Wet weather blues

So now the GM1 and NX300 stand alone to face the wet season. That isn't ideal in the least, as my only "safe" wet-weather gear is the Pentax 50-200mm wr lens! Our budget is tight for a few months so it will have to do.

What are my options for future foul weather? Let us see:

•  Samsung has nothing for me under $1500 with the NX1 & S-class glass. No thank you.
•  Pentax has a few choices for $500 or less, best options being a K5 variant, a K7 or another K50. A wide wr lens would need to come along though, as the current 50-200 is not a full purpose option.
•  For micro4:3, Panasonic has a couple of weather-protected choices now, the GX8 and G85 being the sub-$1ooo choices while Olympus checks in with EM5 and EM1 options. My preferred choice would be a GX8 and Lumix 12-60, with the GM1 and 14-42 becoming our spousal cam. 
•  The bargain of the bunch would be an older Olympus EM5 and 12-50 for $500ish, since my 14-42 lens for the E500 is not weather sealed. 

So this decision will wait for Christmas and its potential bargains. I think.

done and .. slightly un-Done

Papers signed, funds to flow soon.  The home refinance feels good!
However, I had planned to invest a bit more of the surplus funds into lenses.  That plan fails because of those silly fees that added up without being fully factored into my planning worksheets, which converted a pleasant excess into a small check that has several other important uses.  So any other items will wait for January, when no house payment is needed and a bit of excess from our former escrow account will flow back to us.  That money also has places to go, but a pinch of expense for that 7.5mm fisheye can probably be worked in!  It's available for $50 off right now, and hopefully a few buyers won't like fisheyes and drop a copy into my happy hands.  Or maybe an inventory excess sale?  We'll see if it works out.

This lens took a rare 5-star award from photozone, so the secret is out.
Its all-manual functionality and fishy output just aren't for everyone though, regardless of stars!

image via lenstip.com

It should be noted that Olympus sells their 'body-cap' 9mm fisheye for quite a bit less.  It isn't awful and it's a whole 30 grams - but at a fixed f/8 it will not be astronomy-friendly as this f/3.5 model.  With a bit more budget I could squeeze out a Samyang 12mm f/2 which gets rave reviews from astro-types.  It's $100ish more than the 7.5 though, for now I'll Just Say No.