Following the Thorpe Park mishap at the weekend it was good excuse to get a new lens and after some deliberation I decided on the Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 after reading good reviews and recommendations on here. The only thing that put me off was the price, the cheapest I could find in the UK was about £870 with s/h ones on ebay going for around £750.
On Sunday I found one on ebay with no bids and starting at £400, I asked the seller if he had a price in mind and he came back to me with £475.
Yes please! He is a pro photographer and has now got a staff job so is selling off some of his kit and I just happened to stumble across it at the right time, I suppose being Easter ebay was quieter than usual.
Any way the lens turned up this morning and whilst it has a few rub marks on it the optics appear to be excellent and I went straight out into the garden for a couple of test shots. These are as shot.
f2.8 @ 55mm:
100% crop of the same shot:
It looks pretty good to me, I will do a more comprehensive test soon but at that price I am very happy.
It's also a good bit bigger than the 18-70 kit lens but I didn't realise by just how much until I set them down side by side:
