|
Author
|
|
Steve
Pixalo Crew
Registered: January 2005
Posts: 18725
|
|
Review Date: Thu June 15, 2006
|
Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: £500.00
| Rating: 9
|
|
Pros:
|
Excellent build quality, fast, silent auto focus, great contrast and colour accuracy. Reliable consistent results. Works equally well with full frame.
|
|
Cons:
|
The F4 may not be fast enough for everyone, no image stabilisation
|
|
Being mainly interested in landscape photography the 17-40L quickly became my most used lens. When used on a 1.6x crop body such as the 350D/20D/30D it offers an equivalent range of 27-64mm with a possible constant aperture of F4 and works perfectly on full frame as well. This allows for wide vistas to be captured without to much edge distortion. Build quality is what you would expect from a Canon ‘L’ lens, solid, good quality components (switches etc), smooth fast auto focus and full weather sealing if used with a weather sealed camera body.
Results are accurate colours, great contrast and super fast, silent auto focus to return pin sharp pictures time and again. If you are interested in any subject that would benefit from the wider end of lenses then this lens should not be overlooked.
|
|
|
|
Rob Barron
Loves the place
Registered: September 2006
Location: Poole, Dorset
Posts: 7225
|
|
Review Date: Sun September 17, 2006
|
Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: £489.00
| Rating: 9
|
|
Pros:
|
Quality of build, very low CA, attractive price for an L
|
|
Cons:
|
F4 - would prefer F2.8
|
|
I bought this as my first foray into the land of L series and it gave me a real problem: how the heck could I then go back to a non-L series? People sometimes ask me if L series is worth the money: silly question, of course it is!
Ok, so this lens is an excellent 'standard zoom' as it takes you through the 50mm length on a DSLR with 1.6x equivalence. It is good for portraits though only when the subject doesn't mind you getting a little closer than normal.
It is not the lens I use for portraiture as I have a 28-70mm l series for that and it has f2.8, which I definitely prefer for portraits.
But this lens comes into its own when I want to do landscapes. Oh sure, if you want extra width, you need to go right down to the 10-22mm if you have a DSLR (I have a 20D and a 40D) but the 17mm end of this lens is plenty wide enough for the majority of landscape shots I take. F4 is not the widest most would like but when doing landscapes, I rarely go down to that sort of aperture anyway as I want more DoF than that affords. It is definitely sharpest at F8/F11 area and that is where I am likely to stick it when wanting fore to aft sharpness.
Focusing is fast and silent and of course FTM is available though not that important for this lens except in low light when struggling to get accurate focus, again not something that is usually an issue with the sort of shots I take with this one.
At the price you can get this, it makes a superb introduction to L series lenses but be warned: once you have used L series, other lenses are going to leave you wanting more!
Cheers,
Rob
|
|
|
|
|
chrisa
Loves the place
Registered: May 2007
Location: Bournemouth
Posts: 4428
|
|
Review Date: Mon February 18, 2008
|
Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: £260.00
| Rating: 9
|
|
Pros:
|
Wide angle, handling and image quality
|
|
Cons:
|
F4 max wide open, Slight barrell distortion at 17mm
|
|
Bought one of these in the summer of 2007. I got it as I needed to replace a 28-200mm Tamron that had expired.
I had use a Canon 35-105mm cheapo kit lens which I bought second hand but was not impressed with the images it was given so took the plunge to venture into L series land when I saw a deal on a returned one on WarehouseExpress.
Was I disapointed...Hell no this lens is the dogs danglies as far as I can tell in comparison to my previous lens. Lovely sharp pics. There is as you would expect some barrel distortion at 17mm on full frame cameras, but it's nothing overt or worrying to me.
Has a gelatine filter holder at rear for built in filters, but I've not tried them yet.
Recommended.
|
|
|
|
The_Camera_Poser
New here
Registered: January 2009
Location: Tasmania
Posts: 30
|
|
Review Date: Thu January 8, 2009
|
Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: None indicated
| Rating: 10
|
|
Pros:
|
sharp, contrasty, vivid and accurate colour, fast focussing, built like a tank, internal focus and zoom
|
|
Cons:
|
none whatsoever.
|
|
I unreservedly recommend this lens. It absolutely kicks butt! The focal length is good on both a full-frame and crop-frame body, it is sharp as a tack right through it's range and from f/4 right up, it's autofocus is fast, accurate and silent, it's image quality is stellar in all aspects, it's built tough.
Yep, I do like this lens. When I need tyhe best iage quality for a landscape, this is the one I go for.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pixalo Photography Community
