Cool! Make a nice present for your girlfriend. That’s a better idea 🙂