CANON EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM

I didn't like it. Too heavy (especially front-heavy when wide and focused close), way too slow and overpriced for its optical perfomance (although $300 sound like a nice bargain).

The USM and IS are excellent features, on the other hand.

The 17-85 is (or should I say "still is") an often and controversely discussed lens. I bought one even though I already had a Tamron 17-50/2.8 (which is optically better than the 17-85) and have not regretted it. Besides the weaknesses and shortcomings that this lens certainly has, its a very versatile and useful general-purpose or one-lens-only solution. If this lens is really "way to slow" as Bueh B has put it, really depends on your needs. I use mine at f/8 most of the time and usually don't find it too slow. But on the other side, I wouldn't use this lens for portraits. If you compare this lens with the EFS 18-200 IS, you'll find that the 17-85 is the more solid construction (ring USM, non rotating frontlens).

I personally would recommend this lens as a general purpose lens, but I would also say "don't expect wonders from it". BTW ... 300$ sounds like a nice price to me, but before you buy, check prices for used 17-85s at B&H or KEH.

Well I have had one of these on a 40D for almost a year now and after a bit of a baptism of fire I am growing to like it .

The range is very useful (the only thing stopping me replacing it with a 24-105L if I'm honest) and the IS is very good as well. Focusing with the ring USM is great.

Initially I fell into the "It's got rubbish IQ" camp, but I now realise that most of the poor early results I had were just plain OOF as a result of relying on the autofocus at wide focal lengths.

Zooming in, locking focus (now using back button focus) and zooming out again has resulted in a much higher keeper rate. And no I don't think there is anything wrong with my 40D focusing.

I just think there are certain situations (usually low contrast/poor light/no defined sharp edges under the focus point) where the camera does not get what I consider to be a good lock on the focus point I have chosen and it seems to focus closer to the camera than the point I have chosen. At 17mm this gives the impression of a focused image in the viewfinder - the red square blinks - but it's not focused properly.

The IQ is not as good at the wide end, and stopping it down does not seem to make too much difference. Having said that I have some nice A2 sized prints that I am very pleased with. Don't pixel peep too much of you want to be happy with this lens - make prints. Above about 50mm IQ is much better.

Flare is OK, certainly no worse than any other wide range zooms I have used before.

So to sum up it's a great all purpose lens, learn to live with it's shortcomings and zoom in to focus at the wide end, get the focus control onto the button on the rear of the camera.

HTH

David

What David said. I purchased mine refurbished for US$430, so you're price seems very good. I've been very happy with mine being that I don't enlarge beyond 8" x 10" or crop very radically. It is reasonably sharp. The only problems I've had is barrel distortion at the 17 mm end and some chromatic abberations, both of which can be fixed with software. FYI I have a Rebel XT/350D.

I owned one for about a year when I purchased my first digital SLR. My view of this lens is mixed - and it mostly comes down to a question, I think, of what are your expectations from such a lens.

The good news: The 17-85mm focal length range is very useful for many cropped sensor DSLR photographers, in that it covers the angle-of-view equivalent of the 28-135mm lenses that were so popular and useful on film SLRs. The incorporation of image stabilization (IS) somewhat compensates for the relatively small maximum apertures. Its cost is not prohibitive for the feature set it provides. Its build quality is OK, though not stellar. Its image quality is good enough to produce consistent letter size and smaller prints and certainly fine for online posting.

The bad news: The large maximum aperture (f/5.6 at the long end) leaves you very few usable apertures once you consider the effects of diffraction blur at apertures smaller than f/8. (Though if you limit yourself to very small prints and online posting this may be a bit less significant.) The lens has known and for many users significant IQ issues: corner softness, excessive vignetting at extremes of aperture and focal length, more than typical barrel/pincushion distortion, more than typical chromatic aberration.

This could be a good lens for certain users, but it could also be a serious disappointment for others. If your intent is to get one lens that you can leave on the camera, you want to save a bit of money over more expensive alternatives, you won't make large prints, you can live with the limited aperture options... and you aren't thinking you are going to get an L lens equivalent on the cheap.

Dan

Most of it's been said, but just to support the "we love it despite everything." It is simply the most handy lens available from Canon for the 15x22mm sensor cameras. It's the equivalent of the 28-135 zooms of 24x36mm sensor cameras or film.

The combination of non-rotating front element in focusing, USM, and IS make it far superior to most of the alternatives. I'd buy an upgrade from Canon if they offered one, but in the meantime it's so handy.

Perhaps Canon will respond to the latest from the third-party lens makers who are now starting to offer some "IS-equivalent" lenses in this sort of range. I'll wait to see how they test out. There is no L lens in this range with the features unless you go to 24x36 sensor cameras.

The lens is very good optically in terms of sharpness, so I don't get the "small prints" argument above, and its real flaws of barrel distortion, etc. are really very easily fixed in post-processing in Photoshop CS4 especially.

CS3, sorry.

I had three. One I absolutely loved, the other two were ok (soft). Great range for general. Throw a 35mm prime for speed in your bag and your set.

m

I bought mine as the kit lens with my 20D. I have numerous 16x24 landscape prints on my walls taken with this lens. I would rate the quality of these prints as very good. For best quality I try to stay within f8 - f16 and avoid the widest end of the zoom range whenever possible. It is now doing its duty on my 40D. I am very happy with mine.

John