Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Now In India

Good news for photography aficionados in India. The long-awaited Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens has finally hit Indian shores.
he new lens was announced all the way back in February this year and scheduled for a May-June release but then suffered several delays. After months of speculation, the lens is finally available in the Indian market.

According to Canon, the new version of the 24-70mm f/2.8L lens is significantly sharper than its predecessor. Along with optical improvements, the lens also has been redesigned to make it lighter by about 150 grams. The length has also been reduced from 124mm from version I to 113mm on the version II.
All this reduction would make you think that there must be some corners Canon has cut. Whatever those corners may be, optics isn't one of them, as the new lens sees the inclusion of two ultra-low dispersion elements and one Super UD aspheric element to minimize chromatic aberration.
The lens also comes coated with Canon's Super Spectra coating to drastically reduce flare and ghosting. Interestingly, while the overall sense of the design suggests that miniaturization has been an important feature of this lens, the front element now incorporates an 82mm thread, as against the 77mm on the older lens.

The lens is now available through the Canon stores in India for a whopping price of INR 149995, which is significantly higher than what the older lens was priced at. However, early samples seem to suggest that the 2-70 f/2.8L USM version II is much sharper than the previous model of the same focal length along with much better control, adn reduced flare and ghosting.