Micro 4/3 wide angle options

Impulses wrote:

Impulses wrote:

To echo what others have said... The 9-18 is currently on sale everywhere at $600 rather than $700, still not cheap

I wonder how will Olympus price the upcoming 7-14 PRO and when will they update the 9-18. It'd be nice if they used the opportunity to refresh the 9-18 with a lower price point, like they did with the 75-300.

How much cheaper could it be tho? I imagine that'd involve a major redesign

I was thinking more of a refresh, like the 40-150, 75-300 or the newest one, the 14-140. So basically just a new look and better coatings. I think the 9-18 is the only Oly lens left with the old "PEN" design, that's why I suspect it will receive some kind of refresh. But that's just a guess.

, seeing as how every other slow UWA zoom across every other system is priced similarly. I looked recently, $550-800 was the norm across E mount, Fuji X, Samsung NX, Nikon 1 and even APS-C DSLR mounts. Outside the Nikon 1, the Oly is also the smallest.

The one exception to all that was the new EF-S UWA Canon put out last year for $300. I'd love to know whether that involved some sorta design breakthrough, a compromise I'm not aware of (it even has IS), or just massive economies of scale in Canon's favor. Their previous (and only) EF-S UWA before that was $700+ too...

You're right, UWAs are generally pricey across the board (with some exceptions that you mentioned). The EF-S Canon is actually very good in terms of image quality, at least from what I read. The compromise, from what I gather, is that the zoom range is more limited than in 10-22, aperture is smaller, and build quality is not of the highest sort.

I imagine the price of the Oly 7-14 Pro won't be much of a factor towards the price of the 9-18 or even Panasonic's 7-14 tho, unless Oly pleasantly surprises a lot of people it'll be well north of a grand if not grand and a half.

Yeah, you're right, if they launch at $1500, that won't change the landscape in any way, there would be no downward pressure on other UWAs. But I hope they won't go that far.

Oh well, we'll see soon enough.