[Klaus]

https://explore.omsystem.com/us/en/m-zuiko-ed-90mm-f3-5-macro-is-pro.html

$1499USD - makes you wonder how many they intend to sell. 1? 2?

[Kodachrome 25]

Its nice to see that OM-D is expanding its range of macro gear, which already was one of the great features of the original OM system.
I think that's the market price and all in all inconspicuous at the current prices for newly introduced lenses.
Since Nikon seems to have discontinued its 70-180 Micro Nikkor, the last comparable lens is/was Canon’s EF 180/3.5 Macro, which can still be found at Canon Europe’s web shop for 1469 Euro (but is missing at Canon USA’s). The Canon lens does only 1x magnification, does not have IS (or does its absence count as bonus?), is maybe not waterproof at the IP53 level, and is EF after all.
When I bought my FD 200/4 Macro second hand for afair 1200 D-Mark in 1986 (just in time to learn the following year that Canon abandoned its crappy 'new FD' lens mount for EF…) the lens cost new around 1600 D-Mark.
(Reminds me, that after only five years with an OM-D, I should finally get an FD-OM adapter for this lens. Especially now that vintage lens tests are all the rage :-)

[Klaus]

Well, you can use e.g. a Sigma 105mm f/2.8 via AF adapter at less than half the cost ... while still being faster.

[Rover]

Pretty steep pricing, although the feature set is nice. I guess people are going to stop it way way down to shoot small things anyway, so the max. aperture doesn't matter much for that kind of use.

[goran h]

What is important for them (Olympus) is to send a message: “Look we are still an innovative brand”.

We can just hope they are.

[Klaus]

Pretty steep pricing, although the feature set is nice. I guess people are going to stop it way way down to shoot small things anyway, so the max. aperture doesn't matter much for that kind of use.

This is a bit problematic - the effective aperture gets smaller at closer focus distances. If you stop down further you will be in diffraction territory already.
Some fellow suggested that it's f/7 at 1:1.

[Rover]

Yeah, that's about right (it's in the Lenstip review of this thing...) But at these magnifications, it looks like even that would be on the outer edge of usability.

The Lenstip review was quick. :-) Looks like the lens is decent enough, and here's hoping the street price is going to be less than that...

[thxbb12]

I wonder if the Oly 60mm f2.8 macro works with the 1.4x TC and if it does, how does it compare to this new lens.
The 60mm f2.8 macro makes much more sens for MFT IMO: it's tiny, great optically and faster as it should be.
I have to say that I fully agree with lenstip's conclusion about Olympus/Panasonic strategy.

[wim]

Pretty steep pricing, although the feature set is nice. I guess people are going to stop it way way down to shoot small things anyway, so the max. aperture doesn't matter much for that kind of use.

This is a bit problematic - the effective aperture gets smaller at closer focus distances. If you stop down further you will be in diffraction territory already.
Some fellow suggested that it's f/7 at 1:1.

Yeah, well, that is correct. However, it is not so much the aperture that makes this happen, but the enlargement or magnification factor. It happens with ALL macro lenses at 1:1. You lose 2 -stops in comparison to infinity because the projection area on the image capture device, the sensor, is 4X the size of that at infinity. The image sensor sees only 1/4 of the total image projected, which means it only gets 1/4 of the light. IOW, it loses 2 f-stops, just because of the magnification factor. And in this case, that means that the effective lens opening becomes F/7, starting at F/3.5.

Having said that, the real lens opening is still F/3.5 if you shoot wide open at 1:1, from a DoF PoV, that doesn't change. It just only captures 1/4 of the total image projected by the lens.

In addition, diffraction is a relative thing with large magnifications. There is generally no other way to capture such images. The thing to do really is to stack images, and/or use a very short FL for large magnifications, something I did a lot in the past (Fhotar 12.5). Even then the results are never optimal for 3D objects.

Kind regards, Wim