Canon officially discontinues a lot more EF lenses

[Ozarker]

I will never sell my EF 135/2 L. It's my "from my cold, dead hands" lens.

I foolishly sold one in 2019. Bought it back in 2020. Now it’s being discontinued. I’ll never sell again... unless the coming RF 135L turns out to be better.

 

[AlanF]

I've been debating with myself whether to sell my 400mm DO II. It's a superb lens but as I get older its relatively light weight has got above my comfortable carrying zone and I am afraid age is a one way process. This discontinuation has tipped the balance so yesterday I decided it's going. It could well go up in price as the RF equivalents will be very expensive but I don't like unused equipment hanging around when others would make good use of it.

It's gone up in price already. I bought it from the best seller of used gear in the UK last November and sold it today to another large dealer for £200 more than I paid for it.

 

[Michael Clark]

With all the hand wringing (including by me) I wonder this as well. Not to knock CR or any other rumors site, but "official" means a statement or list from Canon that we can view, or sites like B&H labeling them as such. A few lenses on this list are "official." But some don't make much sense, and the bulk of the list is marked in stock every where you look.

Doesn't mean CR is wrong as the list could be something only dealers are meant to see.

Give it a year. It will take a while to deplete stocks in the current economy, especially with the collapse of the ILC market.

The list does say that some are scheduled to be discontinued before the end of 2021, so not all are discontinued already.

 

[Michael Clark]

I hope you’re right but I’ve lost confidence that it’s really coming. There were a lot of “confirmed” 7D Mark III rumors a couple of years ago too.

Most of my 7Dii shooting is with a 100-400, but I still want a decent crop-mode normal lens (please not another plastic 18-55!), and maybe even wide angle like the 10-18 zoom for the once a year or so that I need it.

Canon made it pretty clear via the rumor mill in 2017 that there would be no 7D Mark III. What rock have you been living under?

 

[SteveC]

I will never sell my EF 135/2 L. It's my "from my cold, dead hands" lens.

Well, that's just lovely. First we have to sell kidneys (either our own or a relative's) to get new gear.

Now we have to kill someone to get used gear.

(I hasten to add that that is JUST A JOKE.)

 

[Michael Clark]

I'd be surprised if anyone wanted to buy the 17-85 - the 15-85 was vast improvement. I had the 17-85 with my 300D.

B&H currently has the EF-S 17-85 for $299 after a $300 instant rebate (MSRP $599).

 

[Michael Clark]

Half the comments here or more are completely nuts. Canon's discontinued practically every lens they've ever made. So has every other manufacturer. Never has discontinuing a lens been described as an "insult" to the user base, so why take it as such now!??!

You guys are whining that Canon's not going to continue to sell and support these models forever? How about you guys: if they did would you keep buying it?

Notice that not one of the EF fanbois is actually saying they'd continue to buy EF glass were it to continue to be available new. None are saying they'd buy new EF designs. NOT EVEN ONE SUCH COMMENT. Instead everyone's commenting that they'll keep buying EF on the secondary market, where such sells doesn't put a goddamn yen in Canon's pocket. In effect you're attacking Canon for failing to continue sales of something that none of you are even suggesting you MIGHT buy. That's just silly!

Now: I'm not mad that you're not supporting Canon. In fact you're being quite reasonable. EF line hit several evolutionary dead ends, ranging from film-to-flange distance to the speed of the electronics bus to the lack of support for the assignable ring control. You're doing the right thing. EF is dead. There is no reason to keep buying it new. You'd be stupid to want to keep buying the current lenses when they're so widely available used, and doubly stupid to want new designs in this old mount.

But you guys could be the illustration in Wikipedia for Cognitive Dissonance for bemoaning the discontinuation of a product line that none of you show any interest in buying.

Just a fun poll if you've read this far: what is the most recent purchase you've done of EF glass? Personally, it was getting the 50/1.2 and 8-15 fish in 2011. Anyone buy new EF glass more recently than that? Anyone buy new EF glass since RF came out?

At the time I liquidated over half of my glass was discontinued. 50/1.4, 8-15, 135/2, 180Mac, and 50/1.2 I think are all still for sale. But a 1st-gen 600/4IS, 1st-gen 85/1.2, 1st-gen 24-105/4IS, 1st-gen 14/2.8, 1st-gen 24TS, 1st-gen 50/1.8 (the pro build one from '87), 50/1.0, 1st-gen 24/1.4. And my trinity zooms were at least one generation old if not two. And not only did I not whine about it, I never even bothered tallying it up. I just didn't care.

I bought an EF 1.4X III last year. A 135/2 from the Canon Refurb Store in 2017. Was planning on picking up an EF 35mm f/2 IS USM in the near future, but they're getting hard to find.

If the gen 2 or gen 3 versions of your gen 1 lenses are still current, that's not quite the same thing as a discontinued lens that has no replacement in a newer generation.

 

[Michael Clark]

While Canon are still selling the 1D X MKIV, 5D MKIV, 6D MKII, 90D etc. it seems rather disingenuous to not continue selling lenses like the EF 70-200mm f4L MKII as this is a popular lens and only came out a short while ago. Fact is as well the RF lenses are considerably more expensive than their EF counterparts as indeed is the R5 in comparison to the price of the 5DS / 5DSr when they launched even taking inflation into consideration.
As a life-long Canon user now recently retired I feel Canon maybe pushing me into the Olympus system completely. Ive long had an Olympus OM-D E-M10 as a simple walk around camera with three zooms and as Im not selling commercially the output from something like the OM-D E-M1 MKIII with Zuiko Pro lenses is way cheaper rather than buying say the R6 with the RF 70-200mm f4L. I bought the EOS R which has many failings and whilst the RF 24-105mm f4L is a good lens that cannot be said for the RF 24-240mm which for the price sucks.
Canon I feel are at least in the UK pricing themselves out of the market and it will be interesting to see how they fair against the competition especially attracting new users.

So I shall be holding onto my 5DS with the EF 24-70mm f2.8L USM II, EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM II, EF 85 f1.4L IS USM, EF 100mm f2.8L IS USM this is my go to portrait package. I sold my 6D MKII when I bought the EOS R and the EF f4L trinity lenses I had with it, in hind sight that was a mistake. For landscape Im considering the Olympus set-up as the R6 & RF 70-200mm f4L will set me back £ 4,218.00. The Olympus OM-D E-M1 MKIII with the Zuiko 12-40mm f2.8 Pro & the 40-150mm f2.8 Pro is £ 3,098. Similar story if you look at Fuji.

I don't know about prices in the UK, but here in the U.S. the 5Ds R debuted in 2015 for the exact same price the EOS R5 debuted for last year. If inflation is taken into account, the $3,899 +tax for the 5Ds R in 2015 is worth $4,357.31 today. The 5Ds was $3,699 on introduction, which translates to $4,133.80 today.

 

[Michael Clark]

Non. The corruption started early

You make no sense. Are you saying it's bad because they do have built-in diopter adjustment? Because they all do have it.

 

[mdcmdcmdc]

Canon made it pretty clear via the rumor mill in 2017 that there would be no 7D Mark III.

The statements "Canon made it pretty clear" and "via the rumor mill" cannot be simultaneously true. Big companies like Canon rarely issue clear statements that they *won't* do something. It would be unwise for them to limit their future options if market conditions change.

Do a search on canonrumors.com for "7D Mark III". The latest three postings in chronological order are:

"EOS 7D Mark II Coming in March 2018 [CR1]" - November 24, 2017
"Canon EOS 7D Mark III to Have Slight Crop in 4K [CR2]" - January 3, 2018
"We're Not Convinced an EOS 7D Mark III is Coming in 2018" - January 11, 2018

The last article certainly pours cold water on it, but it doesn't state that it's never coming. It talks more about "unfocused chatter" and speculates that "the earliest it would be coming is Q4 of 2018". Reading that in January 2018, it's far from "pretty clear... that there would be no 7D Mark III".

I'm not saying that this site is the be-all and end-all of Canon rumors, but IMO this is the best among the ones I've found.

What rock have you been living under?

Michael, I deeply regret if you were offended by something in my response to Fletchahh's posting, compelling you to respond in that way. Rereading my original response, I feel I was courteous and respectful to @Fletchahh. I acknowledged that I hoped he was right, but I also simply stated that I've lost faith.

I would love to be proven wrong!

Mike

 

[dominic_siu]

The statements "Canon made it pretty clear" and "via the rumor mill" cannot be simultaneously true. Big companies like Canon rarely issue clear statements that they *won't* do something. It would be unwise for them to limit their future options if market conditions change.

Do a search on canonrumors.com for "7D Mark III". The latest three postings in chronological order are:

"EOS 7D Mark II Coming in March 2018 [CR1]" - November 24, 2017
"Canon EOS 7D Mark III to Have Slight Crop in 4K [CR2]" - January 3, 2018
"We're Not Convinced an EOS 7D Mark III is Coming in 2018" - January 11, 2018

The last article certainly pours cold water on it, but it doesn't state that it's never coming. It talks more about "unfocused chatter" and speculates that "the earliest it would be coming is Q4 of 2018". Reading that in January 2018, it's far from "pretty clear... that there would be no 7D Mark III".

I'm not saying that this site is the be-all and end-all of Canon rumors, but IMO this is the best among the ones I've found.



Michael, I deeply regret if you were offended by something in my response to Fletchahh's posting, compelling you to respond in that way. Rereading my original response, I feel I was courteous and respectful to @Fletchahh. I acknowledged that I hoped he was right, but I also simply stated that I've lost faith.

I would love to be proven wrong!

Mike

There won’t be any DSLR coming from Canon anymore I’m pretty sure as you see how Canon pushes the RF system in this two years especially after R5/6 debut.

 

[Sporgon]

You make no sense. Are you saying it's bad because they do have built-in diopter adjustment? Because they all do have it.

Yes. I never referred to just digital slrs. The add ons to the optical viewfinders started in the film days. I'll re quote my own post:

To be honest the slr experience with the higher end pentaprism cameras has become corrupted compered to what it used to be, without built in diopter adjustments, LCD overlays, AF arrays and translucent mirrors the view through my old manual focus film cameras such as the Nikon FM, Pentax ME/MX is so much clearer than anything we have today, and the medium format Pentax 6x7 is in another league again.

I said "higher end" because the lower end used the pentamirror which was inferior before any additional interference. I can see now that saying "pentaprism cameras" was misleading as I meant slrs. The viewfinder on my Nikon FM and F3 is far clearer and sharper than that in my EOS 1n for instance.

So the 'corruption' of the perfect optical reflex viewfinder started a long time ago. Most recently we have the transmissive lcd display. You probably already know this but take the battery out of your 5DIV and see how dark the viewfinder goes. Obviously though many of these things gave us other benefits which have been appreciated over the years.

Hope that makes sense now. I'm always dismayed when someone thinks I'm not making sense as it may give away my true character.

 

[Skux]

I was doing some browsing and it appears the EF 28mm f/2.8 IS USM is no longer available either.

 

[Ruined]

If Canon is going to discontinue all of their EF lineup then it would be good to see some leadership from Canon with regards to the e-waste situation that they are now setting up. What does that mean? Offering trade-ins for owners of EF cameras and lenses so that those discontinued models don't just end up in land fill and go back to Canon for Canon to take responsibility for disposing of.

Excellent points. Especially with the side grade mirrorless is that is going to generate all this e-waste.

 

[Ruined]

I was doing some browsing and it appears the EF 28mm f/2.8 IS USM is no longer available either.

I actually had this a long time ago and it was nice on aps-c , but is kind of in no man's land for FF IMO. The 24mm f/2.8 IS USM is better if you want a super light FF landscape lens (altho worth the extra weight for IQ and sealing of the 16-35 f/4L IMO anyway) and the 35mm f/2 IS USM is faster with a more popular focal length for general wide usage on FF. I am not sure what I would use the 28mm to shoot on FF.

 

[tron]

If Canon is going to discontinue all of their EF lineup then it would be good to see some leadership from Canon with regards to the e-waste situation that they are now setting up. What does that mean? Offering trade-ins for owners of EF cameras and lenses so that those discontinued models don't just end up in land fill and go back to Canon for Canon to take responsibility for disposing of.

NO WORRIES! I am willing to recycle for free all big white EF lenses

 

[SteveC]

NO WORRIES! I am willing to recycle for free all big white EF lenses

I imagine you might even pay the shipping!

I'll go further. I will pay $1000 for the 1200mm big white--the one that got discontinued years ago, so surely it's utter trash that needs to be disposed of!

Seriously, there seems to be this notion that the lenses instantly become worthless when they are discontinued. Maybe if you are the sort who must have the latest and greatest (perhaps even basing your sense of self-worth on it), but not, objectively speaking.

In fact the lens I am most likely to buy next is an EF lens, and given what I plan to do with it, an RF version would be next to useless, even if it existed, which it doesn't.

 

[tron]

I imagine you might even pay the shipping!

I'll go further. I will pay $1000 for the 1200mm big white--the one that got discontinued years ago, so surely it's utter trash that needs to be disposed of!

Seriously, there seems to be this notion that the lenses instantly become worthless when they are discontinued. Maybe if you are the sort who must have the latest and greatest (perhaps even basing your sense of self-worth on it), but not, objectively speaking.

In fact the lens I am most likely to buy next is an EF lens, and given what I plan to do with it, an RF version would be next to useless, even if it existed, which it doesn't.

I will keep my big whites (300II,400DOII,500II) too (and some other EF lenses). I would lose stupidly big amounts of money if I were to replace them with RF versions.

 

[becceric]

I will keep my big whites (300II,400DOII,500II) too (and some other EF lenses). I would lose stupidly big amounts of money if I were to replace them with RF versions.

Since Canon has gone full speed ahead with the EF discontinuation this spring, I‘ve been keeping my eyes open for a new 600mm iii. My fingers are crossed in hopes that B&H’s return to stock notification will land in my email box soon...

 

[HeavyPiper]

NO WORRIES! I am willing to recycle for free all big white EF lenses

I'm willing help