For a while, Panasonic was the only Micro Four Thirds camera manufacturer to offer f1.2 lenses. But the word on the street is that Olympus will be releasing some of their own pretty soon–like the middle of the year.
According to a report on 43rumors, the admin is very positive that the company will be doing this. The report has a bit of credibility considering that Olympus has never released a lens with a faster aperture than f1.8 since starting the Four Thirds lineup of cameras. If someone wanted faster aperture lenses then they needed to use Panasonic, SLRMagic, Mitakon or Voigtlander lenses. Lots of those aren’t autofocusing and though they won’t offer the light gathering abilities and super shallow depth of field that f0.95 glass will, it’s still very welcome.
If Olympus is indeed working on f1.2 lenses, then we’re sure that they’re going to be offered in the PRO lineup of glass and have some absolutely incredible performance. Their lenses are already top notch, but as part of the PRO lineup we should expect to see weather sealing, all metal builds, and other features like the manual focus push/pull ring, and more. Considering all this, we most likely can’t expect the lenses to be cheap–and they shouldn’t be when you factor in Zuiko quality.
These lenses will instead really target the higher end professional photographer or the higher end enthusiast.
