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

Hey Guys,

I'm looking at picking up a EF-S 17-85 for my 400d. After a few quick searches of the forums I haven't been able to find any proper opinions on what this lens is like so I thought I would throw it out to the floor and see what people thing.

From my limited understanding it looks to be a winner as it has IS, can be picked up for about $600 on ebay and seems to be fairly versatile.

What do you guys think?

 

ive heard its a good all round lens, if you wanna peep about Quality control, sharpness and resolution, theres plently of reviews on the net.

but your other options in this category are:

18-55mm 3.5- 5.6 IS. ~$250
28-135mm 3.5-5.6 IS USM. ~ less than $500
possibly the 17-55 2.8 IS USM which is ~ $1250 if you got money in the bank

Either way IS is definately a winner and much better then the stock 18-55. I got the 18-55mm 3.5 to 5.6 and it increased the number of keeper shots to the event i went to recently.

AMD2400.

 

Sounds good...I'm looking at using it as a replacement for the crappy kit lens

 

The 17-85mm is my stock walkaround lens on my 20D, although the 10-22mm has a tendency to elbow it out more often than not since I bought it around six months ago. But anyway. It's a decent upgrade from the kit lens - slightly wider, a lot longer, and with IS. I've had no real complaints about it.

Two major issues: it does have some pretty noticeable barrel distortion at the wide end. It's not objectionable, but it is there, and that may be an issue for you, depending on how anal you want to be in your pixel peeping. Also, flare can be a problem, and the hood will only go so far in correcting that (yes, I have the hood) - nature of the beast; the only hood I've seen that works "correctly" over the entire zoom range is the 24-70's, and that's because of the reverse zoom (which very, very few lenses have.)

Overall assessment: it's a worthwhile upgrade. Not fantastic, but if you want a fantastic lens, I'd be telling you to spend ~$500 more on the 17-55mm f/2.8. For somebody on a budget, though, the 17-55mm is overkill; the 17-85mm is probably the better upgrade.

 

It's a pretty good lens. But imho I decided to go with the 17-70 Sigma F2.8-4.5 over this lens. Though the canon has USM, IS and slightly better build quality, it's performance is on par with the Sigma (from a number of reviews and btw, there's now an HSM version, basically Sigma's "usm") It's also cheaper than the Canon.

A number of reviews also show that it has BETTER picture quality than the 17-85. It also comes with a hood which is pretty handy for protecting the lens!

Do consider this lens, it's been highly recommended on this forum.

But you can't go wrong with the canon 17-85 either.

 

I had a 17-85 as my main walkabout lens for a few years and I loved it. Nice and Wide but with some reach, lightweight and compact. My copy was pretty decent.

That said though the new price for this lens is way too high and I would only be reccomending buying a decent 2nd hand copy for $500-600 (maximum )

 

Main issues with this lens are CA and vignetting, have a read on the FredMiranda lens pages for more gripes (but then look at other lenses and realise that no lens is without its crtitics).

Having said that, this is still the lens I recommend to people starting off with DSLRs. I recommend they buy this and a 50mm f1.8 to get the low light stuff, since this lens is relatively slow.

The range is almost perfect on the 1.6x crop.

 

That's because it's essentially the same as having the 24-105mm f/4L on a FF body.

 

Nope. 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS on a full frame body would be closer to the mark. Slightly slower at the wide end (a third of a stop, I think, but don't quote me on that), but not so much that most people would be bothered.

 

Get the Tamron 17-50 F2.8

 

I have this lens, and i have been very happy with it since i first got it with the 400D.

I got it with a package (enthusiast kit)... it was a bit more pricey than the twin lens kit... but i took the plunge and got the 17-85mm...

very good all rounder...