Tonight I was rushing around Cubao attempting to find some ink and consumables for the booth for tomorrows wedding event; After the futile runaround I went on to the Ayala mall cluster because I’m sure there was one there… on the way, I saw a BPI installment madness event and I paid no heed to it because generally they just carry what the stores have but this time, I was glad to be wrong.
They have, within their glass display, a slew of Panasonic M4/3 lenses that you could only previously get in Hidalgo or out of the country. I was so excited to find out that they’re (TCA / PerfectShot) bringing it in to compete with the highly Olympus dominated M4/3 market.
After I pulled out my OMD, I just had to ask if I could try these lenses on and after a little bit of negotiating they agreed. I tried first the f2.8 35-100mm (70-200 equiv) lens:
Subject separation with the f2.8 constant aperture is very clear and the distance covered is something that I can completely get used to. The lens was not at all heavy and it is quite nice combined with the OMD body. Next I tried on the f3.5-8 8mm fisheye lens:
The Samyang lens seems to have an advantage over this one in terms of coverage (one I tried before) but that might simply be because of the more cramped space I was shooting at. The shots are sharp throughout the frame highly unlike when I’m using the converters that I bought, the usability remains limited though, if there was a 7-14mm I wouldve tried that instead. Finally I tried on the 14-150mm lens this time without the constant aperture:
Being a 10x lens, you can really feel the distance covered coming from the wide end to the tele-end; not having a constant aperture means that it is quite slow on the narrowest and there isn’t much depth of field.
These lenses (and some more) will be available sometime in August, and the sales people were telling me to look out for an 18-month installment possibility and the introductory price offer which will be discounted by a bit. They didn’t have prices for these items on display yet, even the G6 that the girl had around her neck.
Really looking forward to enhancing my tools with probably the f2.8 35-100mm. Let’s welcome the Lumix family of lenses to our shores fellow M4/3 users!
Hello! Thank for this post. I’ve been looking for local stores that sells Panasonic Lumix lenses for quite some time now.
I have to ask, what particular store will sell these lenses here in the Philippines? What Ayala Mall did you see these lenses? Thanks!
Saw and used them in Glorietta 2.. The shops that will sell them are TCA and the camera shop at one corner inside North Edsa Cyberzone,
Thanks for the reply Mark. Do you think they still have the samples up to now? Did you see Panasonic 25mm f1.4? I’ve been looking for a seller of this lens for a while now.
Thanks!
No theyre not at Glorietta anymore but they told me those were the display lenses at North Edsa so if you went there its highly probable you’ll encounter them.
I bought my PL25 at Bangkok.. they probably will take orders for it but the price would be extremely high
That’s too bad. I wonder if some local stores in Hidalgo have this lens.
I badly want it!