Originally Posted by andnowimbroke
It's the price, IMO. If you want to sell it, it needs to be cheaper. On my local CL, I see them go for $1300-1450. There are some that get listed for higher, but they just stay there (or if they sell, I susect the seller was offered less than asking price and took it). There's a 70-200mm f/2.8L non-IS listed right now for $800. These are recent copies in reportedly excellent condition. Looking on fredmiranda, there are some 70-200/2.8 IS lenses in the $1400 range. I know you paid more. Unfortunately, buyers won't care.
So, if you want to sell it, be prepared to take a loss. Omit the B+W filter - assuming it's an MRC UV, that's an ~$80 addition to the cost, but buyers won't see it that way. They usually just see the high cost of the lens and move on. You might get nibbles at $1550, and you'll likely need that filter for another lens down the line in any case.
The way I see it, there's two ways to view selling on CL. You can buy used and sell later, and if you buy well it can be mostly a break-even process. That's been my approach - I've bought 4 lenses used, later sold all four and two other lenses I bought new, and net I'm somewhere around $50 in the black after that. Or, you can use CL, eBay, etc., as a way to get rid of lenses you bought new and end up not liking/using. If that's the case, you're going to take a loss. You can minimize that by buying during a rebate, and not selling during a rebate (which is why I only lost $50 on the one new lens I ended up selling). You can also minimize your loss by being patient, but it can take months. Timing is everything - for example, the 70-300mm DO that I bought 3 months ago and sold yesterday. The lens I bought had been listed at $900 and reposted periodically for about 2 months. I paid $800 for it, and even then I knew I'd have a tough time selling it if I chose to do so (it's not a terribly popular lens). When I did decide to sell, there were two other copies of the same lens listed on my local CL - I assume those were people wanting to trade for the new 70-300 L. One was listed for $1000, the other for $900 (and that one had been reposted over and over for the last month). I listed for $750, and it sold in 3 days, for asking price. I probably could have held out and gotten $800, but I wanted to speed up my next lens purchases...
As Jan and I discussed in another thread, this is why I don't rent lenses to try them. Instead, if I want to try a lens, I buy it used. Even if I take a modest loss, it's still less than I'd pay for even a 4-day rental.
But back to your question...the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS is a great lens - open it and use it. Like I said, if you want to sell it you'll probably need to list it for less, so you might as well get some use out of it!
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