We're Back Up

...Sort of. I returned to action this morning to find computer problems. Of course. (Modern life is good, but not simple.) I have to reset my browser (Firefox), which I'm dreading.

I haven't yet been able to contact Amazon to try to get an answer as to why many peoples' longstanding orders for Here Far Away are being cancelled. I can speculate it's that maybe it's because you ordered the first edition and only the second edition is going to be available? Many people are reordering through Amazon U.K. and the Book Depository. I'm not sure that's necessary—I'd just place a new order through Amazon.com—but if you don't want to try that it's understandable. TOP readers have so far ordered or purchased 318 copies of the book through our links.

The new statement camera of Micro 4/3

The new ÜberOlympus became available overnight, as did its new companion premium-quality zoom, a 24–80mm ƒ/2.8. [Correction: Whoops, it's a 12–40mm, of course. 24–80mm angle-of-view equivalent. Shows you how my mind works. —Ed.] These are statement products for Micro 4/3, which demand a certain level of attention even from people who are down on Olympus because of its soon to be two-year-old corporate troubles with malfeasance.

...Which, by the way, are continuing: Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has decided to prosecute Olympus. It's the first time the agency has prosecuted a company instead of an individual. The U.S. Justice Department has not decided on a course of action, but has not closed the case.

Meanwhile, the camera division, which has taken a bad hit from all the bad press for things I'm sure no one in the division ever even knew about, continues to struggle to fight to right itself after getting swamped by the rogue wave. Behind all the brouhaha, they still make very good cameras. I naturally sympathize with citizens in the streets rather than governments, soldiers in the trenches rather than the high command, and workers on the line rather than the fat-cats in the corporate jets, so of course I feel for the people actually designing, engineering, and making the cameras and lenses. YMMV.

The new lens is especially interesting. If you are familiar with Olympus's top-line lenses for the 4/3 system, you know just how good they can potentially be.

Last item of news: Ctein's column will be one day late this week. As usual, not due to him at all; due to the Ed. (me) having been away.

More anon.

Mike
(Thanks to Andreas Sakka)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Marc Gibeault: "I got my copy of Here Far Away yesterday from the Book Depository. Even though I'm here far away in Canada."

Kurt Shoens: "I've given up on Here Far Away. I'm sure it's a lovely book and that I would have enjoyed it very much, but I've fretted enough attempting to get a copy. I'm sanguine about it. I'm sure whoever gets the copy I might have gotten will treasure it and I will turn my attention to books I can get instead of the one that got away."

J. White: "My reason for cancelling and placing an order with Amazon U.K. comes from the sad fact that Amazon U.S. were unable to fulfill my pre-order for the first edition of the book. Seeing that the second edition is now shipping, I called Amazon in the U.S. this morning to ask whether or not they will be able to acquire the book from the publisher. The two people I spoke could not confirm this, so I cancelled the order. I will not miss out on an opportunity to own this book again!"

Kosch: "I feel like I could make a side business on your photo book recommendations. For the past four years now, I have bought two copies of what you say is good. Not only have I enjoyed each purchase (no joke, my photography has become better because of what I have bought and devoured), I have been able to sell my extra copy for a lot more money (minimum 4x). When you drop a link, Mike, I buy. This is called consulting; you could make a living doing this. Keep up the blog please."

Mike replies: Jeez, now you're putting the pressure on...!

Comments

[Lawrence Plummer]

My Amazon order has been in place since June. It is still showing as "Not Yet Shipped", with a delivery expected by tomorrow. I haven't received a cancellation yet, but I note that they are no longer showing it available from Amazon directly.

PS: placed my pre-order for the E-M1 thru your B&H link!

[Stephen McCullough]

Received my "Here Far Away".

beautiful.

Many thanks for the recommendation.

Oh - got it from Book depository...

[toto]

If I remember correctly, Here Far Away was forty-something dollars, but now it is $58.80. That could be why Amazon cancelled the orders.

[No, that "$58.80" is just the lowest price it's available for from a third-party vendor, standard operating procedure for any out of print book from Amazon. It's not a regular price of any sort. The question is, rather, why are the people who have been standing in line the longest not being served first with the available copies of the Second Edition? It's not in line with Amazon's usual policies and it also doesn't seem, well, fair. --Mike]

[Mike Walsh]

My copy arrived today - worth the wait, thank you
Mike W

[Marc Vezina]

Got mine as well from Book depository. But sadly it has a defect. Most pages have a kink in the upper right corner. I sent back snapshots. They offered a 25% refund. Now I seem to be left with a 'defective' book at 75% of the price. I've asked them reconsider.

[Godfrey]

I gave up on Amazon, ordered through The Book Depository, and as soon as I had the shipment confirmation in hand, cancelled my Amazon order. Can't wait to see the book! It was $13 less expensive too.

The new Olympus is exactly what I've been expecting and waiting for since I sold my E-5. Time to put in my order...

[scott kirkpatrick]

An interesting aspect to the newest Olympus "mirrorless" design is that it offers two autofocus designs, one for the M43 lenses (contrast detection) and one for the older 4/3 designs (phase detection at predetermined spots in the field). So the favorite lenses from the larger, older line of cameras have a new life ahead of them. There's a 4/3 to M43 adapter in the plan with the electrical connections to make this happen.

scott

[Kevin Cable]

I purchased my copy of Here Far Away from the Photographers' Gallery in London. They still had 6-7 copies remaining. The vendor mentioned that next month they're having a Pentti print sales opportunity in the book shop's side room...and...they're also expecting a book signing event, by the very man himself.

[Judith Wallerius]

I could order directly from Amazon Germany on Saturday. The book was shown as in stock and shipped last night. So for German, or even European readers, that's also an option. They appear to have five still in stock as of now:

http://www.amazon.de/Here-Far-Away-Finn-Thrane/dp/1907893261/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378897065&sr=8-1&keywords=here+far+away

Now here's to hoping the flimsy sort of packaging they've been using for the last two years won't let the book have gotten damaged in transit…

[Will Frostmill]

Mike,
I've had good luck with MozBackup, which saves all of your Firefox customizations in a file, and lets you bring them back. It hasn't been updated since 2008, yet it still seems to be effective as of a few months ago, and indeed, the project page says 13,000 downloads this week, which is pretty good for 6 year old software.

Link to MozBackup project:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mozbackup/

Will
p.s. I also like the "Extended Service Release" version of Firefox, which does fewer UI changes, and mostly focuses on security bugfixes. Link:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all.html

[Thanks very much Will! --Mike]

[Erik Ahrend]

It never crossed my mind ordering a spanish version of the book. As per other member's recommendation in a previous post, I ordered from Amazon Spain yesterday and the book was shipped today (apparently only 2 left in stock). I have no intention of cancelling my initial (june) order with Amazon via TOP's link, it will be interesting to see how much longer it takes, but in the event that Amazon cancels my order or fails to serve it, at least I'll have the spanish version to enjoy...

[James Sinks]

Amazon cancelled my order and I wound up buying from Book Depository (and my order shipped today!).

I'm not happy about the markup over my pre-order price, but I really _need_ this book. Not want, need. The photos I've seen online are candy for the eyes and nourishment for the soul.

I can only think of a handful of artists whose work has grabbed me like that.

[Ahem]

I ordered Here, Far Away via Amazon UK (and your links) on Sat. 7 Sept. At that time it was marked as "in stock, but might take 2 more days." I received confirmation of order dispatch on Tue the 10th, expecting it on Thursday or Friday!

[Robert]

I have been notified by Amazon.UK that my copy of Here, Far Away, that I ordered in January, had been dispatched. To my previous address in Indiana. I am hoping that it will be successfully forwarded.

[Shotslot]

Unfortunately the SFO's track record is rather less than spectacular, which probably means a lengthy, unproductive prosecution at great taxpayer and corporate expense with little meaningful outcome. God bless the lawyers!

[Colin Work]

Typical. I have on order a Canon 70D so that I have a 2nd body for my Canon system capable of taking video with accurate continuous focus using their new focus system.

The weak point of my Olympus EM-5 is continuous focus, which has prevented it being my primary camera, but otherwise it's great.

Now (allegedly) the EM-1 addresses that weakness, and ticks lots of boxes for me

So now I'm in a quandary - do I go Olympus as my main system (with those stunning 4/3 lenses now available to me) or stick with Canon. A crystal ball would be very useful right now!

[Rod S.]

I got my copy of Here Far Away yesterday from The Book Depository. Even though I'm far away here in Australia.

Fantastic book! Thanks for the recommendation - instruction, actually - to get this book.