( 57 reviews )
-
Posted: Aug 11 2009
As a professional photographer and decades-long Canon camera and Canon lens consumer/enthusiast, this over-priced boondoggle fails on many counts. My specialties include producing the Driving & Discovering Hawaii photo guidebooks that contain lots of landscapes and seascapes. There is lens barreling at the wider angles that is so bad I thought something was wrong with my particular lens, but come to find out, they're all like this. At wide angle settings forget about a straight horizon, and the wider the setting the more preposterous this becomes. Worst of all, this is a CANON lens, and a high-priced one at that, so it amazes me that this company would actually produce a lens of such abysmal quality. In the 35mm SLR days, photo magazines would scream blue-bloody murder if they uncovered problems like these in Canon lenses of that period. Cheap, off-brand lenses of the day were vilified for problems not as bad as what we now have here in this present day Canon "premium-class" lens. Also a big problem at wide angle is STRONG green/magenta fringing even at 24mm, which worsens as you go wider. There is a spoftware "fix" for this fringing, but it should not be present to begin with. To have to use software to fix an aberration in an expensive piece of equipment from a top-rated company is insulting the consumer, and should be a major embarrassment for Canon...but the folks at Canon seem unfazed. I purchased this lens to give me an all-around tool for shooting many different kinds of travel-related photos, but it fails miserably for me and my particular needs, as I use wide angle for 75% of my shots.
-
Posted: Aug 5 2009
This lens was one of the first lenses I bought and, more than anything, has taught me the value of extensively researching any lenses I buy. I bought this lens because it was a Canon and not because it was a great lens. If I had the opportunity to buy this again, I would definitely consider a different lens. The good: - This lens has a fairly respectable range (17-85mm) - The construction feels solid - USM is nice - IS helps The bad: - The lens isn't particularly sharp. I usually use this lens for every day shots or when I can only bring one lens with me and I am indoors. Other than that, I use other lenses even when they are less convenient due to their range because of their sharpness. - There is no zoom lock. When moving the camera in between shots, the zoom frequently changes. Other lenses in this price range have the ability to lock the zoom at least to some extent. - The IS isn't enough to compensate for the f/5.6 at 85mm. It helps, but I would much rather have a faster lens. I've borrowed a Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR DI-II LD Aspherical from time to time and, while it has less range, it is sharper and faster. If you don't need the whole range of this lens, I'd definitely consider the Tamron.
-
Posted: Apr 22 2009
This lens is a great lens not only because it is extremely versatile in its range going from a wide angle to a telephoto but also because I found the quality of the pictures that I got from it to be excellent.The Image Stabilizer is a good tool to have in situations where there is not a lot of light.You can drop your shutter speed down,have enough light for a good exposure, and not have an out of focus picture. I would highly recommend this lens. I have a 70-200 L series Canon lens that I am very happy with because of it's high optic quality, but I have no problem at all, and all the confidence in the world using this "S" series lens in any situation that I feel to be appropriate at the time.
