After quite a bit of research and dilemma between this and its canon counterpart, braved to order this lens from FK, all thanks to the Monday-special extra 10% off. And first things, first, this lens is worth more than its money. After using it for almost a month now (which included a baby portrait shoot and a pre-wedding shoot), I am totally satisfied with the performance of this lens. I have used the canon 24-70 for a couple of weddings earlier so I can say that the VC in this lens is extremely useful if you are going to use it for similar events under difficult lighting conditions involving a lot of haphazard movement of the subject(s). Sharpness is of top quality, especially in well-lit conditions. The same suffers a tiny bit in darker scenes but I have seen it only at 24mm and at ISO > 6400 on my 5Dmk3. And the bokeh is amazing at f/2.8 which wasn't something I expected but extremely happy with! I have captured a few landscape shots with this lens, which, at 24mm is almost wide enough for landscapes but if that is your primary use, you wouldn't be looking for this lens anyway. The only glitch I faced with this lens so far is the one time when the camera complained of mis-communication with the lens in between a shoot where I was capturing high-speed continuous candid portrait shots. Rebooting the camera solved this though. If weddings, candids and portraits are going to be your primary use-cases, this lens is totally worth it - better than the canon 24-70 I would dare to say, especially with its lack of IS and exorbitant pricing.

I'm a professional photographer and used canon 24-70L as well. I was bit hesitate about this purchase but this lens worth at the price, better than canon 24-70 but nowhere at newer version of canon 24-70L II which is best among all, but so the prices!! If you are on budget, give it a try. May be I'm happy because I got good copy of this lens. This lens sometime (read rarely) give soft focus on 5DMKIII but consistently give good results on 5DMKII, 1DMKIV and over 6D.