BCN Inc., has released the final market shares percentages of the 2012 sales in Japan. These are the results of the digital video and camera market:

Digital camera (integrated lens)
Canon 17.6
Sony Corporation 16.5
Nikon Corporation 14.1
Digital camera (SLR)
Canon 52.7
Nikon Corporation 35.1
Sony Corporation 7.1
Digital camera (SLR mirror-less)
Olympus 29.8
Panasonic 23.3
Sony Corporation 20.1
Digital video camera
Sony Corporation 40.2
Panasonic 24.8
JVC Kenwood 18.2

Canon doesn’t rank among he first three for MILC shares. Blame the AF of the Canon EOS M. And in Europe and the US? Check the Amazon rankings:

US ranking (Click here).
DE ranking (Click here).
UK ranking (Click here).
FR ranking (Click here).

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Let me start with a absolutely geek post by R. Cicala and lensrentals team. They teared down three lenses, among them the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 Mark II (price & specs) (the other two are Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 AF-S and the Tamron AF 24-70mm f/2.8 VC (price & specs)). Tear down in the sense they opened the lenses and had a look deep inside. A pretty technical post that will appeal to the engineers among us. Lots of images of the various steps. Check it out!

The Digital Picture had a look at the image quality of the Canon EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM (price & specs). ISO 12233 resolution chart, distortion and vignetting test results are available. Excerpt:

The 24-105 L delivers a sharper image at 50mm f/4. Sharpness improvement at 70mm brings the 24-70 f/4 L IS back up to near equality with the 24-105 L. These two lenses perform more similarly at f/5.6 and at f/8, results from these two lenses are nearly comparable. Again, the results are similar at f/11.

Leaningcameras reviewed the Canon EF 24-70mm f/4 IS. In the conclusion they write:

The end result is that this is a great f/4 lens. It has stabilization which works extremely well, it is sharp, produces notably good results overall, and has the macro bonus.

The same guys also compared the Canon 24-70mm f/4 IS to the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM (price & specs), and talk about their findings in the following video:

They also made a video comparing the Canon 24-70mm f/4 IS to the Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 VC:

Another comparison between the EF 24-70mm f/4L IS and the EF 24-105mm f/4L IS comes from Ketan Gajria’s blog. Samples and crops provided.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM price check: B&H Photo, Adorama, Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, Canon Canada, Canon USA

Tamron AF 24-70mm f/2.8 VC price check: B&H Photo, Adorama, Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, Canon Canada, Canon USA

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM price check: B&H Photo, Adorama, Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, Canon Canada, Canon USA

Canon EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM price check: B&H Photo, Adorama, Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, Canon Canada, Canon USA