The last few months, we’ve had some fantastic lens deals. This has been the best Canon holiday deal season since we started watching prices in 2007. Unfortunately, this big lens sale is all coming to an end in a little over a week: the last day for the Canon mail-in rebates is January 4th, 2014.
Once the mail-in rebate is finished, we expect to see the net prices to go up. Lens prices are currently at their lowest levels in years. Many stores are also now offering free expedited (2-day, or overnight) shipping with many lens purchases.
You can find many double dip deals at B&H, Amazon, or Adorama, where the store has instant-discounted by the amount of rebate or more, effectively doubling it. Note, you need to add to cart and proceed to checkout to enable the deal at most stores. You can also see a summary of our favorite double-dip deals above.
Any idea when we might see a Canon refurb sale?
I don’t see any good sales until January — the ones they have for the rest of the year appear to be quite lame.
You guys are probably right this time, but you guys have been saying “we expect prices to go back up very soon” since November. Nothing like a little doomsday cheerleading to boost Canon’s sales and they’re loving this advertising.
I’ve honestly been surprised at the duration and depth of the sales.
For example, Amazon (followed by B&H and Adorama) played a game of discounting the 24-70 II by $300 for a day or two at a time, which is what we normally expect. Then suddenly since mid-November it’s been pegged at $300-off ($1699 final).
But there’s also many great deals have come and gone, not to return. (e.g. 5D3 for $2699, 6D for $1415, 24-70mm f/4L for $899, to name a few.)
I believe the reason this sale has lasted so long is the Yen-USD exchange rate dropping throughout last year. The prices we’re seeing in these deals are very similar to what these lenses were being sold at back in 2008. As we all know, the economy crashed that year and the value of USD dropped as inflation went up, and that’s when lens prices started rising. You can consult your own very useful price history graphs to see that lens prices rose nonstop until late last year and then these double-dip deals started.
The deals may end soon, but if the value of the Yen keeps dropping these prices won’t be gone for long.
P.S. By the way, since this site didn’t start until 2010, how do you guys have price history information dating back to ’08?
is this due to the fact that these lenses have been introduced around couple of years back and canon while introducing their new versions of lens want to clear their stock? The 70-300 2.8L IS II have been around for more v than 7 years and it appears that they are going to release a newer version by pushing these existing stocks out
The 70-200 II was only released in April 2010. It’s much too early to be seeing a replacement for it. These deals are likely just normal cyclical deals that we see during the holidays. They’re probably especially good this year due to a soft first three quarters.