Canon 17-85 IS USM thingy - any opinions?

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Hi all,
Got a holiday coming in Cornwall, and looking forward to filling my boots with pictures of the coastline. I will be selling/trading my Sigma 18-125mm and want to move up the scale a little, so to speak.

The lenses that have grabbed my attention are the Canon 17-85 and the Sigma 17-70. The Canon has a slight edge for its USM and longer range, but people either seem to like it, or absolutely slate it. Fred Miranda's reviews site gives a very mixed impression like this.

Has anyone owned one, and care to give me their overall impression of its?

Cheers,
Matt
 
I have one. I can't fault it, it's an excellent walk around lens.The IS is a real boon, and you can get some good close-ups in 'macro' mode. I've been thinking of selling it because it doesn't fit the 1D which I use most of the time. The only thing stopping me is it would leave me with a bit of a gap in my lens range till I've replaced it with something else.

We could probably come to some arrangement though if you're really interested. ;)
 
Actually CT, I did some snooping and spotted you have one - was hoping you'd reply!

Expect a PM in the next few minutes.

Anyone else got any thoughts on the lens - Braeden, you had one for a while didn't you?

Matt
 
Ive got one, and as has already been said its a very good lens, the IS is great and it appears to be sharp throughout the range, its pretty much welded onto my 20d, but therein lies the problem, unfortunately ive not had much chance to use it.... in fact ive not used my 20d much at all since getting the 1d. Looking back I wish id bought a EF 24-105IS instead, but at the time I never thought id own a 1series, that makes the 17-85s only fault, the EFS fitting.
 
Thanks for the reply. A lot of the reviews say that it isn't very sharp at the wide end, the barrel distortion is bad, as are the chromatic abberations. Would you agree with any of that?

Matt
 
Here are a few samples from my archives... none are good photos, but 1 or 2 definately show CA, see img_1950 the lower right hand post.
img_9237 should show any barrel distortion, i think.

http://www.dreederuk.com/ocukpics/efs17-85samples/

All shot RAW using either 20D or 300D, no tweaking, just converted to High Jpeg using RSP, Exifs should be intact.

If these dont help, give me any focal length, Aperature etc and ill see if I can dig any shots out.
 
I have one on my 30D. Very sharp and almost but not quite L quality. Nice build, great features and solid. However one thing is that it is a little slow at F4.

Would like something faster but that costs for a lens of this quality.

Do be aware that the IS actually slows down the camera if shooting in burst mode and as such negates the IS as if I am shooting sports from the touchline I simply up the shutter to compensate and turn off IS.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks chaps - weird thing this lens, some people say how sharp it is, others say how dire it is! Odd.

If either of you have some samples of 17mm at f4, or thereabouts, that would be great.

Matt
 
Thanks Dreeder - the CA doesn't look as bad as I thought it might in that first shot. Could you possibly post a shot from around 50mm -80mm ish at a smaller aperture, so I could see how sharp it is stopped down a bit?

Thanks again,
Matt
 
Just had a quick look and all I can see is motoX which at small apertures have long exposures, so they arent really worth posting as its all about my panning in-ability rather then the lens... If no-one else beats me to it, I will take and post a couple up tomorrow morning.
 
Not had time to read here for a few days so only just found this thread.

the lens is pretty much always attached to my 350D as it is a great walkabout lens.

As others have already mentioned, it can be soft at the wide angle but is pretty much fine from 24mm onwards. Barrel distortion is also fairly pronounced at 17mm but again from 24mm it's pretty much gone.

An example of barrel distortion (or perspective) at 17mm:
angel.jpg


I like the colours the lens gives, and I think the IS is a godsend (especially for people with unsteady hands like me). For the money I paid for the lens I would have liked faster than f/4 or at least f/4 all the way through the zoom.

However with all that said - I have been considering upgrading to the 24-105mm L IS USM for a while now. I don't use 17mm a great deal for the reasons mentiuoned above, plus I tend not to do a great deal of landscape anyway.
 
I may be looking to move my 17 - 85mm IS on if you are interested?

You can see some of my work with it on here.

Have a think, boxed, two months old, comes with a quality filter and a hood (boxed) which totalled £420.00 when I bought it. Looking for £350.00. (no offers).

Diego.
 
I took some objective test shots with the 17-85 EF-S and the 20d, while the 1D battery was on charge this morning.

This shot was taken from closest focusing distance at 17mm f4. A more severe test of barrel distortion, you wont get. Clearly it shows marked barrel distortion, as you'd expect with a wide angle lens at that distance. All shots are hand held.

17-85_Test.jpg


The same shot taken with the 17-40L also at 17mm and f4 shows the more expensive glass to be not that much better. Both lenses are commendably sharp IMO.

17-40L_Test.jpg


Where the 17-85 really scores is in it's all round usefulness as a walk around lens, where the 17-40L could sometimes do with more reach.

The following is a full frame shot at 85mm and f9.
flyfullframe.jpg


This is a 1:1 crop from the same image
flycrop.jpg


In all honesty I don't think 'soft' is a criticism you can level at this lens. :)
 
Mwah ha ha! This lens, it is mine! ;)

Thanks to CT, I will have (his) 17-85mm winging its merry way to me for Wednesday. Many thanks to CT for such a smooth transaction, and looking forward to the lens. Got a weekend planned to give it a good testing.

Matt
 
LOL. I'm sure you'll love it. The IS really lets you take liberties with hand held shots. Spoils you for none- IS lenses though. ;)
 
CT said:
Spoils you for none- IS lenses though. ;)
Click to expand...

Congrats on the purchase - you won't be disappointed.

On and the above statement is so true, I just had to get rid of my sigma 70-300 for the canon equivalent with IS - and it has made a huge difference - at a (monetary) cost though...
 
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