Image courtesy: Forumlumix.

Tomorrow (November 15th) at around 5-6am London time Olympus will release the new 17mm f/1.8 lens. The lens has been already announced at photokina. What you will get now is exact price, in Stock info, specs and image quality info. Will there be something else? For now  am not sure about it. The rumored 40-150mm f/2.8 lens is very likely scheduled for a January release. As usual stay tuned on 43rumors. We will follow the official lens release and give you live updates about news and reviews.

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The current Olympus 17mm on eBay Europe (via Slidoo) and eBay US (via Slidoo).

[/shoplink] Image on top shows the current [shoplink 33626]Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 X lens[/shoplink] lens. The Olympus alternative is coming soon.

According to some anonymous sources Olympus is going to release a new High Quality 40-150mm f/2.8 zoom lens. I am not sure yet if the lens will be announced along the 17mm f/1.8 lens or later. I heard the lens will hit the stores in January. But I don’t know the announcement date yet.

This lens be compete against the just released [shoplink 33626]Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 X lens[/shoplink]. For the record, Olympus already has a 40-150mm zoom but that one has a f/4.0-5.6 aperture and by no means the same build and image quality of the upcoming new lens.

This would be the first f/2.8 zoom lens from Olympus. I hope someday they will come out with some f/2.0 lens too :)

Anyway, please keep in mind that this is a rumor from anonymous and unknown sources (rated FT3). I hope trusted sources can soon confirm the lens release for January!

Meantime, stay tuned on 43rumors the next hours and days!

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The two superb Zuiko f/2.0 zooms:
14-35mm f/2.0 on [shoplink 25320 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] and via Slidoo eBay.
35-100mm f/2.0 on [shoplink 25119 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] and via Slidoo eBay.

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Rumors classification explained (FT= FourThirds):
FT1=1-20% chance the rumor is correct
FT2=21-40% chance the rumor is correct
FT3=41-60% chance the rumor is correct
FT4=61-80% chance the rumor is correct
FT5=81-99% chance the rumor is correct

Digicaminfo confirmed the rumors we posted days ago and also got the info that the new upcoming Olympus 17mm f/1.8 lens will come without the hood! You have to buy it separately for 65oo Yen (64 Euro or 82 Dollars). Now, to be honest, the 17mm f/1.8 is priced at 550 Euro also much less than 900 Euro asked for the other lens that comes without hood…the Olympus 75mm 1.8 lens. So it may be that Olympus prefers to sell the lens cheaper without hood and leave you the choice to add a hood or not. For the 75mm lens you can alreayd buy some cheap hoods at US ($7 on amazon), US ($32 better quality), [shoplink 34663 ebay]Germany (ebay)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 34664 ebay]Hong Kong (ebay)[/shoplink].

The 17mm f/1.8 lens characteristics are:
Exterior made of metal
MSC
Snapshot focus
Nine elements in 6 groups
46mm filter size
35,5mm length, 57.5mm maximum diameter, 120g weight
release in mid December for around 550 Euro or 50.000 Yen.

Announcement soon!!!

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Rumors classification explained (FT= FourThirds):
FT1=1-20% chance the rumor is correct
FT2=21-40% chance the rumor is correct
FT3=41-60% chance the rumor is correct
FT4=61-80% chance the rumor is correct
FT5=81-99% chance the rumor is correct

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Olympus 75mm 1.8 Lens alternatives (if you don’t care about the missing autofocus and electronic contacts):
1) [shoplink 31292 ebay]Dallmeyer 75mm f/1.9 (Here on eBay)[/shoplink]. This is an extremely expensive lens and I don’t know why it is so. Only crazy guys would buy that :)
2) [shoplink 31293 ebay]Leica Summilux 75mm f/1.4 (Here on eBay)[/shoplink]. Extraordinary high quality lens for an extraordinary price (although it’s still less expensive than the mysterious Dallmeyer). It’s the fastest of all 75mm lenses
3) [shoplink 31293 ebay]Zeiss Biotar 75mm f/1.5 (Here on eBay)[/shoplink]. Fast and also a bit exotic lens made for the Exacta series.
4) [shoplink 31294 ebay]Leica Summarit 75mm f/2.5 (Here on eBay)[/shoplink]. High quality and relatively compact lens. A bit slow compared to the Olympus (f/2.5).
5) [shoplink 31295 ebay]Voigtlander Heliar 75mm f/1.8 (Here on eBay)[/shoplink]. Probably the best alternative of the new Olympus 75mm f/1.8 lens. Same aperture, superb high quality and cheaper.
6) [shoplink 31324 ebay]Fujinon 75mm f/1.8 (Here on eBay)[/shoplink]. This is a very cheap TV lens and I don’t expect the quality to be very good. I wouldn’t buy that unlike your really need that focal length and you have a very low budget.