The Canon 24-70/2.8 II is just 805 grams, nicely compact, and regarded excellent optically. Nikon's decision to go with a VR design seems to have pushed it over 1kg in weight, which is a bit disappointing and may make the lens less attractive for travel and walkaround use. I suppose the VR may helps Nikon sell some additional copies but a more compact, well-built non-VR version would have been my preference. 82mm filter thread is also a complication since I don't have any other lenses with that filter size and none of my filters are 82mm. I'm used to being able to use just one 77mm filter size on many of the lenses that I use for landscape photography. Perhaps the larger filter size made it possible to reduce vignetting and improve corner sharpness.