Canon Celebrates the Production of 80 Million EF Lenses

[AmbientLight]

You are plainly contradicting yourself. I do own a 70-200m f2.8 IS and I will probably not buy the Mark II for some time to come, because I am so very pleased with the lens I've got. Nevertheless there is a tendency to always buy the latest and best gear, so I feel with you  . In this case I rather spend my money on other lenses I have not got an older version of.

[Fatalv]

80 Million lenses and yet I still wait for the 24-70 f2.8 II... sigh

[nebugeater]

Any idea how many FD lens were made during that era by Canon?

[hmmm]

80 Million lenses and yet I still wait for the 24-70 f2.8 II... sigh

80 Million lenses and yet I still wait for the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS mkII with non-push-pull... sigh

[Jamesy]

80 million and 70 million of them are at Neuro's house

[Bosman]

80 million and 70 million of them are at Neuro's house

+1 lol!

[Sony]

80 million and 70 million of them are at Neuro's house

You're right, I guess. That's why I always wait for VON (Voice of Neuro).

[Ellen Schmidtee]

It also makes one wonder how many camera bodies have they made to date, they surpassed the 25 millionth mark a few years ago, so must be somewhere between 28 to 30 million camera bodies??

Ergo, the typical DSLR owner has between 2 to 3 lenses in their kit bag on average.

That figure ignores 3rd party lenses.

[pakosouthpark]

yeah yeah just gives us the FF entry level already!!

[iaind]

What we really want to know is how many of the 80million are L series
lenses.

[neuroanatomist]

What we really want to know is how many of the 80million are L series lenses.

Lots of them.  But not aLL of them. 

[RLPhoto]

79 million of which lenses are the infamous, 18-55mm Kit lenses and their many variants. 

[Ellen Schmidtee]

...the typical DSLR owner has between 2 to 3 lenses in their kit bag on average.

On average.  But I bet the distribution not normal - a sharp peak at 1 lens (lots of people buy the body+lens kit and stick with that), and trailing shoulder from 2 on up, meaning if you buy a second lens you're pretty likely to have 3-4 total.

I have the impression 2 & 3 lenses kits are popular. E.g. two of my cousins bought Canon's two lenses kit (18-55mm + 55-250mm), a guy who bought a D90 + similar pair of lenses + 16mm fisheye(!) from ebay before going to a first photography course, etc. Then I've seen a lot of people buy a kit with one lens, then buy a cheap telephoto, say 75-300mm.

I wouldn't be surprised if the peak was around 2-3, falling sharply at 4.

[Ellen Schmidtee]

80 million seems like a lot of lenses, where are all of them? Closets? Have you ever thrown a lens away? Is there a lens landfill.

I haven't thrown any EF lens away, but I've thrown my film Minolta w/ kit to the trash, as well as a couple of Vivitar F mount lenses.

Glass bottles are recycles in many countries. Are lens glass elements recycled anywhere? Expensive probably has a very long life (I've seen one of the f/1.2 FD lenses in a 2nd hand shop, though it had fungus on one of the elements - the shop owner probably knows there's a good chance somebody will pay to have it cleaned), but there's lots of glass in cheap lenses.

[Rienzphotoz]

Just goes to show how both Canon + Nikon have become volume sellers, with the emphasis now on shifting product to new customers (especially new emerging markets), rather than focusing on better new products for existing customers.

I am not sure if I agree with this statement. Two top lenses: Nikon's 14-24 f/2.8 and Canon's 70-200 f/2.8L IS Mk2 are clearly new better products for existing customers.

Nikon and Canon are able to sell large volumes of lenses because of their excellent DSLR bodies, extensive lens collections as well as massive support from 3rd party lens sellers (Sigma and Tamron). Sony and the m43 consortium still have a long way to go in terms of lens selection.

They are...but they also cost in the neighborhood of $2K+. Not exactly an easy sell for many if not most existing owners. Will I buy the 70-200L IS m2? You betcha! When? After I can manage to save up for it.

Both Canon & Nikon are among the best companies in the world that put in a great deal of emphasis on R&D (i.e. "focusing on better new products for existing customers") ... if they did not, they wouldn't be where they are today ... when Canon & Nikon make new products they incorporate suggestions & recommendations of their customers (many of them are Professional Photographers). The success (of serveral decades) of these two companies is not an accident. The best products in this world always cost much more than run of of the mill stuff and that is the fact of life.