waiting for a GH3?

[ChipThome]

Panny listed the GH2 with beater 14-42 lens on their Facebook Fans Deal page for $650 ++ last night. I bought then when it showed 1-3 days delivery. Now it shows 4 weeks, same price, longer lead time. Amazon and Samy's both list that kit now at $749.....so something is up. My guess, thinning the channel to make way for GH3s coming this fall.

[dcloud]

after seeing gf5's specs. im intersted what the gh3's specs will be!
better lcd, 1080 60p is a given...

[JFP]

GH2 is on sale at B&H for 749.00, do you think it's worth waiting on a GH3 announcement or should I just pull the trigger on the GH2?

[roxics]

Panny listed the GH2 with beater 14-42 lens on their Facebook Fans Deal page for $650 ++ last night. I bought then when it showed 1-3 days delivery. Now it shows 4 weeks, same price, longer lead time. Amazon and Samy's both list that kit now at $749.....so something is up. My guess, thinning the channel to make way for GH3s coming this fall.

Awesome! Can't wait to see what they have in store for the GH3. May just need to upgrade my GH1.

[marcdalessio]

This happened last year as well. The GH1s were $375 with lens on the Facebook fan page after the GH2s were announced. You could wait for the announcement and see how much prices drop.

[Ryan Farnes]

I got a GH2 with 14-42mm lens at the end of last year for $699 from B&H.

The fire sales come and go, but perhaps we are nearing the end of the cycle and we'll see a replacement soon.

[ChipThome]

I popped the night the offer hit on Panny's Facebook page. At that time shipping was "1-3 days" and the next day it said "4 weeks". That tells me that Panny offered this deal and had far more interest than they possibly projected. You don't run a deal on stuff you don't even have in the country yet! My guess is, they blew through what was on the shelf so fast it probably made their heads spin.

The GH1 blow outs, those I think were different than we are going to see with the GH2. I have a pair of GH1s that were built 4 months after the GH2 was announced. That tells me the reasons no one got GH2s right away was Panny was still busy building out their GH1 parts inventory.

What's different this time over the GH1? During the GH2 life Japan had the earthquake. If anyone has been watching the lens supply situation you have seen that Panny still doesn't have the supply channel completely filled back up.

So I am thinking that this time around we may not see the fire sale $300 cameras we saw with the GH1 blowout. In fact, this $650 might be somewhere close to the bottom.

[htownvid]

Interesting that the big olympics campaign on Panasonic site "Introducing New 2012 Lumix Cameras" features all the old models from ILC category (gf3, g3, gh2, ...).

[Justyn]

I'd like to see 1080 60p, but even just being able to monitor to an external monitor when shooting 720 60p would be a huge improvement. As it is now, it's kind of the only real PITA that I have with the gh2..... I shoot a lot of stuff at 60p. That news Sony that's capable of 240fps for bursts.. Now that's sweet. A GH3 that does that would be the cats meow!