You know what would be better? L quality, constant f2.8, USM and FTM, six stop IS, half the weight, and offer it in white, green, pink and black. All for less than four hundred dollars!!!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Seriously, I won't be buying it because I plan on a full frame move. I can see how this lens is going to make Canon a boatload of money though.

I think once it comes out as a kit lens, it would be reduced in price on the aftermarket when people want to sell off the lends from their kits.

Maybe Canon will release a retail USM version of the lens with FTM focus, similar to what they did with the original EF-S 18-55mm kit lens.

Sam Bortol wrote:
It's still an 18-200 Lens...the perspective changes is all...
Perspective changes are caused by changing the location of the camera in relation to the subject. Focal length changes only how much of the subject fills the frame. Just like the crop factor does.

Also, zooms typically do have distortions - barrel on the wide end and pincushion on the long end. That does affect the image - but can be easily handled in post-processing (even DPP has that feature).

RGS65 wrote:
The best thing about this lens is the zoom lock.

I hope they impeimented better than the one on the 70-300 DO IS lens - that one is useful only to keep the lens retracted - that lens (at least my copy) will "fallopen" pointed down or "fall closed" in some situations - I cannot tell you how many times I thought I was shooting at 300mm and ended up at 268mm or the like. All canon had to do was to put multiple stop notches to engage the stop other places - or a friction lock. It is quite annoying.

Maybe they learned something with the new lens.