Canon EF-S 17-85MM f/4-5.6 IS USM Standard Zoom Lens

Canon EF-S 17-85mm IS USM

Strengths: The IS is certainly a strength of the lens. AF is quick. The 17-85mm Zoom capability and overall build quality is certainly worth the price paid. Great walk-around lens.

Weakness: I don't think it's a weakness, but the lens is heavy in comparison to my other, less expensive lenses. Slight barreling when using 17mm end of lens for those wide angle shots.

Overall, this lens is a fantastic addition and will certainly replace the kit-included 18-55mm lens as my walk-around lens on my 20D. I have taken about 5000 shots with it, so far, and they all look fabulous -- when it wasn't the camera-man's fault. The build quality is superb and the IS is welcome.

By speedi - Jan 5, 2005

This lens quickly became my...

Strengths: Excellent build Quality; Image Stabilizer.

Weakness: It is not considered to be a weakness in today's digital camera world, especially for the lens with IS, but I would still prefer to have a faster lens, possibly down to 2.8.

This lens quickly became my favorite for use with 20D even though I have 24-70 and 16-35 L series Canon lenses. 17-85 matches 20D perfectly. It is like I am back to 35mm photography. Quality is top notch. And it is smaller and weights less than both 24-70 and 16-35. I would not hesitate to use my 17-85 for any type of professional assignment.

By Raplon - May 9, 2005

I have taken some incredibly sharp...

Strengths: Versatile. Great focal length range. IS a huge plus for low light/low shutter speed situations. Fast, quiet focus. Solid feel.

Weakness: If you don't focus on something with good contrast, you're liable to get soft images. Noticeable barrel distortion at 17mm, gone by about 20mm. Some vignetting at 85mm, f5.6.

I have taken some incredibly sharp pictures with this lens and some incredibly soft pictures. More than anything, I recommend you practice to determine the strength and weakness of the lens. For mine, the strengths are the versatility. I love the range and that is why I bought it to begin with. Focus is fast and IS a huge plus when I'm following a moving object or trying to hold a 1/10 sec shot...
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I have taken some incredibly sharp pictures with this lens and some incredibly soft pictures. More than anything, I recommend you practice to determine the strength and weakness of the lens. For mine, the strengths are the versatility. I love the range and that is why I bought it to begin with. Focus is fast and IS a huge plus when I'm following a moving object or trying to hold a 1/10 sec shot (doable with this lens).

The soft pictures are a result of one thing so far. Not focusing on a point with contrast. Focusing on trees is guaranteed to get you soft images. Focusing on flat surfaces, you're likely to get soft images. 17mm range particularly susceptible to this, but zooming in at 85mm then zooming back out to 17mm while maintaining focus lock helps a lot. But that is why you need to practice. I can get 80-90% of my shots fairly sharp now after a month of practice where I would estimate only 50% of my shots were sharp when I first got it.

I haven't tried action shots with this lens yet, but I was able to freeze the wings on a bumble bee at 800ISO, good light, 85mm macro (was about 1 foot from bee) and 2500 sec shutter speed at f5.6. Macro is pretty good with this lens. Can get pleasing bokeh with it. However, compared to something like a 70-200f4L, the bokeh is not as good.

The other weakness are the barrel distortion at 17mm. If you take pictures of architecture, this might be a problem unless you post process. Vignetting at 85mm only noticeable in some shots and only then, when you're looking at thumbnails. Generally it's gone by f6.1, but there at 5.6.

In short, I recommend this lens as a good overall carrying around lens. If it was slightly cheaper than $600 or faster than 4.0-5.6, then it would be HIGHLY recommended, but as it is, 4 stars out of 5.

Oh, one more thing. It feels right on my 350d. Not too heavy, not too big, not too conspicuous. Just a solid all around feel to it.

By Juardis - Jun 27, 2005

Used Canon 28-135mm ef that I...

Strengths: Good range(Wide to 5X zoom), Image stablization, light and compact.

Weakness: Soft when wide open and slow lense. Only can be used on ef-s compatible cameras.

Used Canon 28-135mm ef that I already on a 20D had for a month and felt the need for a better wide lense. I liked the 28-135mm for my film camera as a good all round lense. Spent most of it's time on the camera. Going digital I wanted again one all round lense so I went with the 17-85mm IS ef-s. First, difference is a slightly better performing IS mechanism. Seems to be more rock steady that the...
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Used Canon 28-135mm ef that I already on a 20D had for a month and felt the need for a better wide lense. I liked the 28-135mm for my film camera as a good all round lense. Spent most of it's time on the camera. Going digital I wanted again one all round lense so I went with the 17-85mm IS ef-s. First, difference is a slightly better performing IS mechanism. Seems to be more rock steady that the IS mechanism in the 28-135mm (I compared at same zoom range). Very good for hand held shot at low light. The lense quality itself is very similar to the 28-135mm, might be my imagination by looks slightly sharper. Again, the common problem of being soft wide open at wide zoom, get sharper stopped down. It's a bit expensive, nearly $150 more than the 28-135mm, however it is a newly introduced lense so it might take some time for the price to come down.
If it only was fast it would be a great lense. I highly recommend this lense if you wish to have one lense that does most things.

By kskim91 - Dec 22, 2004

Excellent Upgrade from Rebel XT Kit Lens

Strengths: Image quality, convenience of 5x zoom, image stabilization, price compared to alternatives.

Weakness: Significant barrel distortion at 17mm, but easily corrected with virtually any image processing software.

After shooting several hundred shots with my Digital Rebel XT, I only wish I had purchased this lens sooner. It is so much better than the standard 18-55mm kit lens that I feel I wasted a year by not upgrading sooner. It also virtually eliminated the urge I had to go with a separate lens for longer telephoto shots, which would require regular lens swapping. My Rebel had dust on the sensor...
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After shooting several hundred shots with my Digital Rebel XT, I only wish I had purchased this lens sooner. It is so much better than the standard 18-55mm kit lens that I feel I wasted a year by not upgrading sooner.

It also virtually eliminated the urge I had to go with a separate lens for longer telephoto shots, which would require regular lens swapping. My Rebel had dust on the sensor straight out of the box, and it is such a pain to clean that I really wanted one lens that could do it all.

The attached image was cropped slightly and compression increased to meet the 3mb limit.

By RipM - Jul 25, 2006