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Wow, that's a good deal more money than we pay in the U.S. At that point, it's cheaper for you to book a flight to New York, buy your gear (even paying sales tax), and fly back home again.



Indeed and those aren't list prices they are street prices. The list price for the DO is £1049.99

I bought both my 75-300 and 17-40 f/4.0 L in the States when on holiday. Thankfully Canon do an international waranty on the lenses, something that is sadly lacking on the bodies.

Mind you, you can only really save decent money if you "forget" to declare them coming through customs, otherwise you would get hit for at least 10% duty and 17.5% sales tax.

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I'm actually somewhat surprised that the DO version is heavier. I would have thought that with more expensive optics, they could get that weight down. Maybe they're putting in heavier AF motors or a more robust outer shell.


The DO version is much more solidly built than my 75-300 IS, which is almost entirely plastic. If it didn't go to 300mm, have IS and come in so "cheap" then I would never have bought it. It feels cheap and takes an age to focus (it frequently hunts through the entire range before settling). It also doesn't have full time auto focus, meaning you can't help it with its focus problems.

But it does do 300mm (480mm in 35mm terms) and I can take decent shots at 1/250, so I love it

Nearly as impressive in the "how did they do that" area, is my wife's new digicam. A 36mm-420mm stabilised lens on a camera that you can put in your pocket and weighs less than any one of my lenses...
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