Lens advice please! For 40D

[EspressoJunkie]

Ill hopefully be getting a 40D in the next couple of weeks and Ill need a lens to stick on it! Budget is max £180ish, so does anyone have any suggestions? The two Ive been looking at are either a Canon 18-55 IS(kit lens type of thing), or a 18-200 tamron.I shoot a fair range of things and versatility is important, so im leaning towards the tamron atm.
Im not hugely familiar with lenses(esp Canon!), so any advice is appreciated guys. Thanks!
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[LongLensPhotography]

I'd instead look at Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 if you can find it at this price, then Canon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 is fairly good. kit lenses and superzooms are typically verrrrrrry bad. Some time later you should be able to afford 70-200mm f/4.

 

[Orville]

I would recommend a used EF-S 17-85mm IS for under £200. I had one on my 40D and was very happy with it until I had the funds for something more exotic. A second hand Tamron 17-50 (as suggested above) will also give good results but will be much harder to find.

 

[LongLensPhotography]

I would recommend a used EF-S 17-85mm IS

Really? Well it has some "features" like the worst distortion at 17mm, low contrast, lots of CA, not very effective IS, and slow aperture. You can live with it, but it is not that exciting. I believe it has been replaced now by a sharper 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS (if it was f/2.8-4 then it would be worth something).

 

[HoppyUK]

For that budget, I would also say Canon 17-85. There's not much other choice TBH. New 15-85 looks really good but it's three times the price.

I used a 17-85 for a long time very happily. It has its shortcomings, but it's a decently made lens with a great range and quite light. IS is excellent. You can also correct all its optical shortfalls if you shoot Raw and run the files through DPP software which comes free with all Canon DSLRs. Distortion - gone, vignetting - gone, CA - substantially reduced.

With a few mouse clicks the optical performance is dramatically improved - see the demo on this test from DPReview http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/canon_17-85_4-5p6_is_usm_c16/page3.asp You cannot use DPP with non-Canon lenses.