Canon EFS 1785mm f/45.6 Image Stabilized USM SLR

great all in one lense
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I typically shoot wedding photography. I use a Canon Rebel XTi with a BG-E3 battery grip and a 580EX flash. A 5D with BG-E4 battery grip, 1.2 85, 1.2 50, 70-200 2.8 IS, 24-70 2.8 and a quantum t5dr flash. This lense is a must have for me. The IS built in works fantastically and allows me to shoot in very low lit situations, such as a church or wedding hall with poor lighting. I can do this by setting my camera so that the ISO is low, the aperture is wider and the shutterspeed is slower. The added IS with the adjustment of these features creates unrivaled clarity, color and quality to every photo. This lense is a fantastic combo of a wide end and telephoto lense and a must have for all photographers, both beginner and advanced. To be honest, when I do a wedding, I usually keep this lense on the whole reception without having to take it off.

Skip this and get a good lense
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
This would be a good starter lense if you were not sure SLR photography was for you. But it is very slow and not much of a value given what else is avaliable. I got this lense with my 20D for the wide angle it offered. I wish I had skipped it and saved up for the 24-70mm f/2.8L.

When I picked up the 20D I also got a 28-135mm that lives on my camera almost all the time. The 17-85mm is unused except on rare occasions. I really like the 28-135mm but I wish I would have gotten a bare 20D body and the 24-70mm instead.

Live and learn. Don’t get me wrong this is a good, solid, well made quality lense – It just is not worth the money to have a good lense when you could get a great one for not much more.

Having said all that, I have gotten some great shots with this lense and the USM and IS are really very impresive.

If your on a tight budget save up and get good stuff. If you just want to test the water and play with a DSLR this might be the lense for you – but think of what you want to shoot – if you don’t need wide angle go for the 28-135mm.

Looking for a walk-around lens?
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Then you might consider getting a copy of the Canon EF 17-85 IS. If you have a Digital Rebel, XT, or 20D and have been shooting with a kit lens, this is one of the lenses that a lot of people buy as their first upgrade. Some people just buy it in place of the kit lens when they purchase the camera body. It’s an extremely popular lens because the range and size are just right for taking anywhere. I personally debated getting this lens because I wasn’t sure about the quality of the glass and my main concern was that it wasn’t fast enough for all occasions. One of the more frustrating things for me about the kit lens, as great as it was for such minimal cost, was that the aperture wasn’t fixed. I found myself having to bump up the ISO to make up for the lack of an f-stop or two. For those who are new to photography, that basically means you have to compensate for the fact that the lens can’t let enough light into the sensor so you have to make the sensor more sensitive (but also at the cost of lower quality and more grainy results) with the higher ISO setting.

I decided I didn’t want to take that risk and went all out since it was supposed to be my walk-around lens that I’d carry all the time. I picked up the expensive EF 24-70 f/2.8L lens that so many pros use because I thought it had a decent enough focal length range and at 2.8 it was fast enough for all my lightning needs. It cost $1100 and after actually hanging it around my neck, I decided it wasn’t going to work for my current needs. The lens itself is relatively huge and weighs a ton on a 20D. I returned the lens after talking to a friend who is a professional photographer who basically recommended picking up the 17-85 IS. He owned both (among others) and said that it was perfect for walking around because it had both the wide end and a decent telephoto length. That and it cost half as much! He allayed all my fears that the picture quality wouldn’t be very good. I was also going to be taking a trip for a few weeks to Europe and really wanted a lens that could do it all. So I bought it and have been pretty happy with my results.

Is it a pro lens? Not by any means. I know that if I kept the 24-70 the results would probably be better. But that being said, I am getting good results for half the price. When I was in Europe having the 17-85 range was about as perfect as I could have wanted. It was light and small enough that I could fit it into my compact Tamron Velocity 6 bag and the additional weight was negligible. The IS is a nice feature but don’t think that it makes up for the lack of aperture width. I tried to fool myself into thinking that when I bought the lens, but I see now that having a fixed 2.8 is something you just can’t make up with IS. But other than that, I’m very satisfied with this purchase. Another lens you might want to look into if you’re checking this one out is the Canon EF 17-40 f/4. It’s comparable in price, has a fixed f/4 but just doesn’t have the additional zoom length to it. Pictures are great though and it’s also relatively compact. To learn more about this and other lenses, check out a site I made for Canon Digital SLR users at http://www.eosrebels.com. Hopefully you’ll find it helpful in deciding which walkaround lens is right for you.

Simly great all-round lens.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Canon has totally redesigned their lenses for digital photography. This lens is superior in all aspects, contrast, sharpness and clarity. I did not buy the ‘kit’ lens that normally comes with the Canon Rebel cameras, opting to use an older EF lens until I could get this Image Stabilized lens. I’m very glad I did.

The lens that should have been included
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This lens was originally part of the 40D kit. I don’t know why, but now the cheaply made, overall useless 28-135 mm lens is the only lens you can find in the kit. You are better off buying the body only then purchasing this lens. Remember that the 40D has a crop factor of 1.6 – meaning that you have to multiply your lens by 1.6 – so a 28-135 is actually a 45-216 mm lens. Nice on the zoom part – awful on the other!

This lens is equivalent to a 28-136 mm lens – a perfect overall size. Picture being in a 12×12 foot room. With this lens you can shoot a small group. With the other lens (46mm equiv.) you have to climb a chair and stretch – and miss most of the group anyway. Seriously. I’ve been there.

This lens is well made, focuses fast, and is pretty silent. It’s now my primary.

GREAT Lens…
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve been using this lens now for over 2 weeks. I’m still waiting to take a lousy picture! The clarity is amazing, to a point that I can find absolutly no fault. The image stabilizer works perfectly, especially for close-up macro pictures. The only fault I find is with Canon’s specs. The specs state that the minimum focusing distance is 1.2 ft., where in reality it focuses down to an amazing .5 ft.

versatile but no match to EF 17-40 F4L in image quality
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
a good compromise if you need a walk-around lens with this range (equivalent to 28-135 mm), but the image quality pales before those taken with canon ef 17-40L F4L (equivalent to 27-65 mm). The difference in color range, depth, and subtlety is between a pale supermarket tomato and a ripe one just picked from the vine. If you shoot largely wide to normal, EF 17-40 F4L is well worth the price difference. 17-85, of course, has IS, but this can be compensated for by boosting the ISO on your digital camera. An added bonus: if you upgrade to a full-frame DSLR, you can keep your 17-40 F4L (17-85 works only with the APC-size sensor). If you miss the longer reach, just get closer to the action. You’ll get better pictures this way.

Image Stabilization is awesome!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I just got this lens today and it is already my favorite lens to use. I was looking for a wide angle zoom to replace my 18-55mm kit lens that I feel I have outgrown.

Take my word for it… don’t let the f/4 fool you. You can still take great photos in low light with this lens. Image Stabilization works amazingly well… I thought it would only help a little bit… I was wrong…. it helps a LOT! Today was a very cloudy day here and I was in my brothers room where my cat was sleeping. The room lights were off and there wasn’t much light coming into the room. I zoomed in on my cat and took a picture with IS turned off and then I took a picture again with IS turned on. I couldn’t believe how sharp the image was after using IS.

Check out a sample of this here: http://just-spaztik.deviantart.com/journal/13782833/

Anyways… I’m really happy I purchased this lens and I’m sure I’ll take awesome photos with it.

PROS: 17-85mm is a nice range, USM, Image Stabilized, Quiet, Fast Focus, Sharp Images, and all around great lens

CONS: Slightly heavier than what I’m used to, slow aperture, chromatic aberration on high contrast elements and zoom ring seems a little wobbly (nothing that I’m too worried about)

Conclusion: I’m really happy about this purchase. If you want a faster lens for better bokeh, then don’t buy this lens… f/4-5.6 really limits your depth of field possibilities but, if you’re only worried about taking sharp photos at night, the image stabilizing is a very very very cool thing! It’s a definite big upgrade from the 18-55mm kit lens.

a convenient accessory of APS-C sized DSLRs
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
It covers a very convenient zoom range, equivalent with what 28-135mm used to do for 35mm SLRs over the years.

The IS (image stablization) provides visible improvement in many shots.

Considering the relative price, the cost-effectiveness is top of my list too.

A Great walk-around lens for enthusiastics
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This lens is a quality upgrade from the kit lens. If you are a Digital Photography beginner/ensthusiatic and want a single walk-around lens,look no further. At 17mm it has barrel distortion and some chromatic abbresions which can easily be corrected in photoshop or PTLens (freeware) with just one click of your mouse and should be over looked in favour of many other advantages this lens has to offer like:

1.Good Range upto 85mm.

2.Sharp images

3.Good color & Saturation

4.Light weight

5.Not expensive when you consider that you need 2 differnt lenses to replace this lenses focal range

6.Saves you the pain of changing the lenses.

7.Image stabizer which leads to sharper images

8.Can capture very sharp portriats with blurred back background and

9.Decent Macro capability

Before buying this lens one should visit http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos350d and look at the photos taken by Phil Askey with this lens.If you know how to handle your digital camera then you can expect to get quality pictures similar to the ones taken by Phil Askey with the 17-85mm lens.

great lens BUT HIGH PRICE
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I think the good price must be no more that 500.00 – but I love this lens good wide angle and good telephoto all pictures very crisp, very fast focus very good IS system, strong lens,

Good features, not so great performance
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
This is a good lens, but not great. The construction and build quality are solid, and the lens feels heavy and sturdy. It has a useful range of 17-85 as well as IS and USM which makes for ideal “walkaround” lens. However, it is not very fast (4-5.6) which limits indoor, lowlight usage. IS certainly effective and useful and will help for lowlight photography, but not for stopping action.

Ultimately though, a lens is only as good as the photos it produces. Unfortunately, this lens (or perhaps my copy of it?) disappoints in that area. Comparing shots, the kit 17-55mm IS lens actually took sharper photos than this! I still have this lens with me, but more often than not I have been disappointed with the sharpness, especially in my landscape shots (even at higher f/8-10). Barrel distortion is also fairly obvious, even to the untrained eye. Buildings, towers and other tall structures will look concaved. This is less prevalent for smaller, shorter objects, but nonetheless there. Vignetting is not present in most cases, though it can creep in at the wide end with the addition of a polarizing filter.

Fantastic, versatile lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I got this lens as my first lens for my Canon Rebel XTi. I have been using it for several months and am very satisfied with it. The “Image Stabilization” feature is well worth the money.

Great Lens !
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
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.

Think twice before you get this one
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I’ve compared this lens with the kit lens (18-55mm, $100.-, cheapest Canon lens) and couldn’t believe my eyes. The kit lens was a clear winner, whether in wide, mid, or tele range!! I was outraged and happy I didn’t buy it. With image stabilizer on the images very not only darker, but noticably more blurred.

I tested myself because of the many conflicting opinions I read on the net. Please, before you buy it, compare. I do hope the €650.- 17-85mm was just a bad piece or else this is outrageous.

Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 Image Stabilized USM SLR Lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is an excellent lens with both Image stabilization and macro ability. The only thing I could hope for to improve it would be fixed aperture, but that would weight, size and cost.

Gran lente.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Lamentablemente no pude comprar la versión que es más luminoso. La foto del lente no corresponde a la escala real. Se ve más pequeño de lo que realmente es.

Estoy satisfecho por la calidad, pero como les dije con la versión de mayor apertura este lente hubiese sido ideal.

Sweetness!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have had this lens for about a year now and am very happy with it. You can certainly get a better lens, for a lot more money, but for a general walk around lens, this is it.

I get nice sharp images with this lens and it has a great telephoto range, in a fairly compact package. It would be nicer if it were a bit faster at the far end, but again, you’d spend more money for that.

In all I really have no complaints and am quite happy with this lens.

I recommend that you also purchase a good UV filter for it (and all your lenses) to protect the front lens element. But get a good filter. The lens optics are good, so don’t put cheap glass in front of them.

I also recommend the Hoya Moose Circular Polarizing Filter (CPL) for shooting out doors. You need a CPL for shooting outdoors, but polarizing filters tend to cool down the colors. The Moose filter is made from 81A glass so it’s like having a CPL and a warmer in one filter. The 81A glass compensates for the cooling that you get from an ordinary CPL.

Bang For The Buck Walk Around Crop Lens.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
There are 3 good reasons why you want to get a 17-85 for your walk around lens.

First is the good usable angles. I’m sure everyone knows that you pretty much have to multiply the zoom range by 1.6 on Rebels, 20D, 30D, and 40D’s otherwise known as crop bodies. So at the widest 17mm is actually about 27mm and at the furthest 85 is 136mm zoomed. See so 27mm wide isn’t actually the widest but it’s usable for group shots and landscape shots. And 136mm decent for sports and wildlife at a short to moderate distance. There are wider lenses but they most likely won’t zoom as much and there are longer telephoto lenses but they’re usually not wide enough.

Second, IS. Image Stabilization comes in very handy when you’re taking hand held photos. Especially if you’re cropping your shots, shooting at low light without a flash, and drank too much coffee. Obviously you can see the benefits of IS. It’s almost like using a tripod to get those amazing long exposure shots. Ofcourse at single digit shutter speeds nothing beats a tripod.

Price. Yes this is “only” about $500. I sold my lens and am buying something very similar, an EF-S 17-55 IS but that’s $1000. Why? It a little faster at f/2.8 which I really use often because of low light situations that I shoot at. But it’s because am at a compromising situation. If it was up to me, I’d use my flash each and everytime because photos just “pop” when a flash is used right. But I don’t have that luxury so I’m hoping the 2.8 is enough. Also, the edge are a bit sharper with the 17-55. Otherwise the 17-85 at half the price is and was my first choice for a walk around lens.

If you’re looking at the 17-85 you probably are wondering why its so much more than a 18-55 kit lens. The 17-85 has IS and the glass is definitely higher quality and it shows at tele and it produces noticeably sharper images zoomed up. The overall quality is a little better as well. There’s a new 18-55 IS for a little under $200 if your budget is tight and it’s definitely a sharp shooter but you’ll agree that color, contrast, and IQ are better on the 17-85.

Soft….
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I’m not going to go into too much detail other than to echo the others who are disappointed with this lens. I have an XSi and this lens isn’t much better than the kit lens. The problem is that I paid $400 for it.

My issues with it are mainly in image quality. Wide angle shots are usually soft, even taken on a tripod. Other shots have been soft also with aberrations, poor contrast, poor saturation and there is dust in my lens like a few others have mentioned.

I knew going in that the lens wouldn’t be fast or very good in low light, and I have other options for that anyway(Mark I 50mm f1.8, Tamron 17-35 f2.8-4, Tamron 70-200 f2.8). Don’t expect the IS to make this equivalent to a faster lens that doesn’t have IS. Just doesn’t work that way.

I just received my Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 today and cannot wait to get out and give a try. This will hopefully replace the 17-85 as my walk around lens.

The very best advice I can give anyone who is looking at Canon mid-quality lenses such as this one is to check out the Tamron equivalent. The photos I get from my 70-200 are stunningly good and I can go to 2.8 where the similarly priced Canon is a 4 I believe. IS and USM aren’t that important to me, so the faster Tamrons with their outstanding picture quality are where it’s at for me.

Great Travel Lens!!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I recently upgraded from my 2003 Rebel (original digital) to the Rebel Xti. I agonized for 4 weeks trying to decide which lens to buy. I was struggling between the EF 24-105mm L, the EFS 17-55mm IS, and the EFS 17-85mm IS. After reading the plethora of reviews, I bought all three to make my own comparison and my own decision based on my needs. I am not a professional, not even a hobbyist. I’m a small woman (5′2″) who travels often and I simply want a great lens that would take great photos in program mode and in auto mode.

This is was my simple and non-professional review of the three lens. The 24-105mm L took THE BEST pictures but it was much too heavy for me. The 17-55mm also took GREAT pictures but the range was too short for me. So, I returned both of these and kept the EF-S 17-85mm. I’ve had it now for 2 weeks and it has yet to take a bad, soft, overexposed, underexposed picture. It is slower than the other two. I do not take action shots.

If you’re wanting a great travel lens and don’t want to carry too much weight but want the ability to shoot in program and auto mode with your Rebel Xti, get the EF-S 17-85mm. I’m been very happy with it.

Excellent
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I was recommeded this lens for my Canon XTi – I’m so glad I did.

The wide views are brilliant and it can zoom in well too, before I need to change lenses to 80-200mm lense.

If you have a Canon XTi, without a lens, this is the one to get. Don’t bother with the 18-55mm one.

Good for all
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Its a very good lense, the quality is as good as any other canon lense, because of the range i would suggest this lens for those people who want a very good lens that is capable to take pictures in a restaurant and at the same time spot something in the outdoors, and dont want to be changing lenses every 5 minutes. this is your all in one.

Not an L but not bad
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Lens is sharp (at least the copy I have is sharp) and meets expectations. Works well with 20D as a walk around lens

disappointing
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
1. No mention anywhere that I could find that this is the imported version of the lense

2. My order was accepted and then I was told the item was out of stock

3. Packing at Amazon (not a sattelite seller) is atrocious – box was burst open – only one strip of tape had been used to seal the box. Inadequate and useless air bags used but failed to stop lense floating loose in the shipping box.

Sam

Hope I got a bad copy…
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
Just returned the 17-85 IS to Amazon after testing. 28mm WA detail very soft with significant CA – not nearly as good as the 18-55mm kit lens’ performance. 45-128mm range not up to quality of the 28-135 IS lens I replaced this one with. Hoping next copy of this lens is much better or I made a big mistake selling my 28-135 IS…

Fantastic for Portraits
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
If you buy an SLR, buy one of these lens. It will make all of your friends and family amazed at your artistic skills. What more can I say? I am new to SLRs, but with this lens I have taken the best photos of my life.

Unimpressive lens for the price.
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
After weeks of debating the merits of which lens to purchase along with an EOS 20D, I settled on the 17-85mm IS in the kit. There are other lenses out there in the same price range that perform much better. The biggest problem I had with the lens was the vignetting (darkening in the corners as seen in most of the sample images from Michael Lane.) Another issue was the amount of distortion (straight lines coming out curved.)

The lens is pretty sharp in the center and not bad at the edges. Depending upon the types of pictures being taken, the distortion and vignetting may not be an issue.

I have since returned the lens and purchased an EF 28-135mm F3.5-5.6 IS and an EF 17-40 f4 L. Other lenses that I would recommend over the 17-85mm would be the Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 and the Sigma 24-70mm F2.8.

Average lens
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
This is a dedicated APS-C lens. Effectively on a Canon with a 1.6x factor, this lens is a 27mm – 136mm full frame (read 35mm) lens. Great as a ‘walk-around lens’.

Although it suffers some very mild distortion, vignetting is almost imperceptible.

This is nice lens….it’s not a lens that will get you rave reviews from fellow online review ‘clubs’. But it is a good lens. I took it to Europe for 10 days and then to Washington’s San Juan Islands and it did very very well. I was proud of my picture quality. For a vacation trip this is a good choice.

I put a quality B+W UV coated filter on it ($50). I worry about damage and not impairing the quality of the lens with a cheap filter.

Shoot this lens wide open at f4.0 for the greatest sharpness through out its range. It will stop down to 5.6 as you pass 35mm.

All in all a good lens with a nice focal length.

My Camera: Canon 30D

shipped too early
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I ordered this lens, as well as a camera body, at the same time. The lens arrived a month ago; the camera body is delayed until the end of June. How can I assess this lens without the camera body? I wanted them shipped together, not two months apart!

Great lens. If you’re a semi-newbie, get it.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Had this lens for almost 2 weeks. Taken many shots with it, and have had no complaints. The digital camera reviewers love it, and I’d take their opinion over someone who has 10,000 dollars worth of lenses. People are always picky! It’s also a 5X zoom lens too, get’s you right into the action.

Not too heavy, pretty quick, great images. You can’t go wrong!!

After 40 Years In Photography: My First Canon Failure
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
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 you can forget about having a straight/level horizon, and the wider the setting the more preposterous this aberration 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 old 35mm SLR days, photo magazines would scream blue-bloody murder if they uncovered problems like these in 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 along the edges of objects, even at 24mm, which worsens as you go wider. There is a software “fix” for this fringing, but it should not even 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.

ADDITIONAL PROBLEMS since this review was written: While in the middle of shooting a wedding with this nightmare lens, my Canon xti froze up and flashed me an Error 99 message. Via forums, I found that an error 99 usually signals a problem with the gold contacts in the lens, and I cleaned them diligently, but the problem persists. I also use a Canon EFS 70-300 mm and a Canon macro EFS 60mm, and the xti works fine with both of them.

Do as much research online as you can before considering purchasing this lens.

Not so good – update
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I wrote my review a little more than a year ago. As I said then, others had had my problem with the lens and I thought it was fixed. the lens now will not autofocus. It hunts back and forth for several seconds and then stops. Depress the shutter button and sometimes a picture (out of focus) is taken. More often the “err code 99) appears in the viewfinder and the camera must be shut off and turned back on. With manual focus, the result is the same error code and the camera shuts down.

ALL of my lenses are Canon and I have no problem with the others. So, I have finally bitten the bullet and ordered the L series 24-70 lens. I still believe Canon makes the best lenses but I think this lens is poorly made. To see more of what I mean, visit the BH Photo Video site, look up this lens and look at the reviews. I want and need a lens in this range and should have bought the L series at the beginning. But I’m not going to pay Canon to fix it again.

Here’s my original review:

It IS a good lens. But, for the price, it ought to be. It is my “walking around” lens and I’ve been very happy with the images it makes for the two years I’ve owned it. However, I now find that I am not alone in the problem I’ve had. The zoom mechanism apparently is a complicated combination of worm gear and ball bearings. My first indication of a problem was when the zoom locked in the 17 mm position – it would not move. However, the problem was partly solved by rotating the camera upside down – the zoom then worked perfectly and, so long as I did not run it all the way back to 17mm it was fine. Just as suddenly, that problem disappeared for six months. Then it came back temporarily – not as bad but it was a problem and I could not use the lens freely. But – once again it disappeared and I thought all was well. Three weeks ago the lens locked up and it didn’t matter what I did – it would not unlock. I went to a couple of forum sites and found others had the same problem with the lens. The end result? I sent the lens to Canon for repair and got the good news today – it will take a week and will cost about a quarter of the cost of buying a new lens. The warranty is one year.

I agree with the other reviewer who said try the Tamron or other manufacturers. I have no complaint with picture quality and the lens is fast enough for my purposes. But I am very disappointed that a mechanical fault like this is possible after only two years with what I consider an expensive lens.

Not cheap but the only lens you’ll need
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
In my film days I shot only with prime lenses and never owned a zoom, the reason being zooms normally have smaller maximum apertures,often incorporate optical compromises, and shoot through more glass than a prime lens. That was then, this is now. Canon has overcome the small maximum aperture with the Image Stabilizer (IS). This means that if the camera tells you you can only shoot a particular scene at f/4 at 1/15th of a second which is very hard to shoot without blur, the IS compensates for the motion resulting from being handheld by actually moving the elements within the lens. The result is you can shoot at a much lower shutter speed and get away with it — a tremendous advantage for a lens that only goes down to f/4. The 17-85mm zoom range is equivalent to 28-135mm in 35mm. Seldom have I felt the need for either a wider or longer focal length and constantly switching lenses only adds to the dust problem inside the camera. And the image quality is superb as always. Canon optics have been ahead of Nikon optics for many years which accounts for why so many have made the switch from Nikon to Canon. And please don’t forget to order a UV filter with it. Put the filter on and never take it off.

Not as good as expected.
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Earlier this year I bought Canon 20D body as an upgrade to my D-Rebel.

After reading multiple positive reviews I blindly decided to go with EF-S 17-85mm lens which were in $600.00 price range at that time. Having a really high expectations for this lens, after a month or so I started to get feeling that somewhat I’m not satisfied with the picture quality of such expensive set. Pictures came out soft with so-so contrast. I noticed a lot vignetting and purple fringing. And let me tell you this is a slow lens, which makes it hard to use it indoors in low light conditions. Lots and lots of focus hunting on the zoom end, that was forcing me to switch to manual focus. But I continued shooting hoping to improve as I’m getting to know the camera better, but…. What a shock it was to me to discover that my old Canon EF 28-105 USM lens with no IS outperformed the one I used all this time. For test sake I also tried my kit lens for D-Rebel EF-S 18-55mm and was unpleasantly surprised that it produced brighter and sharper images under the same settings and light conditions. I could not believe it. $600 lens outperformed by cheap kit set. Right there I decided to get rid of it and by an L glass. Later on I read similar complains from other users about this lens that only strengthened my feeling about it. What a relief it was for me to find out that there is nothing wrong with camera itself. Now I’m able to produce much brighter, crispier, pictures using other Canon EF lenses and very happy with my camera up to date. One more thing. After about four five month I noticed a lot of dust particles inside the lens, even though I never used it in dusty environment. Paying such price one would expect better sealing protection.

I think you better off to invest your money in some EF lenses which you can use later when APC-S CMOS will be gone as with new Canon 5D.

Not sharp at all. Very dissapointed. Do not make the same mistake.
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I bought this lens for my Canon 30D after reading every professional review I could find. I knew going in that this lens wasn’t perfect but, was supposed to be better than the 18-55 kit lens. I liked the range that it provided and the image stabilization. I shot pictures with this lens and was extremely dissapointed. The pictures were not sharp at all and the colors were dull. I thought it might have been my new camera at first because I couldn’t imagine the quality would be this bad. I ruled this out after I used my Canon 28-105 lens I had for my Canon film SLR and the results were much better. For the digital focal length though, my old lens wouldn’t suffice because of the 1.6x focal factor.

Later, I decided on the Tamron 17-50/2.8 after reading reviews. The salesperson at the professional camera store guessed that my pictures were very soft when I told him I had this Canon lens. He said, “let me guess, you’d like to try the Tamron 17-50/2.8.” He said that this was the very best lens to buy in the price range and to take it home and try it. I could return it with no questions asked if I wasn’t satisfied. He also said that he hadn’t had one person return it yet.

My first images with this lens were great. They were SHARP and had way more vibrant color. There is absolutely no comparison at all. I was hesitant to buy a third party lens but, my fears were instantly eliminated after seeing the results. This is the first review I have ever posted on Amazon. I was so dissapointed that I wanted to help others not make the same mistake. After spending $$$ on a digital SLR, it would be a waste not to get great pictures with it because of the lens. Before taking a chance on buying the Canon, do yourself a BIG favor and try the Canon and Tamron at a local store.

Significant Improvement Over XSi Kit Lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I wanted a solid all-around lens that offered improved focal length, build quality and image quality over the 18-55 IS kit lens for the XSi. This lens fits all of these requirements.

- Very solid build quality compared to the kit lens; I love the ultrasonic focusing and full-time manual focus.

- The extra 30mm on the long end is great, especially since it doesn’t sacrifice any wide angle performance.

- The image quality is also significantly better. I took comparison photos at various focal lengths and compared the 18-55 with the 17-85. The 17-85 is noticeably sharper and has better contrast. I’m sure it isn’t as good as an L lens, but it also much smaller, lighter and cheaper.

The only con I can think of is the lens’ weight. It is a lot heavier than the kit lens, but this was expected. This is the trade-off for getting better glass. Overall I am very pleased with this lens and for my casual photography use it is more than adequate.

BAD chromatic aberration
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I bought this lens for its range to be used with my 40D. It would be perfect if it hadn’t some serious issues with chromatic aberration (worst on the short end.) You can see purple/green fringes on any high (and sometimes not so high) contrast in the picture at 100% view. Color rendition is mediocre at best, focus tends to be on the soft side. The EF-S 18-15mm that came with my XTi shoots crisper, less distorted, more colorfull pictures than the EF-S 17-85 with very little CA! Looks like there is a reason for Canon not posting MTF charts for this lens..

On top of that, the lens in *not* supported by DPPs Lens Aberration Correction function (ver. 3.2 at the time this review was written), which renders this EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS USM totally useless for me.

If I can’t return it (3rd party vendor..) I’ll try to have Canon “calibrate” it and take it as a lesson — in the future I’ll stick to L lenses, the 17-40 will cover my indoor and landscape needs nicely.

Very good lens for the wedding photographer
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This lens is very versatile, offering good wide angle to a good head-and-shoulders portrait length. It’s internal focusing, which helps with speed and close-focusing performance, and has image stabilizer for better low-light performance.

The IS can be of a particular benefit to those that shoot in darker open areas, like wedding photographers in churches. The IS, combined with a flash, can allow use to get more background detail for indoor events. No longer do we have to accept dark, dungeon like backgrounds!

Ideally, the lens would be a little bit brighter (say, f4 at the top end), and a bit heavier built. But then again, we could have that for $1,000 more!

Not as solid as other lenses I have owned
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Nice and versatile lens so I bought it for every day use and travel. After a few weeks of slinging this around it feels a bit loose and tends to rattle. It just seemt to be made of lighter less durable material. As far as its positives it takes great pictures and as I said is versatile in a small light package.

The IS function allows a 2 to 3 stop
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I recently purchased this lens as a complement to the other two IS lenses I have. The Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Standard Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras and the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens for Canon EOS SLR Cameras.

The IS function allows a 2 to 3 stop slower shutter speed. Fantastic when shooting where flash is not allowed or where you want the extra depth of field a smaller aperature will give you.

As a bonus it has Macro capabilities.

Great Camera
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Great camera and great adapatability on every fields. I’m a photographer and use the camera in very differents jobs and shee has a great performance.

Great Lens that can be had for less than MSRP
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I purchased a 20D 18-55mm Kit after selling my Digital Rebel on short-notice. I then turned around and ordered the 17-85mm IS lens and I will say that the reviews are correct.

While the lens does not take you to realms that the L Series glass would take you, the Image Stabilization, wider range, and better clarity makes this lens, in my opinion, the perfect “leave it on the camera” lens. The 17-85mm IS lens is MUCH heavier than the standard 18-55mm lens and the construction certainly feels worth $500 or so versus $100 of the 18-55mm kit lens.

As soon as I got the lens, I put it on the 20D and took some quick pictures both inside and outside the house. I reviewed the pictures and noted that this lens has less trouble indoors with lower lighting, etc.

In the end, the lens is a perfect mate for the 20D or Digital Rebel, alike, as an all-around, leave-it-on-the-camera lens.

it’s perfect
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
i have had so much fun with this lense and managed to take some pretty incredible pics. i use this lense for probably 95% of pics. i have 10-22mm, 28-300mm, and 100-400mm, all of which take great pics but this 17-85mm works great for general use.

Best Zoom Lens I’ve Ever Had
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Of course, it’s the only zoom lens I’ve owned other than the kit 18×55 lens that comes with the Rebel 300D and 350D. That said, it is a fine lens. I’ve owned several high quality primary lenses back in film days and I’m amazed at this one’s quality and versatility. Yes I realize that I am probably behind the times re: lens development, but if you are not a photo-techno-nerd and want to carry one lens, this one may be the one for you.

GREAT ALL AROUND LENS – DID NOT DISAPPOINT
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I love this lens and am very happy with the quality of pictures I can get at all focal lenghts, as well as sharp action shots on low light over cast days. The IS is well worth the money. The biggest mistake I made was purchasing my Rebel XTI with the 18-55mm lens, tho it helped me see the difference between quality and average to low quality pics. I uploaded three images to demonstrate action in low light, portrait in low light, and flowers in a lot of light. My experience is very amateurish. Hope this helps.

received it broken
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
it did not work and even “shifted” when i took photos. I promptly returned it and amazon gave me no problems with the return, great customer service.

Very good, but not great, lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I have had this lens for a few months. Here is the good:

Excellent colors! I mean wow. The colors are much better than my kit lens. The zoom range is perfect. 17-85mm is ideal for most walk around conditions. The autofocus is fast, really fast. The focus doesn’t hunt either! The IS really does work!! The CA is not as bad as people say. I haven’t had much CA in my pics at all. It is built solid! I feel like I have a professional grade lens on my XT now. It feels and looks awesome.

Here is the bad:

Its not very very sharp. It is sharper than the kit lens, so its def. a step up. But I ONLY shoot f/8 as that is the sharpest aperture to shoot at, and even at f/8 its not like tack sharp. All I am saying is that it isn’t the sharpest lens. And if I would have to pay full price for the item, brand new right after it was introduced to the market, I would say it isn’t worth it. But since I paid $370 brand new =P on ebay, I think, HELL YEAH its worth it. It is 10X better than the kit lens. I think you will all enjoy it. If the sharpness bothers you, just go on PS and use smart sharpen, then they look EXCELLENT. THe lens won’t dissappoint.

was really hoping that this would be my walk-around lens
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I bought this lens because I really didn’t think that the quality of the kit lens did my Rebel XTi justice. The zoom range on this lens is great, and the image stabilization feature is even better. I did notice a fair amount of barrel distortion at 17 mm, and yes, there was some vingetting. What made me return the lens, however, was the fact that an aperture of f/4 just wasn’t fast enough for me. That is not to say that it won’t be fast enough for everyone. In fact, my landscape photos were fantastic—tack sharp thanks to the IS. My problem was that I take lots of candid photos of people, many of whom are children. I also like to shoot with ambient light, which is why I went for the IS lens. The IS with ambient light is great if you are shooting a non-moving subject, like a painting at a museum. With an aperture of f/4, however, it cannot stop action, even if that action is only a slight turn of the subject’s head. Amazon was great about the return, which is one of the reasons that I like to buy from them. My account was credited in an expedient manner, and I used the returned funds towards the Canon 17-55 f/2.8 IS lens, also available at Amazon.

Good lens but vignetting is significant…
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Bought this lens to get a bit more zoom than the kit lens and am happy with it. However, the feedback you read about vignetting is real — you see it through the view finder! I get vignetting almost always at the lowest focal length. As I said, I’m happy and can recommend the lens but realize you’re likely to see significant vignetting (dark edges in your pictures at the low range {17mm “non-zoom “}).

Very pleased
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I really like this lens and have recommended it, along with the Canon Xti body, to several people already. I especially like the image stabilization feature. I also have, and enjoy the 70-300mm IS lens by Canon.

Very nice lens but as others stated, price-value-performance?
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Excellent IS based lens, but I have to question the value of the lens based on the other products available today. With a very slow F4 aperture, one can easily find a better solution to line up a great lens set including fast primes. Still, this lens is quite compact, has an exceptional focal range, and can easily serve its purpose on the APS-C sized sensor cameras.

Good general pupose lens. But too slow for low light photography w/o flash
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I have the Rebel XT. I bought this to replace my kit lens (18-55) for everyday, general use purposes. The wide angle to mid tele zoom is perfect for those situations.

The build quality is solid. The weight is much heavier than the 18-55 kit lens. The USM motor is very quiet and fast at focusing.

In good light or used with a flash it produces sharp pictures. But I found that in low light conditions without a flash it was too slow. At f/4 it was just not fast enough to capture moving objects even with IS switched on and with high ISO. As a result I had to go out and buy an additional lens. (In my case, the 50mm 1.8)

Overall, I think it is a little expensive, especially since it does not come with a lens hood. But I am happy. The picture quality between this and the kit was noticeable. The USM, with IS and full time manual focus are great features.

Versatile, but not for those who are picky
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I suspect that a lot of people who read reviews for this lens currently have the kit lens and are looking for that next upgrade.

That was the situation I was in when I got this lens. I’ve used it for about 4 months now and I even took it to Cambodia with me and it served as my “walk-around” all-in-one lens.

In that respect, this lens is NICE. This is probably the most useful focal lengths you can get for the APS-C sensor cameras. It gives you everything from wide-angles to medium-telephoto.

Anyway, if you’re a stickler about image quality, you probably won’t like the lens. As you’ve probably already read, the barrel distortion is quite noticeable even if you’re not trained in this stuff and chromatic aberration can be pretty bad too. However, in my experience, if you’re shooting outside, where it’s well lit, this lens will be your all-in-one solution.

The only major complaint I have about this lens is that it’s kind of slow (f4-5.6) but that only matters to me because I tend to shoot indoor events a lot more than outdoor events, so I’ve started looking for a f2.8 zoom to buy. However if you’re the type of person that only takes pictures when you’re going outside somewhere, where it’s well lit, and you don’t want to carry around multiple lenses for your wide angle and telephoto needs, this is the way to go!

my first glass for my 20d
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
If you would like a list of sites with reviews email

gumby at dontquotemeonthat dot com

Not bad at all, i love the range 17-85 good stuff. it requires a 67mm size filter for those interested. i must tell you if you are new to lenses heres what i learned.

some reviews

Pros: USM, IS, zoom range, fast focus

Cons: Distortion at the wide range, flare. Dust problems due to front tube extends.

Pros: IS, good focal length range on 1.6x crop

Cons: Very soft, poor contrast, strong CA,

A lens is “fast” when it has a low f-stop… ok so when you have a smaller number the apature is bigger which allows more light through, so this means you can up the shutter speed. and still have enough light reach the sensor.

ok so lets say you have an out door shot if you have say an f/4 lens the shutter speed could be 1/250 of a second and you would get a good exposer. Now this lens can only go f/4

but if you in the same outdoor setting, had an f/2.8 lens you could jump to 1/500 of a second and get the same exposer. and freeze the action mmore effectivly, this i believe is why it’s a “fast” lens.

ok have fun and get it done

Canon EF-s 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS Lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 Image Stabilized USM SLR Lens for EOS Digital SLR’s

Great optics. Excellent image stabilization performance. Covers the focal length range I use most. I cover the rest with the Canon 70-300 mm IS.

The best to own
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This has become one of my or actually my favorite lens for my Rebel Digital Camera. It is a great all around lens and the pictures it takes are so clear, without even using Photoshop, they are beautiful. Highly recommend this lens and am sure I will be having this attached to my camera at least 80% of the time. Happy to recommend it.

ok
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
its just too heavy for my needs. i usually use the lens that came with the 30D. BUT out on a boat taking sailing pictures the results are super. i’m glad i have it BUT i can’t recomend it to most folks. you need to need it to make it worth the price and most don’t have the need.

Excellent lens. Quite worth the price if you value IS
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
At about $600, this lens might seem expensive for an F/4 (At about 24mm, it’s F/4.5; F/5.0 around 35mm; F/5.6 around 50mm+). However, the image stabilization is excellent and fun to play with. It is easy to get very crisp images, even in low light. And, of course, because it’s ultrasonic, auto-focus is speedy.

I’d recommend this lens to anyone, but if you’re relatively new to digital SLRs, and you have purchased an EOS 20D kit with the EF-S 18-55, I’d highly suggest the EF-S 17-85 as your next lens. It’s quite versatile (a great lens to keep on your camera when you’re not doing anything specific) and will let you better evaluate the camera. Remember, this is an EF-S lens (as opposed to EF), so it’s intended for the APS-C sensor of the EOS 20D or EOS 300D.

Mechanical problems with 17-85mm
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
The lens was bought in July, 2008. I have used the lens as my primary lens since I got it. Overall I’m more than pleased with the picture quality that the lens provides. This review however is about construction quality.

On a family mountain hiking trip I shot some pictures to document our successful hike. I used the zoom as normal and shot the pictures I wanted. When the kids had been refueled we started to run down the hiking path with the camera securely placed in my backpack. Naturally the decline was of the bumpy sort, but still I was quite disturbed when (at night) the zoom was no longer working. It was fixed on 17 mm and did not move.

If I had put my lens through some serious direct blows I could have understood why the zoom didn’t work anymore. But laying still in my backpack and suddenly malfunctioning is not good.

Unfortunately I bought it at Amazon and not in my home country, Norway. Having bought it in Norway the repair wouldn’t have cost me a dime. Now, 14 months after purchase I have to pay the equivalent of $180.

If the construction quality of my lens represents the general construction quality of the 17-85mm IS lens, I would NOT recommend bying it.

quality optics, a bit on the slower side.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
nice lens, not as fast as i thought it would be, and heavier than I have been used to (sigma 28-80). Great optics, crystal clear.

A good versatile lens but really slow and no hood? Are you kidding me?
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I just got this for a trip to Alaska, because i wanted a wider lens than my 28-135 IS/USM, which is also great. This is my third, and probably final, IS lens (I don’t mean to imply I’m dissatisfied with them, just that I think I have all I need).

What I like most about this lens is its great focal range. 18 mm is great for landscapes, but the high end is also perfect for interior photos and the like. The image stabilization (IS) is great (I can actually get fairly sharp results hand-holding the camera even upto a second or so), and the build quality on all canon products is very, very good.

However, a $400-$500 lens should come with a hood. The fact that I had to spend another $35 on a hood is crazy!! Also at f4-5.6, the lens is insanely slow and depth of field becomes an issue at times.

Excellent lens for all purpose travel
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Although still a relatively inexperienced Canon Rebel XT user, I bought this lens for use on a 2 week vacation in the Canadian Rockies. Since I was traveling with my family, I didn’t want to carry multiple lenses or a tripod. This turned out to be the perfect single lens for this trip. Virtually all the shots I wanted were wide angle and this lens performed admirably. The 85mm end was certainly adequate for my needs for telephoto. The close up focusing (with a +4 close up filter) was sufficient, and with the IS, I had no problems with handheld indoor shots. A great all purpose lens.

Two weeks after I received this lens, Amazon dropped the price by $30. When I asked Amazon customer service for the lower price, they immediately agreed to credit my account. This is why I continue to shop at Amazon!

BAD chromatic aberration and vignetting
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
Do not buy this product if you are serious about the quality of your pictures. This lens has the worst aberration and vignetting at 17mm. I spent a whole day taking pictures on a coast and the results were terrifying. My images had color noise, vignetting and were unsharp. So if you are going to shoot at the wide end a lot, this lens is not for you.

Great lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Really good addition to an EOS camera.

Definitely delivers on most fronts, but is a bit over-priced for the performance. Considering the size of the lens, I would have expected better light collection and the image stabilization doesn’t help as much in low light as expected, but it is still a huge improvement over the stock lens.

My XTI everyday
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Upgraded almost a year ago from the very average 18-55 kit lens that came with my XTI. Wanted more color, contrast and IS and the best autofocus I could find without being too spendy. USM on the 17-85 snaps to attention almost instantaneously, and the stabilization works great. Nothing worse than a lens that you have to wait on while it hunts to find focus, and although the f/4-5.6 is nothing to write home about, the IS helps compensate for the slow aperture when you need it the most.

I also have an EF50 f/1.4 for low light indoors, and an EF70-300DO for compact tele, but the 17-85 is what I keep going back to for general applications. IQ is really quite good and the range somehow just fits most composures I come across. Small and light, this EF-S lens is a perfect mate for a APS-C DSLR to use for everyday snaps.

I also bought (and sold) an EF24-104L, but the low end was always too tight, and the tele end wasn’t far enough (great images though). Also considered the EF-S17-55 f/2.8, but eventually decided to save the dollars.

The 17-85 does show a little distortion and vigneting at 17, but easy to fix by 19 if that bothers you (not obvious enough to bother me). 20-85 is always really sharp. Did not really consider any 3rd party lenses, and this was the only Canon lens I could find with IS + USM + Range + IQ + Price. Doesn’t seem prone to flare or CA. No dust or problems to report. Zooming is smooth without any creep. I keep a polarizer on most of the time since this is usually used outdoors.

Good Lens, not perfect
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I have owned this lens now for over 2 years; it was purchased with the Canon 30D. It works well in a “one lens fits all” situation, but does not produce perfectly sharp pictures.

The real issue with the lens that I have is that the use of image stabilization produces photos that are not nearly as sharp as those taken without stabilization switched on. I suspect that this may be an issue with my particular lens and not a design weakness.

taylorko.zenfolio.com

Skip the kit lens buy this one instead
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
After my initial disappointment with the kit lens that came on my Rebel Xt I first bought and fell in love with the 70-300 DO lens, which I have also reviewed. That gave me a taste of what a decent Canon Lens can do. It was not long before I bought the 17-85 IS lens and gave away the kit lens to make sure I would never see it again.

Not only is this a quality lens — much sharper than the 18-55mm — but the IS feature will improve your low light pictures regardless of your ability (unless of course you always use a tripod). You will find yourself taking shots (indoors especially) that were simply not possible with the kit lens.

Because this lens will zoom to 85mm (equivalent to 136 mm on standard 35mm cameras) it makes a great carry anytime lens for many situations. Of course, it is significantly heavier than the kit lens but the quality is well worth it.

You should note that the picture that shows up on Amazon is a bit misleading. The item pictured is certainly the correct lens but the picture is a bit squashed making it look much shorter than it really is. The lens measures 4 inches when not extended.

Finally, if buying this lens, do yourself a favor and, at the very least also buy a UV-filter. Note that the filter size if 67mm which is bigger than the one on the kit lens.

Good but definitely is very limiting
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
This lens is of decent optical quality and should satisfy most amature photographer who has more concern about sharpness and constrast in their photos than the normal kit lens on low end DSLRs could provide, however this is not a very versatile lens for two major reasons:

1. Maximum Aperture of only f/4-5.6: this severely limits the DOF aspect of the lens and also generates the side effect of forcing longer shutter speeds, although the slower shutter speed can be partially remedied by the IS option on the lens the DOF limitation can not be avoided. Not able to open up the aperture will limit creativity possibilities with this lens.

2. This is a EF-S lens that is designed for a 1.5 to 1.6 cropped sub-35mm frame sensor which means it can only be used with Canon EF-S mount cameras (Rebel, 20D). This limits the upgrade path in camera body. This lens have to be scrapped once the photographer upgrades to anything larger than the 1.5x crop factor camera bodies (such as Canon 1D, 1Ds line or the 5D, and most likely more and more new DSLR from Canon will probably go the full frame route) and it can not be used with a film Canon SLR camera.

For the price that this lens demands and the limitation provided above, it is a very tough decision to buy this lens. While it does indeed provide good walk around zoom range and OK optical quality, more descriminating photographers should definitely look at third party full EF mount lens that offer superior optical performance without the above mentioned limitations at lower prices (such as the Tamron 28-74mm F/2.8 EF mount lens), for they’re much better long term investments than this lens.

Better than the kit lens on a 30D or Rebel
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
While all the other reviewers go in into detail. Lets keep this one simple. I have owned the lens for 6 months and bought it as my first lens for my 30D. I am very happy I did. You don’t need to know anything about photography to use this lens and you will learn a great deal from this lens. It is a great point and shoot all purpose lens.

MOST NOTEWORTHY : It is a better lens than the one that comes with the 30D and Rebel kits. It gives you more versatility and most importantly it has IS.

Back to enjoying photography
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is the best lens I have used since switching to Digital photography.

Pictures taken with this lens rivals film photos. With the kit lens Canon furnishes, my 20D took pictures that were worse than my neighbors small HP camera.

The lens actually makes the camera. I can hand hold with this lens at 1/25 second and get a sharp picture. I have had my canon 20D for almost two years and this lens made me realize that my camera was worth the investment. Sorry Canon, but with a camera of this quality and price you should equip it with a quality lens.

I am very happy to enjoy photography once more and spend less time in photoshop.

Hope this helps someone with their selection, and the price can’t be beat.

Works great, finds lots of use
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I’m a lot happier with this lens than with the 18-55 kit lens, the extra range and IS make it a much more versatile lens. The full-time manual / USM focusing works great, and truly is almost silent. The IS has enabled me to take many pictures that I couldn’t otherwise have taken. I don’t find the IS hype to be quite everything people say: while sharper than without IS, I don’t find the pictures as good as with a tripod (but it sure beats carrying one). I have been able to get acceptably sharp images in the 1/15s (85mm) to 1/4s (17mm) range. There is also some vignetting on images taken at 17mm. In general it is much better built than the inexpensive (18-55, 75-300) lenses from Canon I have owned. It is difficult to evaluate if the price is worth it, but compared to other ‘expensive’ lenses this one certainly gets a lot of use. Whenever I travel, this lens is always with me.

Canon EF-S 17-85 lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This lens let me take three other lens from my camera bag.

All around great lens for studio work and outdoor or weddings too.

Good Lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought it with my 30D and have been using it for about 6 months now. Overall a very good general purpose lens. There is some wide angle distortion, but thats not much of a problem for me. Image stabilizer is great, with steady hands I can hold my 30D for a 1 second exposure.

Best affordable walk-around lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I got this lens with my 30D and have found it to be a useful walkaround lens, able to handle just about any situation I threw at it, other than very low-light situations. Even in dim illumination it was able to function fairly well, thanks to the image stabilization, which let me shoot at shutter speeds as slow as 1/4 second hand-held. I wasn’t thrilled with the barrel distortion at the wide end of the zoom range, but I was able to fix this using Photoshop’s Lens Correction adjustment with no problem. It’s simply an additional post processing step that’s necessary.

Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This lens is so much better than the kit lens that came with my Canon XTI digital camera. I wish that I had bought only the XTI body and then purchased the better lens. The photos are sharp thanks to the image stabilizer. The zoom level is good for most shots.

love this lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
i bought this lens as a replacement for my rebel xt’s 18-55mm yeah its expensive its a canon and IS and i got mine for $350 on ebay over a year ago have shot over 6,000 pictures and am truly happy with it as a walk around it is a bit heavy on the neck…

Good, but not great, all around lens.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
From a pure image quality standpoint, this lens will not please the pixel peepers. On the wide end of the zoom, which I personally use more often than the telephoto end, this lens is not very sharp, and it suffers from fairly bad distortion. Worse than that, for me, are the chromatic abberations; this lens is quite prone to significant CA when shot at the wide end, which can look a lot worse than a little bit of distortion or softness. Given the price of this lens, one should expect a higher level of optical performance.

The maximum aperture of this lens is not very large, being f/4 on the wide end, and f/5.6 on the telephoto end. The image stabilization makes up for this some, as you can comfortably shoot at much slower shutter speeds than otherwise, but, let’s be honest here; this lens is a poor performer if you want to shoot in low light with no tripod. The small aperture makes for a dark viewfinder, which can be a very big problem if you are trying to compose a picture in the dark (using a tripod).

Yet, I still gave this very imperfect lens four stars, and this is not without reason.

First of all, the focal length range is quite handy. It isn’t a mega-zoom that does everything, however, it covers the most often used focal length ranges, and is an appropriate lens to use for the vast majority of situations. The little bit of extra zoom on the telephoto end is handy on occasion, and it’s also worth noting that the lens sharpens up quite a bit when you zoom in some – it might be soft on the wide end, but zoomed in, it’s quite good.

I have printed as large as 20×30″ using this lens on a Digital Rebel, and have no qualms with the results. Yes, there are sharper lenses out there, but you are a lot more likely to see the difference in sharpness on your computer monitor than in a print.

This lens has ring USM, which enables it to focus very quietly, and very quickly, whereas the slightly cheaper (and F2.8) options from the 3rd parties have normal focusing motors that are slow and noisy by comparison.

If you want to use this lens indoors, you are best off getting a flash to go with it, such as a 430EX. The lens is usable in fantastic indoor lighting, or during the day, but won’t give you good results in low light with no flash.

If you will be shooting in lower light situations (people in particular), Tamron and Sigma have some good options in the 17-50mm range with F2.8 apertures, and I would recommend those lenses over this one. If you’d prefer the extra telephoto range, the image stabilization so you can shoot with smaller aperture in poorer lighting situations for greater depth of field (instead of needing to shoot a landscape at f/4, for instance, without image stabilization, you could use f/11 on this lens, and get a sharp picture with better depth of field. This is even more useful in the close focus range – while this isn’t a true macro lens, if you take closeup photos without a tripod, you will want to stop the lens down for greater depth of field, and the IS helps with that quite a bit.

Overall, I’ve been fairly pleased with the performance of this lens. If you like to worry about splitting hairs, and zooming all the way in on pictures on your computer, this lens is likely to dissapoint you. If, however, you are willing to sacrifice optical perfection to get a very well rounded, useful lens, then I’d recommend it, however, would also recommend that you consider the 3rd party options, as they are also great lenses, and do offer a somewhat better value.

Recommended – with reservations
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The Canon 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS lens is a good, versatile lens. I love it for many reasons, but I want to get rid of it almost every day. It’s Image Quality (IQ) is indeed a bit soft, especially at the wide end of the zoom, and especially in the corners of the frame, and I am hesitant to pay for large 20″x30″ prints taken with this lens. Bokeh is nice and soft, but it is slow at f4-5.6 wide open, and I find myself using higher ISO speeds on my 20D (which isn’t much of a problem, Canon’s CMOS sensors are very clean at higher ISOs). I drool over Canon’s 17-40mm L glass, but when comparing images side by side it’s hard to justify the price increase. The only difference in IQ is the L is sharper in the corners of the frame, but not so much sharper that most people will notice. The L is better, but I don’t think it is $250 better. If you’re doing an art show with huge prints it may make a difference. If you’re not, it probably won’t.

I bought the 17-85mm because I often have to pack light and don’t have the luxury of carrying several lenses with me when I go shooting. When I do get an amazing shot at either extreme of the zoom range, I have to remind myself that those shots would not have been possible with other lenses. As it’s been said before, this is a jack of all trades, master of none.

If you can only afford one lens for your camera and need something versatile, this lens at $420 is a good choice. If you’re a pro who regularly makes poster-sized prints larger than 10″x15″, it might not be for you. If you pair this lens with Canon’s amazing 50mm 1.8 prime lens, you will have almost every situation covered for under $500.

Great, but not perfect
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This lens is great, but it’s not quite perfect. Here is my pro/con list: PROS: 1) Great range from wide angle to telephoto! 2) Image Stabilization works very well (not great, but well) 3) Sharp pictures. CONS: 1) Severe chromatic aberration when in wide angle zoom, but nothing that Photoshop’s RAW importer couldn’t easily fix. 2) Heavy lens. 3) Stabilization drinks battery juice. 4) Overpriced, especially since it doesn’t even come with a lens hood or case. However, I bought mine new for $500 from 47th Street Photo. That was the best price I found. So, overall, this lens is great and I recommend it despite it’s minor flaws.

Useful range, Image Stabilization better than I expected
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I got this days before a trip to Europe. I had been using the Tamron 28-75 2.8 (a great lens too)on my XTI but thought I would need something wider in narrow streets. Before leaving, I took some side by side shots at the same length and aperture as the Tamron, and I’m hard pressed to see a difference, but I can get better DOF with the Tamron’s 2.8 aperture. To save space, I left the Tamron at home and traveled with this and the 70-200 f4 L lens for distant castle shots.

The wide range did indeed come in handy, although some distortion is unavoidable. I did not observe the vignetting effect noted by other reviewers.

I was impressed with the IS because I took a fair number of available light interior shots with exposures as slow as 1/4 of a second that came out surprisingly well focused. This is my first IS lens. I had seen in other reviews that IS was not much help below 1/30 or so. Maybe I am really steady (NOT).

The “macro” is not bugs-eye close, but useful for coin sized items. 4 stars rather than 5 because I think the lens is priced a little high, and the lens shade (which I don’t have) is ridiculously priced for a piece of plastic.

Just What I Needed.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Great compliment to my 70-300 lens. Extra wide angle is nice. Can’t say enough good things about the Image Stabilization on these lenses.

Ah…hmmm
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I’m not sure. I probably don’t have the experience to give a full review on this. I bought a Canon XTi body and this lens, based upon the reviews. I’m not UNHAPPY, I think this is better than the kit lens (but it cost a good bit more!), and I believe it’s a good “walk-around” lens in that’s it’s flexible and light. It’s also inexpensive for a good zoom lens.

I will say that the vignetting that the reviews complained about is real — you can see the dark aperture corners close in the viewfinder when you zoom to wide angles (17mm).

My main focus has been indoor, low-light photos (new baby!). I eventually got the $70 F1.8 50mm Canon lens for those portrait photos, but this worked reasonably well. It does take great high-light and zoom photos!

Let’s put it this way…. I would not change things if I had to buy my first lens again, I’d still get this.

Also, as other reviewers have noted, it is much longer than this photo implies — I believe it’s the correct lens, but the aspect ratio of the photo is screwy. It’s an “impressively” long lens

Good Lens Upgrade
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Takes noticeably sharper pictures than the lens that comes with the 30D and the IS is also an awesome feature. For the downside, with f4-5.6, the lens doesn’t do very well indoors, which is what I was hoping for. The IS made up a lot for the lack of light, but it can’t make up for the motion of the people that I am trying to shoot. I will most likely stick with my 50mm f1.8 or save up some money for an f2.8 L series zoom for indoors.

Canon EF-S 17-85mm lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Definitly makes taking pictures easy and fun. Not as heavy or as big as I thought. Works awesome with my Canon XTi. Highly recommended!

Great lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Got my 17-85mm lens two week ago, it’s been with my Rebel XTI since. I would say though that on some images the corners were really soft when its wide open. Aside from that it takes super sharp images. Its a great lens.

A great day-to-day lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I got this lens about a month ago, when I got my Canon Rebel XTi. Previously I had an old film SLR (also from Canon), with numerous lenses, and I found this to be the most practical. It can be a bit bulky, but it takes clear pictures with wonderful color.

I read a few reviews saying that ak f/4-5.6 it can be a bit slow, and I have to agree. However, for static pictures or of subjects that aren’t moving very fast, this is suitable. At any rate, were I to take pictures of flying birds or other fast-moving animals, I’d get the Canon 70-200L

I noticed some barrel distortion and vignetting at 17mm, but I have yet to see the chromatic aberration. I’ll keep a watch out for that.

I thought this lens was expensive, but considering I won’t be getting another one anytime soon, and it suits my level of expertise, I still think it’s a smart buy for me. An included lens hood or case would have been nice though.

UPDATE:

I have noticed chromatic aberration when shooting backlit subjects, which is unfortunate. It is obvious once you know what to look for, but only if you zoom into the photo after you’ve uploaded it. I’ve compared photos from this lens with those taken by kit lenses and the photos from this lens controls chromatic aberration much better. The overall color quality and sharpness is also much better than for the kit lenses. I would still recommend this lens as a starter lens above the kit lenses for the XTi (or other entry level Canon DSLR). I’ve had this lens for two years and it has served me well; it is very versatile and has good value.

Very Disappointed!
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
Today I received the Canon EF-S 17-85mm and I was very excited. II have been shooting with the kit lense my Rebel XT came with and had been getting okay results. I wanted to upgrade to a better lense to met my growing expectations for picture quality and diversity. Well, after a day of shooting in different situations, I am returning this lense. I was amazed that the picture quality was very similar to my 18-55mm kit lense. I am no professional, but I and a friend of mine could not see one bit of difference between the $130 kit lense and the $600 17-85mm. It was a tough toss-up between this lense and the 24-105mm F/4 L. After seeing the pictures produced by the 17-85mm, I am going with the L-series lense hoping it will be much better. The IS is a great feature but cannot compensate for the F-stop. Even though the 17-85mm is F/ 4-5.6. You will do almost all your shooting in 5.6. It’s like it is stuck in 5.6. Even with manual adjustment, the widest I could get it was 5.0. I hope this review helps others in making the right choice. If you have the money go with the L-series. The extra focal length is just not worth $600 for the same quality

Great travel all round lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
After a lot of research, I bought this lens for a hiking trip to Europe for my digital rebel. I didn’t take any other lenses. I took a lot of landscape photos. I didn’t need my tripod because of the IS. I did take a light monopod. The IS also meant I could use a small aperture for better quality and depth of field. The IS is not very good for action shots, so I turned it off and increased the ISO rating on my camera when I needed a faster shutter speed.

The focusing was fast and accurate.

I was very pleased with the lens. The images were sharp and clear. There is some barrel distortion at 17mm, but I corrected for it in Photoshop with PT Lens, which is an add-on filter. Very little chromic aberration.

This is not an “L” lens, but that is not it’s purpose. It’s a great all-round lens for everyday shooting and travel. I highly recommend it for this use.

Good lens, but EF-S is bad for photography
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
While I understand that there are few reasonable wide-angle solutions to small sensor DSLRs, I do not think that EF-S mount lenses are the answer. They are like pharmaceuticals that deal with symptoms rather than curing the illness.

In a few years, who knows whether EF-S lenses will work on any current cameras? To spend hundreds of dollars on a lens now is potentially very wasteful.

Also, if people do buy into the EF-S lenses, Canon will have less motivation to make affordable larger sensors. Those who use both film and digital cameras will be forced to buy more lenses than necessary, simply to get equivalent views.

Larger sensors are the cure to our wide-angle woes. EF-S lenses leave us temporarily satisfied but the disease is left to attack us again.

Great upgrade for your kit lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Read the reviews of all the professionals and see for yourself.

I’m an amateur and cannot operate all those photography terms, but I can see the huge difference in the quality of the pictures from my kit lens.

It is a little bit heavy and big, but the quality worth it.

Good overall lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I’ve found this to be a very nice lens overall. It has a decent range from wide to light telephoto. The lens is a bit bigger than I would have thought, but I’ve gotten used to it. The IS works as advertised, and has helped me take some nice photos off the tripod that would have been challenging under low light situations. As long as you are ok with the $ difference, I think this is the best “leave on the camera” lens.

For many, the only lens that is needed.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I bought this lens with my Canon Rebel XTi, and I use it 98% of the time. It’s the 35mm equivalent of, if memory serves, 27-mm wide-angle to about 240-mm moderate telephoto, which means that it’s fine for the vast majority of general photography. The image stabilizer is effective and handy, especially since it’s not a very fast lens and jacking up the ISO sensitivity can create digital “noise” in some images, so I’d rather accept a slow shutter speed if the subject allows it and use the stabilizer. This lens reportedly has higher resolution than the “kit lens” that is often sold with the camera body, and I would recommend it over the kit, not only for what better resolution it may have but for the wider zoom range and IS feature.

I would love it if this lens was a stop or more faster, but as it is, with its wide range and the IS feature, I enjoy using it for most of my general photography. Changing lenses means lugging more lenses with you to use, taking time to change which is a minor pain and may cause a shot to be lost, and opens up the camera to dust on the sensor, which over time can become an issue. This lens helps to avoid all that, is easy and very fast to use, and very reasonably priced.

great upgrade lense
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is a perfect lense to get when you are ready to replace the kit 18-55. A great all around lense.

Best single lens to go with a 20D or 30D
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
If you are only going to buy one lens for your 20 or 30D then buy this lens. I haven’t seen a better general purpose lens out there.

The EF-S 17-85mm takes great photos, especially in an action oriented situation where you need to run around a lot and get a variety of different shots at different distances.

Some have complained that the lens is overpriced. I agree that for the price, it would have been nice to get a hood and carry bag thrown in, but I can say that Canon has impeccable warranty service. I got sand inside my lens and the autofocus quit while I was shooting photos of military helicopters landing in Iraq.

I got the lens repaired and shipped back to me within 30 days – in Baghdad in the middle of a war. I was able to speak to a human tech fairly easily and they even replaced something I clearly broke through heavy use that wasn’t covered under warranty. The repaired lens works perfectly.

If you’re looking for a reasonable alternative on a budget try this lens: Sigma Zoom Super Wide Angle AF 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC Macro Autofocus Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras

Bear in mind that if you have issues and you’re using non-Canon lenses on a Canon body, the support you can get from Canon will be limited.

Locks up over time
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I have had this lens for about two years and it has been my go-to lens for as long. However, over time the little screws in the lens come loose and now all I have a 55-85mm lens as the lens has locked up and refuses to budge. Looks like I’m in the market for a new lens – am looking at the 18-200mm instead only wish that one came with USM.

Soft and ugly at wide angles, otherwise ok.
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I’m overall a bit disappointed with this lens. None of the reviews I read before I bought it (Jul 2007) indicated the poor performance at wide angles. http://www.dpreview.com has started doing lens reviews, and zeroed right in on this weakness. Good for them. Even on a small screen size or print, you’ll see softness and strong color fringing around high-contrast edges in your wide-angle shots. It doesn’t matter if you use a smaller aperture. Landscape lens this is NOT. I found the artifacts so distracting to otherwise wonderful shots that I sent the lens in to Canon under warranty, thinking there was something wrong with it. They made some note of adjusting something, but the optical performance is the same. Bummer.

On the good side, it handles pretty well, the IS seems to work for longer exposures than I would normally handhold, focus is fast and quiet as you would expect. It turns out quite decent performance as soon as you get above about 25-30mm. If I were to do it again, I would probably buy the 17-40L for a walkaround lens, and I have purchased the Canon 10-22 for landscapes. It is sharper at 10mm than this lens is at 17mm. Of course, you’re blowing a lot more dough with that combination.

Favorite
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Shooting live events, dimly lit events, kids running around, candid portraits, this is my favorite of my 5 lenses, for the image stabilization and the zoom range. I’ve even had blurry (shake) photos with my f1.4 50mm, and switched to the 17-85 IS to fix the problem.

Great but heavy
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This is an amazing lens. I did notice that when its fully zoomed out the corners tend to get a little dark. But have taken amazing pictures with this lens. I have this on my Canon Rebel XTI. The image stabilizer has worked awesome for me and the zoom range is perfect. Very easy to use. WARNING though it is heavy at first. It takes some getting use to for the weight of this but i still really like it. Careful though because it requires a 67mm filter and they can run expensive so make sure you shop around for them. I recommend this lens for people that do not like the standard crappy lens and wants some more zoom. I was able to get mine for $400 because it was an out of box lens but it has worked great for me.

An ideal strap-on Lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The Auto Focus is very quiet and effecient. An excellent daylight strap-on lens. The IS helps in low light conditions.

Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 – IS -USM SLR a smart buy
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 Image Stabilized USM SLR Lens is a great addition to my EOS 20D camera’s lens collection. It has become my primary lens for most of the photography I do. The optics and features are excellent.

Canon EF-S 17-85mm Lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought this lens as an upgrade to the 18-55mm lens that came with my Canon EOS Rebel XTi camera. It is quite a nice improvement, noticeably wider lens and heavier, denoting higher quality materials throughout. I think it will be a real good “all around lens” with more zoom capability. I have only taken a couple hundred outdoor pictures and am pleased, I havne’t gotten to test out the image stabilization in low light/indoors. Overall, I’m impressed so far and feel that I now need to upgrade my camera to the Canon 40D to get more out of the lens that I’ve upgraded to.

Awesome Lens!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is one great lens. I had used the 18-55 lens before, and wanted a little extra lens. This lens provided everything I wanted. The extra length was a great enhancement, and the IS is totally incredible. This is one versatile lens, and may be the last lens you ever buy,unless you need a true telephoto!

After buying a Canon 30D (without lens) I debated on the standard zoom lens, but am more than thrilled that I went with this one. Extra length and the IS give you the best of both worlds. Great lens!

The Good, the Bad, The Ugly
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I’ve been using this lens on both a 20D and Rebel xti since fall of ‘05. The 17-85 IS USM is an extremely versatile lens, as it covers the equivalent of full-frame equivalent 28- 135mm.

I’ve found the images to be very sharp across all focal lengths. The built-in image stabilization is a huge benefit if you’re going to use it hand-held at slower shutter speeds. The lens is fairly light-weight, though bulky. Build is average…not shoddy, but not up to Canon’s L lenses.

Now the one very significant flaw: marked chromatic aberration at all apertures when shot at the wide end of the focal length. Chromatic aberration doesn’t rear its ugly head on all shots; in fact 90% of my shots show no evidence of it at all. What is chromatic aberration? No, it’s not some social disease! Chromatic aberration is also known as “purple fringing” and is fairly common when shooting a high-contrast digital image with a wide-angle lens… It is evident when your subject contains a thin dark line or edge against a very bright area. Examples in day to day shooting are power lines or building edges against a sky. My own photos of bare tree limbs against the sky exhibit CA. CA is correctible, somewhat, in Photoshop or other image editing software. However, some lenses are better than others at controlling it.

Conclusion: Overall this is a very good and useful “walk around” lens. It’s my main lens for my professional party photography and most subjects where a wide angle to moderate telephoto is needed.. But if you’re doing a lot of landscape or scenic photography where the chromatic aberration may be noticeable, you may wish to use something else. In my case, it’s the Sigma 17-70.

Sharp, Versatile, High-Quality Albeit Heavy Zoom
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The images from this lens on an EOS 350D are very pleasing and sharp. The zoom range, equivalent to 27mm-136mm on a 35mm SLR, is perfect for 90+% of our shooting, which includes travel and nature shots.

We pair it with a Canon EF 75mm-300mm Image Stabilized zoom (i.e., the $400 one) giving us 35mm equivalent coverage from 27mm-480mm. Both lens are a little slow at F4.0 to F5.6 max aperture, but more than adequate for everything except for close-up action and distant bird shots.

This lens is solidly built, quiet in operation, and fast focusing. Its also relatively heavy for lugging around all day but is the only lens we need for over 90% of our shots, which means that the 75-300 gets left in the hotel safe unless we think we might want it.

Its images are approximately as sharp as the 75-300. They are visibly much sharper at the same focal lengths on the same subjects compared to a Canon EF 28mm-90mm zoom. This latter lens is probably equivalent to the EF-S 18mm-55mm lens often bundled with the EOS 350D.

The image stablizing function of both the 17-85 and 75-300 lenses is very useful for shooting at low ISOs when its cloudy or the subject is in the shade, and for twilight or night shots.

This lens is perfect for our needs and was a smart purchase.

Nobody asked me but: Canon’s biggest digital lens coverage gap is the absence of a good macro, but the standard EF 50mm macro is equivalent to an 80mm digital, and that’s pretty close to the 90-100 focal lengths I work with in film SLRs.

Light weight 5x zoom, with below average results
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I am a Canon fan, their products in general are superior to others, however this lens is not up to the mark: it is undoubtedly the slowest lens on the market, at 17mm it is an F4 and by the time one tunes for 50mm it is an F5.6, making it a stretch to use it in daylight without a tripod. Canon’s mammoth 1200mm is an F5.6 and the average 50mm is an F 1.4, so for what purpose is there a 50mm that always thinks its dark outside? The 5x zoom is useful having a wider zoom range than most any lens available, however the trade off is a very dark and slow lens, Canon then compensates by sticking the marginally useful image stabilizer on it because one is always shooting at 1/20 due to this inferior design. (Canon’s pricey 24-70mm is an F2.8 for example, twice as fast.) Its focus in general is poor, never sharp and always a long focal field, forget the portrait with the blurred background, its not going to happen at F5.6. It has some use as a light weight walking around lens for shooting small shots at a high ISO for newspapers or such, but not a pro lens, not by a mile, barely an acceptable consumer lens.

Versatile lens for a great body
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Bought the lens to go with my 40D – the combination is versatile and flexible. Don’t pay UK retail prices!

The ‘do it all’ lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Excellent offering by Canon, lens does it all even at 1.5 conversion rate, we put this lens on and have never taken it off because of its versatility for any application. All our other Canon lenses are taking a vacation!

Fulfilled All Expectations
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The lens fulfilled all of our expectations as to quality of portraits and field of view flexibility.

The stabilization aspect is a great help, although it doesn’t compensate for someone pushing the shutter too fast in low light conditions.

Highly recommend this lens as the standard use lens for the Canon Rebel XT.

Not a bad lens but there are probably better buys out there
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
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.

solid performer
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Works fine as the standard day-to-day lenses. Wishing for a wider aperature (I’ve used a lenses with f/1.8 since and can see lots more use…..) but it’s performing well.

Haven’t used the IS much yet, have actually had it off most of the time, but will try update with more info soon.

All in all, a solid performer

Great lens but expensive
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I think this lens is great but it is pretty expensive especially if you’re not an “advanced” amateur. I mean you have to be honest with yourself and ask yourself if you’re really going to be able to tell the difference between like a Sigma generic lens versus paying the difference for a Canon lens. No doubt the Canon lens is better quality but are you really that “advanced” to be worth spending this kind of money on a lens?

Good medium grade lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Bought the Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 lens to use as a general purpose lens on my Canon 40D. Overall I am pleased with the quality of the optics. It’s not a “L” lens so don’t expect it to perform like one. One complaint I have is that the zoom ring feels a little loose and wobbly. However the focus ring is tight and precise.

I have owned a Sigma 17-70mm lens in the past which is the direct competitor of the Canon 17-85mm. The Sigma has a bigger aperture of f2.8 but a lower range than the Canon. The Canon provides fulltime manual focus and IS, which is not available on the Sigma. Personally I liked the pictures the Canon lens produced over that of the Sigma.

Solid default zoom with good feature set; slightly soft
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
At the time of this writing, there is something wrong with the product shot on the Amazon site: It makes the lens look much shorter than it is in reality. It’s not a large or heavy lens at all, but it’s not _that_ short.

I’ve had mine (part of a 20D kit) for about a year, during which I’ve taken maybe 4000 frames or so with that particular lens. The lens still appears as solid as it was on day 1, so no complaints in that department.

The image stabilization (IS) feature works quite well and is surprisingly silent (far more so than the IS system on the EF 70-300mm IS). That said, for a good fraction of the focal length range, IS is a relatively minor (but still useful) benefit of this lens.

Autofocus (AF) speed is okay: Better than the kit lens that came with the original Digital Rebel I used to own, but not as fast as some other lenses I have (all non-L). AF accuracy is fine on my copy.

Optically, my concern is primarily sharpness. In that department, the lens seems only marginally better than the 18-55mm kit lens that came with the original Digital Rebel (and which can be bought for close to $100, I believe). It’s often worth turning off IS to improve things, ironically. Still, it’s not awful.

I haven’t found vignetting, distortion, flare, and aberrations to be significant hindrances. In part, that probably due to a workflow that includes DxO Pro for the images I care about.

Overall, I think this is still a pretty good choice for a lens to keep by default on a Canon EF-S camera (30D, 20D, or a Digital Rebel variant). The optical performance over the lower-end EF-S 18-55mm lens is not _that_ great, but the feature set may justify the premium. The higher end EF-S 17-55/2.8 IS is another alternative if you’re willing to double your investment and change lenses to get the longer focal range: Its imaging quality and the larger aperture are certainly desirable. Tamron and Sigma have some offerings in this range too, but I’m not at all familiar with them.

O.K. but not great
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
Mega distortion @ 17mm. Cleans up fast once you move of 17mm. CA’s more than you would like to see but these can be cleaned up with Canon’s included software for EOS camera’s. Thumbs down to Canon for not including a lens hood for this lens. They want about $35 for that molded piece of plastic.

On the upside the range is very versatile. Being 28-135 in the 35mm format. Also has a metal mount not plastic like some of there other entry level lens.

Note: There are two of these 17-85 lens available. The more desirable Made in Japan version and a less desirable Made in Taiwan version. Most EOS kits ship with the Taiwan version.

Sharpness and Contrast are Weaknesses
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I was disappointed with the lens. Side-by-side comparisons of photos taken using the Canon 17-85mm and the Tamron 28-75mm 2.8 revealed that the Tamron is sharper and produces more contrasty images at 2.8 than the Canon at f5.6. With both lenses at f8 the Tamron again wins the sharpness and contrast prize. The photos were taken using the same Digital Rebel XT with all settings the same. I will say that image stabilization on the Canon is superior to my other two Canon IS lenses (the 28-135mm and the pricey 100-400mm). The Tamron, by the way, can be had for $370 right here at Amazon and there is currently a $40 rebate on that price.

Great lens, but worth the price?
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I have been using this lens for a week and getting absolutely flawless pictures – no flares, fringing etc. I also did some semi-controlled tests with Image Stablizer and it works as advertised, resulting in much sharper pics indoors. USM focusing works great too, and the lens is/feels well built.

One gripe – at $600, I would have liked it to come with a hood (”sold” separately but not available yet) and a case (also “sold” separately).

The real question IMO is not whether it’s a great lens or not, but whether it’s worth $600 as opposed to the kit lens (EF-S 18-55) + EF 28-135 IS. This combo is $100 cheaper and gives greater coverage on the telephoto end. On the other hand, EF-S 17-85 lens claims to have better optics, circular aperture, convenience of a single workhorse lens and IS on the wide end too.

Ultimately it’s your call. My take is that if you spend $800 to $1500 on a digital SLR, you owe it to yourself to spend $600 on good lenses (and another $200 on 420ex flash .

Good ‘walk around’ lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Bought this lens together with my 350D. The kit 18-55mm lens wasn’t what i was looking for. Its like buying a camera and having them throw in a 16 or 32mb card so that they can say they gave you one, even though its of almost no use.

Apart from a little vinetting at the corners from about 17-20mm range, the lens performs really well. Image quality is impressive, and the IS works wonders. But the aperture drops to 5.6 at 50mm upwards and that really restricts what you can do with the lens. The IS can’t make up for the aperture, and at 5.6, you can’t get too much depth of field. But this lens will stay on my camera most of the time as it covers a pretty good working range and gives very decent images.

Great lens!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is a truly superb all purpose lens for my EOS 30D, especially as a replacement for the 18-55mm that I had been using. The focal length range is perfect for most shooting situations and the image stabalization feature is outstanding for low light photos! Yes, it’s a bit pricey but worth every penny!

Great all-around lens!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This has been one of those lenses that stays attached to my Canon 40D almost 90% of the time. Takes sharp pictures and does a good job eliminating camera shake. USM adds great focus ability and really fast. Nice hefty and solid feel to it without being so heavy that it hurts your hands/wrists after a few hundred shots.

the best compromise lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This is a lens of compromises. It is an attempt by canon to make a light weight, low light capable, versatile range, ergonomically friendly lens. The lens the educated amateur photographer should buy. This would never be the only lens a Pro would use. A Pro would use the lens that is required. This lens instead tries to be all things to everyone. I.E., the perfect walk about lens for people that require a 28-135 range.

For the vast majority of hobbyists, this will become a workhorse lens.

It has a lot of features packed into it to achieve its goal. IS, Ring USM, Full Time manual focusing, non rotating front element, round aperture, internal focusing, and Macro abilities. With all these things packed into it, it is a jack of all trades, and a master of nothing.

Now, if you were to go buy individual lenses that are far better at individual tasks, you’d spend a lot more money with diminishing returns.

One nice thing canon did, was make this lens with a 67mm front element thread. Meaning, when you the educated amateur photographer go looking for that zoom telephoto, the first thing you should look at, is the canon 70-200 F4L. it too has a 67mm thread.

excellent travel lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
After extensive research, as well as hand on experience with the tamron 28-75 2.8, the 18-55 kit lens, canon 28-135 IS, and this lens, I decided to keep this lens, primarily as a one lens solution for travelling. its not an all in one lens, and due to its small aperture not a good portrait lens. I actually tested two different copies. the one I kept has excellent sharpness at center and very good at the edges through out all focal lenghts. the one I send back, was soft on the corners. This may explain the wide variety of response recieved from people. Focusing is fast and accurate. the IS is amazing. One reviewer said its usefull only up to 1/40 of second. I have no idea where he got his information. I took a perfectly sharp picture of a flower at 85 mm, at 1/5 of a second. Vignetting and barell distortion is definatly present at wide angle. This is easily fixable by software, and I dont find it bothersome. Over all compared to my tamron, the image quality is excellent. Of course its not very good for fast moving objects. The reason I gave it four star and not 5 is the price, and and some of the shortcomings of the lens. I still think its a best compromise single travle lens

Much better quality than the default lens
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I purhcased this lens to replace the one that came with my EOS 30D camera, and I was indeed impressed with the significant improvement of picture quality.

I made my purchase based on others’ reviews and they were indeed accurate and helpful. This lens definitely worths keeping as the new default lens for my 30D. I am not a professional and was only trying to shoot sharper and more color-rich images of my kids and landscapes, and it seemed I did reach my goal with this lens.

great lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought this lens in July 08. It stays on my 40d about 80% of the time. Only problem i have had, it seems to be a bit soft at f4 and 5.6. But it is sharp as a tack at f11. Maybe my copy is a bit off, but other than that I love it.

Canon EF-S 17-85 Review
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I ordered this lens because I had the chance to try it out while in Europe.

The lens showed up on the promised date. It does every thing it is billed as and I can only recomend it to the serious shooter. IT’S A MUST HAVE.

WJH

Overpriced but if it’s what you need……………
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I’ve had a Rebel (original) for more than a year, got my 20D about 6 months ago. Been using the kit lens 17-55 mostly to shoot karate with flash, this works fine unless the subject is on the other side of the gym where there isn’t enough high end magnification with the kit lens. This lens has been getting mixed reviews since it came out, some hate it, others love it. I suppose that I have yet to see anything I “hate” about it but I do agree that the price is really high. The thing about these lenses is that Canon (as they’ve done in other areas with their digital camera line) doesn’t sell communication protocals so others can make lenses that work correctly with their bodies, they do their best to maintain a monopoly which means if you need this lens range it’s about the only game in town. Third party lenses are all reverse engineered and may not work on future bodies and generally focus more slowly (with the exception of sigma XT which are just about as expensive as real Canon glass).

I’ve only had a little chance to shoot with this guy but so far I’ve got no complaints, unlike my kit lens I find this guy focuses better in one of the AI focus modes than in single shot mode (only the 20D has multiple focus modes). I don’t agree with the folks that say color saturation and contrast are bad…I just don’t see that.

If you’re wealthy enough to be able to replace this lens with several bodies and fixed lenses then of course those will be sharper. I’ve also got the 28-135IS which is a fantastic lens but doesn’t have enough low end when I’m shooting action occuring right in front of me. So far I like this lens, as I shoot more with it I might find things I don’t like but if you need this range it’s really the only game in town. Most reviews recommend a hood, which should come with it at this price, because of the wide angle you need a “flower petal” hood and you can get them on ebay for around 8 bucks generic instead of $30.00 for canon brand (what a rip for a hunk of plastic). You also want to get yourself a UV filter for it first thing, that guy protects your lens and also improves color in my experience.

I do find this is a slightly “darker” lens than the kit lens so you either have to adjust in software or kick your exposure up a little if you’re like me and like heavy saturation. I like the range this lens offers, it’s perfect for your typical basketball sized gymnasium so you don’t have to use the “sneaker-zoom” any more than necessary.

Not Worth the price
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I bought this lens to be used with my 20D. The focal length range is quite impressive and can be very useful for DSLRs with an APS-C size sensor.

However, the first thing I noticed is that there is extremely high vignetting/light fall off at 17mm. There is a dark circle surrounding the frame and is very visible when the edges of the frame have high luminosity. If you snap on a UV filter or a polarizer, you can forget about taking pictures at 17-20mm. That’s a huge loss.

Secondly, the picture is very soft up to f/8 or so. My control over exposure time and the depth of field is minimal at this aperture. Image Stabilizer works only at around 1/40 seconds or less. During longer exposure times, pictures still show camera shake.

Third, Canon, on it’s website doesn’t give MTF charts for this lens. It’s available for all other lenses including their cheap consumer zooms. May be they figured this wasn’t worth $600 and didn’t want to publicize it.

Bottomline: If you are point-and-shoot photographer that has a DSLR for kicks, then go ahead and get this lens. It’s one all-purpose lens for a 350D or a 20D. But if you are serious about photography, avoid it. I later bought a Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di and a Tamron 17-35mm f2.8-4 XR Di. Together it costed $800. For the quality of their optics and the f2.8 constant max aperture, I happily gave up IS and USM. To top it, Tamron gave an $80 mail-in rebate and a standard 6 year warranty.

I returned the lens to Amazon for a full refund, and I haven’t had a more pleasant experience than their return process. In the last 5 years that I’ve done business with Amazon, this was my first return. They give you a UPS packing slip which you print out and stick to the package before handing it over to the UPS driver. Within a week, the refund was processed.

Great lens to replaced the kit 18-55mm….
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
For my photos, this lens is a huge and affordable upgrade. I’ve been using the 18-55mm kit lens with my Rebel and this lens is a world better.

For me:

-quick focus

-good zoom range for everyday use.

It has not left my camera since I received the lens from Amazon.

Canon EF-S 17-85 f/4.5-5.6 digital lens.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Range of zoom is excellent. Great to have the wide angle ability.

Main weakness is slowness of the lens especially indoors. This interfears with depth of field range & makes time requirements without a flash too long.

A Great Starter Lens
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought this lens when I purchased my 20D. It’s infinitely better than the garbage 18-55 that normally comes in the kit. It’s a great lens for a beginner because of it’s great image quality and decent price. It covers quite a bit of range making it a good afternoon walk around lens. Notice I didn’t say evening or morning because it’s far to slow for that, even with the IS.

I take this lens hiking with me, and can get some great shots because of it’s wide range, I also take it to family events and other things like that. Wildlife and action photographs are a no-no with this lens, it simply can’t zoom far enough and isn’t fast enough if the conditions are dim which commonly occur in both situations.

If you get this lens, you won’t be disappointed, I promise. You will however be slightly disappointed with the speed and how IS doesn’t make up for as much as you might think with slow shutters.

A 70-200L is great to complementary lens.

Overall, super good lens, just wish it was 2.8 all the way through.

Buy it, you will like it!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
As you can see by my rating – - I consider the Cannon EF-S 17-85 lens an excellent general purpose lens that I am pleased to own. This image stabilized lens is a real asset for low light level and sports photography. The range, 17-85 mm, is good for a general purpose ‘carry around’ lens.

great walk-around lens (maybe some chromatic aberration?)
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
My first every Ebay score, the Canon EF-S 17-85mm lens (featuring image stabilization) was a much coveted item around here. It had come highly recommended and seemed to be a great complement to my beloved 50mm prime and a perfect replacement for the 18-55mm kit lens that shipped with the XTi.

Initial, first-night impressions? Heavenly.

Compared to the other lenses that I’ve put on the business end of the XTi, the 17-85mm is one heavy dude. I’d wager that it’s at least as heavy as the camera and certainly feels as heavy as the 50mm and the 18-55mm put together. The lens is serious. It means business. It traveled back in time from the future to be here with us today. It’s a touch of the photographic high-tech, made accessible to the amateur.

With my right hand on the shutter and my left on the lens’ barrel, it didn’t feel any less heavy but “heavy”, in my mind, became “solid”. The auto-focus is nice and quiet and is reasonably fast to lock onto the subject. The focusing ring is also nice and big — it cries out to be grasped and twisted. It was a joy to realize that even with the auto-focus turned on, the lens would not complain if I fine-tuned a given shot with some manual adjustments. (The AF doesn’t totally commandeer the focus, that is to say.) The zoom is also smooth, the barrel moving quickly and easily without over-shooting the desired focal length.

Image stabilization is also a big plus. I have a feeling that once I get the hang of it, it will save quite a few low-light, indoor, and hand-held shots over the lifetime of this lens. This isn’t to be naïve and believe it to be a cure-all. Certainly a few of my early test shots with the IS feature on prove that you can still wind up with a whole mess of blur. But others worked out pretty well.

After having used it for about two weeks or so now, most of these initial impressions have stayed true. The IS feature is a good one but isn’t something upon which to rely to save every shot. You still need to have good light and the right angle, etc.; but with the right ISO setting, it can save the scene. The heavy feeling of the lens is something I’ve gotten used to pretty quickly; after a couple of sessions, you just expect the camera to weight that much — no worries. I’ve also found that the longer focal lengths are great for portraiture — I find myself using focal lengths in the 70-85mm range pretty often now and I wonder how I ever lived without them before.

That said, I’m beginning to wonder a little about the lens’ chromatic aberration. I’ve had a few shots that don’t seem to “resolve” the same way during post-processing (in Aperture) as similar shots under similar conditions with the same camera body and a different lens (e.g., the 50mm prime). This is not to say that I have my mind made up and am squaring the blame on the lens — certainly not! But I am trying to parse my way through some of these, experimenting with some different conditions, etc. to see where it lands. I’ve just fallen into a certain rhythm with my post-processing and I would hate to have to learn a new dance just for the one, new lens.

All things considered however, I’ve been very pleased with most of my results from the 17-85mm thus far.

…so yeah, worth it.

But with respect to “worth it”: Canon lists a retail price of $600 for the EF-S 17-85mm IS lens. Most places online seem to offer it in the $475-$550 range. As far as lenses go, this is hardly a costly one. Considering that this is one of the two lenses “given away” as the kit lens for Canon’s 40D body, you wonder a little bit if the mass-production maybe watered it down just a little bit…? Just the same, this is a great “walk-around” lens: it is sturdy, has some great built-in features, and has a versatile range of focal lengths. If you got this lens “free” with your camera body then you are in luck. If you’re looking to pick up one separately… Well, it’s a great lens to have. And I’m happy with mine. But see if you can’t score one on Ebay or through your local re-seller of high-quality, previously enjoyed lenses.

Happy shooting, y’all.

Great images, great versatility
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The Canon EF-S 17-85mm zoom lens is a great alternative to the 18-55mm kit lens. I use it on a Canon EOS Rebel XTi. It produces higher quality images and the greater zoom range is very handy. The auto-focus is very accurate and it’s easy to manual focus as well. The image stabilization circuitry is great: I’ve shot pix from a moving cable car in San Francisco, panned, caught birds in flight, and captured moving surfers — all without shake or blur. The 17-85mm zoom range (27-135mm on a camera with an APS-C sensor like the Rebel I use) gives you everything from wide-angle to medium telephoto in one lens. There are a lot of great photos to be captured within that zoom range. And you can capture them without carrying multiple lenses. In the high-priced world of camera lenses, it’s a relative bargain, too.

Produces professional quality shots
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I just sold pictures to a very, very well-known national magazine to accompany a travel story. Picture editors are a very choosy and discriminating lot. My lens? The EF-S 17-85mm. Enough said.

It is not the world’s greatest lens but will be perfect for 99% of users.

Only virtue is zoom range.
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
The only virtue of this lens is the zoom range.

Chromatic abberation, highly abnormal distortion, and slow aperture above 17mm make this a bad value.

The new Canon 18-55 IS is much better optically. Even better, go for the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 or the Canon 17-40L for a bit more. This is the worst lens I have ever used without a doubt.

Check photozone.de for detailed comparisons of the lenses and save yourself some money and get quality instead!

excellent!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
i ordered this lens cause its one of the ones i use at work and i love it. it is an excellent lens cause it is wider than the average 18 – 55 and it has more zoom. i just love the wide angle perspective it makes it so much better when taking a photo. for those who have a shakey hand it has the option to switch on the image stabilizer which obviously cannot replace a tripod but it does improve the photo when you are in low light situations. make sure you pay attention to what camera you are gonna use it for though as it only fits the rebel series, the 20D and 30D.

Best Non-L Canon Lens You Can Buy
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Obviously there are lots of reviews already out there on this lens. It is as simple as this… this is Canon’s best non-L lens available. As far as non-L lenses this would be #1 with the 28mm – 135mm Lens being #2. So there you go!

Very good lens but has some barrel distortion at 17mm
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I got this lens to replace the kit lens that came with my Canon EOS 30D. This lens is definitely a more “substantial ” lens than the kit lens. Even though the outer housing is plastic, it has a metal mount and seems very durable and sturdy. The IS really helps to improve the image quality induced by my unsteady hand. The USM is very fast and quiet. I have read accounts of this lens not being able to lock on, but I have not had any issues with it in varying (including low) lighting conditions. I know the lens supports FTM focus, but I have not tried it yet. I like the focal length range on this lens. At 17mm even with the 1.6x multiplier, the angle is very wide. The only drawback to this lens for me is at 17mm there is significant barrel distortion. My test shots my next shot was at 24mm and the distortion was completely gone at this focal length. It’s not a showstopper though since it is easily corrected in Photoshop. Of all the lenses I plan to get, (Sigma 30mm 1.4, Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II, and the Canon EF 70-300mm IS USM), this will most likely be the lens I keep on the camera most of the time, using the others as opportunities warrant.

Canon 17-85 EF-S; Nice lens…canon quality?
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Well I was excited about this lens because of it’s range so I purchased it from Amazon. I had it shipped overnight because I was going on a trip and need it right away. When I received the lens right out of the box the mount ring was not seated in place all the way. I pushed the one side back in place because I did not have time to return the lens. The lens worked well for a while and seemed to have good images but then my zoom ring started to “stick” around 70mm and at one point it completely froze and would not move at all. I took it off and it started to work but now there is something that rattles inside the lens. I have contacted Canon and was told to send it in for “possible” warranty repair. We will see what happens. I would suggest that you save your money and buy the 24-105L lens and that is what I am also going to do.

Does as the specs show, can’t do more than that
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Based on reading other reviews here, then compared with ownership, I’d have to say…

I like mine and it does what it’s built to do.

Fastest lens you can buy ? >Nope

Best build quality out there? >No, but it’s not bad

As good as “L” glass ? >How could it be..

Should it come with a lens shade at this MSRP level? >Yes it should

Does it work as the specs indicate it will? >Sure does

You know when you are shopping for a lens that the list of specs tell what you will get when you buy it…

Seems some people think it will be different with their purchase, but it won’t do better than it’s built to do.

I didn’t get mine with the body… wish I would have, could have saved some money…..didn’t think much of it at the time. Then saw some shots using it and bought it here. I get some great shots using it and do not regret buying for a minute.

Soft With Horrible Vignetting
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I just purchased this lens and I noticed horrible vignetting through the viewfinder the second I mounted it to my camera. I ran some tests at all focal lengths and apertures which confirmed my initial observation.

The vignetting is unbelievable at 17mm. I’ve been a photographer for 35 years and I’ve NEVER seen a lens this bad.

This is unacceptable for any lens, much less a Canon branded lens.

The vignetting is not the only problem. There is nothing sharp about this lens except when stopped down.

Pardon me, but if I buy a 17mm f4.0 lens is it too much to ask that I actually be able to use it at this focal length and aperture?

I’m returning this lens immediately.

OK lens
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Some expensive purchases grow on you: the more you use them the more you like them. My Canon 20D (and presumably the new 30D) is like that. This lens is not.

These comments update a review I wrote a year ago and have deleted, reflecting 12 months of experience with the lens:

———-

From August 7, 2005:

I’ve been using film SLRs for thirty years, and over the last three years have owned two digital cameras (a point-and shoot and a Dimage Z3) in addition to the 20D that I bought two weeks ago and to which this lens is attached. In the last two weeks I’ve taken about 300 photos with this lens.

It seems to be a bit over-hyped. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a fine instrument: autofocus works quickly and quietly and the lens is fairly versatile. It appears sturdy and well-built. There’s a little vignetting at 17mm, but mainly in the very corners of the image and I don’t consider it a problem.

But the lens is slow, and that limits your ability to manage depth-of-field. And although the image stabilization system helps a lot, of course it doesn’t help if the problem is a moving subject. If you plan to photograph moving subjects in anything other than bright light you should try the lens before you buy it. I’m not convinced it’s worth the money. The camera is GREAT but, considering the price, the lens just doesn’t quite get there.

———-

One-year update (September 9, 2006):

If you’re really serious about your photographs this lens is likely to be a disappointment. The 20D is too good a camera for this lens.

The vignetting at wide angles is more of a problem than I initially thought. Sometimes it’s so bad that even Photoshop CS2 can’t remove it, and I have to crop the images severely. And cropped and enlarged images really bring out the lack of sharpness in images from this lens. If I had it to do over again I’d buy the cheap 50mm 1.8 (sharper than this lens) and spend more money on a better zoom or tele or wide angle.

The lens is very good for snapshots and as a walking-around lens. It can help you take some fine photographs. It’s very versatile, and with the 1.6 crop sensor in the 20D, some wide-angle help is needed – that’s the value here. You can take a LOT of good pictures with this lens. But if you’re going to spend the money on a high-end DSLR, you should also get good processing software, a good photo printer, and lenses that don’t unnecessarily limit your results. One good thing about this lens: it’s versatile, and keeping it on the camera helps you avoid getting dust on the sensor, which can happen every time you change lenses.

Sharp but slow
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought this lens with a EOS 20D. The lens is reasonably sized, and the pictures looks sharp and overall very nice. However, the maximum aperture of this lens is 4.0, and in fact beyond 50mm (80mm equivalent) it goes down to 5.6. The IS works great and compensates for this fact iin low-light conditions quite well, but it can’t give you the depth of field of larger apertures. I ended up buying a 50mm 1.4 (about $300) and boy is that a nice, sharp, fast lens. You can’t go wrong by buying both.