Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8

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jameslongstrong

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I am saving for (and am nearly there!) a Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 L IS USM Lens. I looked on Warehouse Express today and have seen Canon are releasing the Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 L IS II USM Lens.

On the face of things they look to be virtually the same lens but they are obviously are not as the price is approximately £1500 different.

I was wondering if anyone could explain the difference between these lenses. I'm not going to change my mind about which one I intend to buy but am interested in knowing the difference. The warehouse ecpress answer was 'it's a newer model'. I don't think just as it's new that it justifies the £1500 price increase. Or does it?
 
I think it's only an update to the IS technology itself, maybe an extra stops worth but i'm not sure? Certainly my current model is good enough for my needs and i wouldn't be paying that much to upgrade it!! :)
 
Just what I was thinking. I've rented the 'cheaper' 70-200 and it is excellent but I couldn't see why a new version would cost so much more.
 
brand exploitation comes to mind ;)

Officially they're pushing better build construction, fluorite, low dispersion glass, better weather proofing.
 
I think this new lens is more than meets the eye.

Canon really had no need to upgrade it, but they have, the price has gone up a lot, and while everything has been completely redesigned and improved, the major benefits of that don't appear to be obvious.

What we can't see is the improvement in image quality, but there is a clue in the fluorite bit which usually means mega-sharp. If you compare the 300L 4 and 400L 5.6, which are both quite old and optically conservative, with the absolutely stunning state of the art 300L 2.8 and 400L 2.8, I think there is evidence of what fluorite can do.

Maybe what this boils down to is that the new lens will have enough IQ in reserve to really deliver with teleconverters, in a way that I think the 300L 2.8 does with a 2x TC for example - very few lenses can do that with a 2x attached, I think including the current 70-200L 2.8.

If all that is born out when we got hold of this thing, then you could get an extra 140-400L 5.6 lens, weatherproofed and with four stops IS, for the price of an extender - which is a much more appealling combination IMO than having to buy an extra 100-400L.

On top of that, if the new lens can max out a 7D sensor or a 5d2/1Ds3 more easily and more often, then there's the further cropping option on top of the extender thing.

Basically, I think this new zoom could be a very nice two-in-one surprise for long lens users :)
 
I actually got my hands on the new 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II USM last week, at a Canon CPS roadshow. It's the only one in the country. :clap::clap::clap:

And I asked the Canon techies what was better about it.

Answer:
- It's a little bit lighter. Nobody was complaining that the old one was too heavy, but this one's a bit lighter.
- It's a little bit sharper. Nobody was complaining that the old one wasn't sharp, but this one's a bit sharper.
- It has a better minimum focus distance. Nobody was complaining that 1.4m wasn't good enough, but this one can focus at 1.2m.
- It has better coatings and better flare resistance. Nobody was complaining that the old one was prone to flare, but this one's a bit better.
- It has better Image Stabilisation - 4 stops instead of about 2.5 stops.
- But the BIG difference, they said, is in contrast and colour rendition. Nobody was complaining that the old one was bad in these departments, but allegedly the new one is MUCH better.

Worth the upgrade, with an SRP of £2799? You decide.

One thing that was very interesting, however, is that the lens I handled had a front element measuring 82mm. I pointed out that this is a bad thing, since many people will have 77mm filters, but 82mm filters are relatively hard to obtain and much more expensive. They agreed that it wasn't ideal. However, both the Canon UK and Canon USA web sites say it's 77mm, and the photos of the product on the web sites also say 77mm. I guess we'll find out when it's released for real.....
 
The clue Stewart is in the unquantified references to image quality. If it is not significantly better and doesn't move the applications for this lens forward in a fairly major way, then Canon will sell about three.

And the new lens is actually heavier, only 20g, but that isn't lighter. And it's factionally longer, too. Filter size is 77mm - it says so on the lens. Who were you talking to? :thinking:
 
I'm also saving for the Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 L IS USM Lens.

I wondered what the difference was.

Having now seen the difference, is it worth the extra cash? I think not?
 
HoppyUK said:
And the new lens is actually heavier, only 20g, but that isn't lighter. And it's factionally longer, too. Filter size is 77mm - it says so on the lens.
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Where are you getting your data, Richard? Because the lens I played with last week was lighter than the Mk I version - noticeably, tangibly lighter if you held one in each hand - and did have an 82mm front element.

That's the puzzle. The specs and pictures on the Canon web site aren't entirely compatible with the lens I saw last week. Perhaps what I saw was a prototype - but the CPS guys said it wasn't. Or perhaps the web site is wrong - though I can't imagine why it would be.

:shrug:
 
Hmmm. Call me cynical, but the current 70-200 2.8L IS a very popular lens with very few people finding it wanting in any way. Canon must sell this lens in huge quantities. Once stocks of the current model run out, that's a pretty hefty price to pay for it's replacement. This smacks a bit of planned obsolescence. If Canon are going to re-hash all their super tele lenses around what seems to me to be just this latest IS system, I think they're going to to pee off a lot of people.
 
mdollan said:
I'm also saving for the Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 L IS USM Lens.

I wondered what the difference was.

Having now seen the difference, is it worth the extra cash? I think not?
Click to expand...

But you haven't yet seen the difference - it's in the glass, at least to some extent. I just can't believe Canon would produce a lens like this without there being a useful upside for that price. Especially when the 100-400L is long overdue for a refresh, if you follow the reasoning in my earlier post.

StewartR said:
Where are you getting your data, Richard? Because the lens I played with last week was lighter than the Mk I version - noticeably, tangibly lighter if you held one in each hand - and did have an 82mm front element.

That's the puzzle. The specs and pictures on the Canon web site aren't entirely compatible with the lens I saw last week. Perhaps what I saw was a prototype - but the CPS guys said it wasn't. Or perhaps the web site is wrong - though I can't imagine why it would be.

:shrug:
Click to expand...

I don't know what you actually got to handle Stewart. Seems very strange. I havn't actually seen the lens, but the official press release and photos from Canon show the specs, and the 77mm filter size, clearly enough. And it's not the old lens they're showing or any apparent prototype.

Barrel is fractionally fatter and the lens hood is new - ET-87, up one mm from the old. The 20g extra weight is consistent with that.

Canon's MTF graphs are the only evidence of improved image quality I've seen. They're impressive, but do not prove conclusively what I'm expecting to see. I think the reason for that is that the maximum resolution they publish tests at is only 30 lines-per-mm, for historical reasons relating to film.

30 lpmm is a pretty conservative figure at any rate and doesn't bear much relation to the 100-plus that we're needing for high end digital these days - Canon 7D's 18mp equates to an amazing 116 lpmm. Generally speaking, if a lens delivers high contrast at low resolution, then it will continue to deliver relatively high figures at high resolution also, but it doesn't always follow a direct relationship and designers can tweak those characteristics.

I think that is where the fluroite and other trick glass comes in. That is mega expensive stuff and is the major contributor to the exceptional performance of Canon's long f/2.8 L lenses. So I'm sticking to my guns, and sticking my neck out I'll agree, and say that as of now I think this new lens will have a few cool tricks up its sleeve :)

Why else would Canon go to all that trouble? It's obviously a ground-up completely new lens, even if it looks very similar to the old one. And it is probably Canon's most important and biggest selling pro work-horse lens.
 
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