Exciting times!
Now that one of the most wanted updates is official, folks are hammering me when they can get one! The following is all I know at the moment.
– Pricing from Calumet in Germany is €2399
– Canon UK’s site says available March, 2010
– I have no official pricing from anywhere yet.
– Pricing in Canada is TBA
– I can’t find anyone taking preorders yet, that should change today.
A few have asked, this is not a lens I’ll be buying. I’m a fast prime junky when working.
cr
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Canon’s person at their CES booth said to expect US availability soon, March or April. He also said he hasn’t been told the price and doesn’t think that Canon has finalized their US price point yet, but that he expects they will announce a price and date sometime in the next week or so. Take that for what it is, a fairly knowledgeable canon employee making what seem like well educated guesses, but guesses nonetheless. He also refused to even speculate on the price.
I had a chance to play with the lens a bit (well under 2 minutes max) and in that short time, my subjective stand-out difference compared to the mark 1 was faster focus. It felt like the camera/lens combo was more sure of itself, it picked a spot and quickly focused it. Of course, I don’t have the opportunity to look at the photos on the pixel level, so who knows if it got the focus right, but it did pick it authoritatively and looked, through the viewfinder and on the camera display, pretty well focused. The other thing was it seemed quieter. Granted, CES was really really loud, so who knows if the absence of noise from the lens was real. Can’t wait to play with a copy of this lens in more evaluation-friendly environment.
The other (off topic) thing I found interesting was how much Canon was pushing the EOS line for video. A few people on this site have commented that maybe a lot of lenses are going to be revamped to deliver better results for HD video, and based on the push they’re making at CES, its certainly possible.
I think their decision to not announce the US price is all because of the current rebates going on right now for the original.
This is complete tripe. Everybody claims to have a friend that is a fairly knowledgeable Canon employee, yet they never seem to get the facts right. I wonder why?