Via The Digital Picture these lenses are now expected to be available in April. Originally they were scheduled for “before the end of 2011” but things slipped. I have my eye on picking up the 500mm myself so I’m really waiting for this one. Hopefully I get to have a hands-on look at one during CES next week in Las Vegas.
Canon have announced today that the brand new Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II and Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II are now shipping to dealers ! I expect these to be very popular, the 400mm in particular so if you’ve been waiting for one I’d urge yo to place an order pretty quickly! Initial reports of the 400mm performance have been glowing, particularly with regards to the performance with the new MKIII extenders (incidentally I will be posting my review of these this coming Monday). As I noted a few weeks back, the new cases for the 400mm lens
You might be wandering why I’m going to talk about this lens when Canon has already announced it’s replacement, due to hit store shelves in December 2011. Whilst it’s true that the new EF 500mm f4 L IS II is 17% lighter than this version, the optical improvements will be fairly minor. It’s tough to improve on the quality of any of Canon’s super telephotos. The list price of the upcoming MKII 500mm is $10,000 but the current version is selling for “only” $6900. When version 2 hits the second hand market there is sure to be an explosion of