No more instruction booklets for lenses?

I just received my EF 16-35mm f/2.8<span style="color: #ff0000;"]L II lens, and discovered that unlike every other Canon lens I've purchased, this one didn't come with an instruction booklet folded in half and tucked in next to the lens. Instead, there were these:


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The CD contains PDF manuals for all of the lenses (in multiple languages). Canon is finally saving some trees, at least in some cases - the MT-24EX that I bought at the same time (and used to illuminate this shot) did come with a nice, fat printed booklet.

[^o)] Grey Market maybe? I got a book with mine.

I got the exact same CD with the last L lens that I bought just last week from Amazon.com, which had a date code of August. I was going to post something about it too, but forgot about it. Seems they must have just switched since the lens I bought with a date code of July came with the normal booklet.


You

Interesting. If you need to resell this lens, I hope none of the buyers will lower their bidding price due to missing booklets. I would think the "EF LENS Quick Guide" booklet would serve that purpose just as well ("gee, it comes with the official paper looking thingy, must be worth the price!").

Neuro


I don

The CD does say Version 1.0 on it....makes sense if the switch was recent.

I just checked B&amp;H and Canon

It probably wastes more resources to press the CD than it does to print the booklet. At least the booklet can be easily recycled or be made from recycled pulp--the CD, being fused polycarbonate, aluminum, and ink, may not be so easy. If this were about being environmentally sound, they would simply direct owners to download the appropriate manuals. I think it

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Originally Posted by HDNitehawk

Grey Market maybe? I got a book with mine.

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Definitely not. Canon USA warranty card inside. But when I look at the Brochures &amp; Manuals section of the Canon USA page on the 16-35 II, it shows that the pdf of the manual was posted 8/2/2010 so this seems to be a new development. I recall that a while back, theBrochures &amp; Manuals section was empty for most of the lenses. Now they are available for all of the lenses that I just clicked on, and the date posted for all of them that I checked is the same -8/2/2010. Seems like this is a recent switch across the whole lineup.


So, if you got yours recently, you got some old stock maybe? [6] (The date code on mine is UY10, so i was produced last month.)
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Originally Posted by Daniel Browning

If you need to resell this lens, I hope none of the buyers will lower their bidding price due to missing booklets.

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I've only sold on CL, and really no one has ever asked. But since I can just copy the files from the CD to my HDD, I could simply include the CD, right? Not that I plan on selling the 16-35mm, and it's pretty likely that even if I get to that point I'd have spare copies of the CD by then...
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Originally Posted by HDNitehawk

The only green they are going here is to save the two george washington green backs it cost to print the booklet.

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Now that I can believe! Even if wickerprints is correct that the CD costs more to press than the booklet costs to print, he's also right about the cost savings in other areas. For one thing, the CD+quick guide weighs ~1.3 oz, whereas the booklet from another lens I grabbed weighs ~1.9 oz. For one unit, no big deal, but in aggregate maybe that reduces transoceanic shipping costs slightly? As a sidebar, the lens booklet I grabbed was for the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS, and I noticed something - the L lenses use thicker cardboard for their boxes. Go figure...



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Originally Posted by HDNitehawk

What kind of pouch/case did you get with yours Neuro? Canon's web site shows the nifty brown case like comes with the 100-400mm. Mine came with the little grey pouch.

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It came with the grey LP1319 pouch, which is what's stated on the box. Brown case? Never seen one of those! My 100-400 and 70-200 II came with LZ cases, the silver/gray ones with a zipper. Ahhh...looking at the Canon website for the 16-35mm II, the accessory section does list an LZ1319 instead of LP1319 and shows a picture of LZ cases. I think that's a goof on the Canon website, though. When you go to the Canon Online Store and search for the LZ1319, it shows as 'no results found', while LP1319 pulls up the right case (which is the same case the TS-E 24mm II came with).



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Originally Posted by wickerprints

That said, I actually LIKE this change. It means that you get all the information in a convenient electronic format for every lens. It also means the lack of the CD shouldn't be a big deal because if it comes with every lens, then practically everyone would have one. Only discontinued lenses might not be included.

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I agree - I prefer this! You're right that discontinued lenses are not included, at least not intentionally. But some of them are there, for example the 70-200mm f/2.8L (non-IS) is still current, and it shares the same manual with two discontinued L zooms, the 17-35mm f/2.8L and the 28-70mm f/2.8L - so in that sense, electronic manuals for those two discontinued lenses are available and on the CD.


What's not on the CD is the manual for the new 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS zoom (that one is also not available for download, in fact there is noBrochures &amp; Manuals section on that lens' page on the Canon USA website). So, I expect we'll see a Ver. 1.1 of the CD pretty soon...
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A minor clarification: I did not say that a CD costs more to make than a booklet--in fact, I implied the opposite, although I can

A minor clarification: I did not say that a CD costs more to make than a booklet--in fact, I implied the opposite, although I can

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Originally Posted by wickerprints

An interesting question is whether Canon will do the same for future body manuals. I think this is less likely because those booklets are sometimes carried around by their owners as reference guides--whereas I rarely if ever hear of people carrying around the manuals for their lenses.

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I don't 'carry' any of them. But I have the pdf versions of the 7D and 5DII manuals stored on my iPhone for an on-the-go reference. [8-|]

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Originally Posted by neuroanatomist

My 100-400 and 70-200 II came with LZ cases, the silver/gray ones with a zipper.

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I read this and I wouldn't doubt your word without checking this out myself. My brother has my old 100-400 now but I have the 180mm Macro at home and it has the exact same case. So I got it out to see if it was indeed silver/gray. I pull the case out and yes, it is silver/gray but with a light brown tone to it. So thinking it might be a reflection off the carpet, I find a spot where everything around is straight white, and still I see the brown undertone.


Then I wake the wife up, and ask her what color it is. This is not a good thing to do, but she looks at it and says gray. I take my shower and when I get out she is awake so I go through this all again. This time she says it does have a creamy brown color to it.


So from what I can tell it has a tanish brown undertone in the color but the primary color is the silver/gray. But what I found odd about this is that in my mind I rember it as straight Tan.


Perhaps I need a grey card to balance my brain.

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Originally Posted by HDNitehawk

Then I wake the wife up, and ask her what color it is.

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I do this all the time. [:D] I mean, ask my wife what color things are according to her.


I would not dare to wake her up for that, though. [:#]

I came into this thread a little late, but I just want to mention that my 85 f/1.2 that came 2 weeks or so ago was the same. CD and no booklet.