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[ Production will continue at the facility in Dong Nai province, Vietnam, where imaging products have been manufactured since 2008. ]
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Since the 150-400mm f/4.5 TC1. 25x IS Pro lens is made to order and the original stock has been according to Olympus claims "sold out".
New lens must be made if anyone places an order. Made Where? See above. They say. Not I say.
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The Vietnam factory has been operating since 2008 so a core number of it's workers would have been trained in Olympus Japan if I know of Japanese way they are very meticulous in terms of quality control. So regardless if 150-400 pro is made in vietnam I'm confident of it's quality. Remember when Rollei germany open a factory in Chai Chee sg. They did similar in recruiting locals. I applied for a position but was not selected..haha. Such was their selection process.
I would have guess the machines that grind the special ed, super ed lenses and the aspherical types would already be transfered to the vietnam factory and the workers would have recieved the relevant training. At the very least if the workers are not that skilled which I doubt then olympus would simply import the lenses from japan and the factory would just be an assembly and testing operation.
That is if the manufacturing tolerances are maintained for the lens barrel assemblies. It's technically a no brainer in terms of making a 150-400 pro lens.
That said 150- 400 pro with the EM1X can hold it's own with the fullframe competition given olympus superiority in their 5 axis image stabalisation plus given it's pioneering headstart in IBIS technology.
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