UPDATE: the followigng deal is now dead:
Only for today BHphoto is offering the following deals:
Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm f/4.0 -5.6 Lens for $449.00 (Click here)
and
Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-150mm f/4.0-5.6 Zoom Lens for $389.00 (Click here)
Free shipping!
Panasonic.com has the Panasonic GH2 (Body Only) in Stock (UPDATE: Deal is DEAD now!). They are selling the Body Only version only, in black (Click here) and in silver (Click here). The Safari webbrowser doesn’t work well on Panasonic’s website. Use Explorer, Firefox, Opera or Chrome!
And here we have two new deals:
– Olympus E-P2 with 17mm lens for $567 at Amazon (Click here).
– And the Olympus 14-150mm f/4.0-5.6 Zoom Lens for $389.00 only at BHphoto (Click here).
43rumors note:
BHphoto confessed that they made a mistake with the yesterdays E-P2 price. There was an error with the online calculation system :(
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Thom Hogan posted a new “Mirrorless Shootout“. He tested four compact mirrorless cameras, the [shoplink 14832]Olympus E-PL1[/shoplink], [shoplink 14828]Panasonic GF1[/shoplink], Samsung NX100 and the Sony NEX-5.
“The Panasonic and Samsung are the two serious photographer-friendly cameras in this bunch, while the Olympus has a little more compact gimmicky and the Sony is way over the top in changing the way you interact with a camera.”
Thom also explains why you shouldn’t wait for Canon, Pentax and Nikon to enter the mirrorless battle: “At the moment, neither Nikon nor Canon have chosen to play in the mirrorless arena. Nikon is likely to be the next entrant, and I expect to see their model hit the shelves by about March 2011. Ditto Pentax. No word on Canon. Frankly, I think waiting for a maker to enter this market is probably a waste of time. Why? One word: lenses.”
Conclusion? “I can wholeheartedly recommend the Panasonic GF-1” and there is a surprise: “I can’t really recommend the Sony NEX-5 directly“.
Read the full review at http://www.bythom.com/compactmirrorless.htm
Good morning and good news for us europeans folks! Thanks to our very observant readers we now know the GH2 is in Stock in some shops in France, Germany and UK.
Amazon France (Click here) has two GH2 in Stock. In UK Mathers of Lancaster already shipped a few cameras. In germany www.audiophilfoto.de has a few GH2 in Stock. A lucky german guy was informed by Amazon Deutschland that his GH2 has been shipped:
“Lieferung voraussichtlich: 7. Dezember 2010 – 10. Dezember 2010
Voraussichtlicher Versand dieser Artikel: 6. Dezember 2010 – 7. Dezember 2010
1 “Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH 2 Kit mattschwarz + 14-140 mm”
Elektronik; EUR 1.550,00”
UPDATE: Amazon.de has no GH2 in Stock yet. But at leats they shipped a few cameras to those guys that preordered it a few weeks ago. It looks like also Amazon France has no more GH2 in Stock!!!
For US guys. I was informed that Amazon US will start shipping the GH2 next week!
Help other 43rumors readers to find stores where the GH2 is in Stock by commenting this post! Thanks!
UPDATE2: The GH2 is REALLY in Germany (Foto Video Rutten in Wuppertal)
We just noticed that BHphoto is selling the Olympus E-P2+17mm lens for $529.95 only (Click here)! Officially BH says the price is $799 but if you add it to the cart the final price is $529.95. That’s $270 less than the usual price!
And there is an even better deal when you add the Olympus E-P2+with 14-42mm lens to your BH cart (Click here). The final price is $506.19!
We received some rumors about a possible E-P2 replacement in February. So maybe that’s the reason for the price drop…
And an interesting deal is back: Panasonic GF1 with 20mm Lens in Stock for $599 at Amazon (Click here)
And here are the other current deals:
Panasonic 7-14mm for $908 at Amazon (Click here)
Panasonic Lumix DMC-G2 with 14-42mm Lens (Black) for $518 at Amazon (Click here)
Diwa labs compared the two new Micro Four Thirds tele-zooms:
– Click here to see the Panasonic 100-300mm f/4.0-5.6 test results
– Click here to see the Olympus 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 test results
After a quick look on the graphics I can’t see any big difference between the two lenses. The Olympus lens has more Chromatic Aberration and Geometric Distortion. The Panasonic has more Luminance Blur. Resolution is quite similar. So now it is up to you to choose between the two lenses!
Panasonic 100-300mm direct shop links:
Amazon US
Olympus Zuiko 75-300mm direct shop links:
Adorama, BHphoto, AmazonDE, AmazonUK.
Hunter Richards posted a very interesting GH2 1080/24p codec vs GH13 codec (44mbs 1080/24p hack) image comparison at DVuser.com. The [shoplink 16254]GH2[/shoplink] is definitely resolving more detail and at 3.200 ISO the image is almost clean! And Panasonic guru Barry Green explained why the 24Mbs AVCHD codec is better than the 44Mbs: “Even then, this isn’t as good as it gets. The AVCHD in the Gh2 is much better than the GH1’s version, but it’s still not up to the standards that the [shoplink 16841]AF100[/shoplink] can do. Bigger hardware, bigger memory buffers, more efficiency. Even at the same bitrate. I really do hope this dispells once and for all the notion that “more megabits = better footage” because, very frequently, that just isn’t correct. It’s the type of megabits, and how they’re used, that determine the efficiency and how good the final pictures look. The only way you can say “more = better” is if you’re talking about the exact same thing (i.e., AF100 at 21mbs vs. AF100 at 17mbps… in that case, yes, more = better).”
Meanwhile our canadian 43rumors readers are sending me many mails because they received the GH2 from Henrys, Downtown Camera in Toronto and other shops. You guys have to explain me why you are the first (non-japanese) to get stuff form Panasonic. I hate you ;)
British readers are the next! Mathers of Lancashire, Amazon UK
US readers are using the guerrilla strategy with the hope to get the camera sooner or later. They simply preorder at any online store that has the GH2 on list :) Panasonic is now accpeting preorders and so Amazon
P.S.: Let me know if you find the GH2 in Stock in Europe! Thanks!
