A street price pre-order is now available on the recently announced Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS II USM. It’s now available for as low as $1199, brand new from authorized Canon dealers with a 1-year Canon USA warranty.
Some dealers even have a limited number available to ship out tomorrow — please inquire for the full details.
This lens has all the signs of being a popular lens, with an optical and electronic improvement over the previous version, and a very reasonable MAP price tag of $1299. Initial supplies appear low.
1199 isn’t much more than what we see the current F4 going for, about 100 bucks or so. The updated IS and focusing alone are worth that. For those that have the mk1, if you are getting along with it just fine then stick with it. If you find that you are really wishing you could go one stop lower regularly, or that you hunted for focus a bit too often, then sell it and go for the mkII. Unlike the F2.8 mkIII, the F4 mkII is a pretty good improvement over the mkI.
I would think for those that aren’t too picky about such things you are about to see a pretty good amount of mkIs for a lower price. And since it was already pretty good, I would think that jsut about anyone would be successful with one.