What's happening to Canon's selection of EF lenses?

I just looked through Canon's updated USA website at the lenses. There are very few EF lenses left. There are lots of EF-S lenses now however. Canon used to advertise compatability with more than 60 lenses. Now there are only 53 EF lenses for sale.

If you take out L lenses there very few zooms now. There are no wide angle non-L zooms anymore (start at 24 or less).

How about midrange and wide zooms? There are now only two non-L zooms, the EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM and the EF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 USM. No more 20-35 3.5-4.5, 24-85 3.5-4.5, 28-80, 28-90, 28-105 3.5-4.5, 35-80 etc. The cheaper, smaller and lighter weight options are now gone

Some of the low end EF telephoto zooms are gone too. No more 55-200, 80-200 etc.

At least the full set of non-L primes are still there.

Is giving up on low end and midrange lenses creating opportunities for their competitors?

Were the low end and midrange lenses hurting sales of the L glass? A 5D with a midrange lens takes extremely good pictures, better to my eyes than a 1.6 crop camera with high end lenses even. Perhaps they are trying to discourage this?

Did anyone else notice that Canon's lens line-up has shrunk lately?

edit: 6 L's and 6 non-L's....only one ef-s

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Consumer and midrange EF lenses are being dropped because there little to no market for them. SLRs have moved from 35mm to, for the most part, APS-C digital, which is a different format and as such turns the standard 35mm lenses into awkward focal lengths. This means they get replaced by EF-S lenses. Meanwhile, the high-end cameras still use a 35mm sensor (or close to it), and the people who own these cameras don't tend to buy cheap zoom lenses.

So I'm sure there'd be a market for another 70-210 f/3.5-4.5 since there's plenty of buyers for consumer/midrange telephoto zooms (there are many owners of the 75-300, 55-250, and 70-300), but any zoom starting around 20-30mm is just a waste of manufacturing costs.

kauffman v36 wrote in post #8590219
70-300 IS USM is a non L zoom

Yes it is. In fact Canon has retained the most EF non-L lenses in the telephoto zoom category.

They still have the:
EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
EF 70-300mm f/4.5-4.5 DO IS USM
EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III
EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 USM III
EF 100-300mm f/4.5-4.5 USM

toxic wrote in post #8590224
Consumer and midrange EF lenses are being dropped because there little to no market for them. SLRs have moved from 35mm to, for the most part, APS-C digital, which is a different format and as such turns the standard 35mm lenses into awkward focal lengths. This means they get replaced by EF-S lenses. Meanwhile, the high-end cameras still use a 35mm sensor (or close to it), and the people who own these cameras don't tend to buy cheap zoom lenses.

So I'm sure there'd be a market for another 70-210 f/3.5-4.5 since there's plenty of buyers for consumer/midrange telephoto zooms (there are many owners of the 75-300, 55-250, and 70-300), but any zoom starting around 20-30mm is just a waste of manufacturing costs.

I tend to agree. I think that moving up in sensor size provides a bigger benefit for the same money spent on lenses, but full frame isn't very popular so perhaps the market has dried up for midrange EF zooms.

All of Canon's EF f/3.5-4.5 zooms have been pretty good over the years. All are gone now. Probably the 70-210 f/3.5-4.5 USM would erode sales from the 70-200 f/4 L pretty badly.

macroimage wrote in post #8590250
All of Canon's EF f/3.5-4.5 zooms have been pretty good over the years. All are gone now. Probably the 70-210 f/3.5-4.5 USM would erode sales from the 70-200 f/4 L pretty badly.

Precisely why I'm disappointed with Canon for not making the 15-85 f/3.5-4.5. They were all good, so it signifies the lens as being just a step below an "L" lens, rather than just another consumer lens.

I politely disagree...

the EF-S 10-22 and 17-55 are both very close to L quality in EF-S.

the only thing that is happening is that canon has thought (probably rightly) that if you buy a full-frame camera (5D, 5D MKII, 1Ds, 1Ds MKII, 1Ds MKIII) you can probably afford to buy L lenses for it so why do they need many non-L EF lenses? EF lenses are basically just cheaper and worst versions of L lenses...

toxic wrote in post #8590224
Consumer and midrange EF lenses are being dropped because there little to no market for them. SLRs have moved from 35mm to, for the most part, APS-C digital, which is a different format and as such turns the standard 35mm lenses into awkward focal lengths. This means they get replaced by EF-S lenses. Meanwhile, the high-end cameras still use a 35mm sensor (or close to it), and the people who own these cameras don't tend to buy cheap zoom lenses.

So I'm sure there'd be a market for another 70-210 f/3.5-4.5 since there's plenty of buyers for consumer/midrange telephoto zooms (there are many owners of the 75-300, 55-250, and 70-300), but any zoom starting around 20-30mm is just a waste of manufacturing costs.

caesar2164 wrote in post #8590829
I politely disagree...

the EF-S 10-22 and 17-55 are both very close to L quality in EF-S.

the only thing that is happening is that canon has thought (probably rightly) that if you buy a full-frame camera (5D, 5D MKII, 1Ds, 1Ds MKII, 1Ds MKIII) you can probably afford to buy L lenses for it so why do they need many non-L EF lenses? EF lenses are basically just cheaper and worst versions of L lenses...

You're both right.

The whole reason they made EF-S was to cater to those that couldn't afford EF/Full Frame right? I am willing to bet that there are a whole lot more people willing to spend $150-700 on an EF-S lens than $1,200 on EF/L glass... I am also willing to bet that with the progression of 3rd party lens quality and EF-s lens quality it doesn't really matter anymore.

Canon is just catering to the larger market. Hell I bet more than a few people on this forum bought their L glass just so they could say they have L glass in their gear list when they could have bought an equally good EF-s or non-L lens for half the cost.