Canon 17-85 IS USM

[shortie]

Im thinking of changing my kit lens Canon 18-55 to the 17-85 & would like peoples views on this as im new to all this, good idea or bad idea?

[look_yau]

I used to use this as my kit, it got a good range, fast AF and give me good photos.

Flickr: Johnny Leung ^^'s stuff tagged with canonefs1785mmf456isusm

[vsa]

I did just that.

They're quite similar lenses and the performance of 17-85 isn't much better than the 18-55. I rarely use it anymore. It's a good walk around lens but you're left wishing it was 2.8 or something of that sort. It's not as wide as the 10-22 for example and yet not long enough to capture birds and so on. You could say it's not the best at anything, but not the worst either. I didn't find it to be better enough to really justify switching between those two..... after I used it for a while. And the 17-85 is a kit lens too, just for the better camera body.

I don't know what kind of photos you usually take but for me better fit was the 50mm 1.4. Yes I know everyone says to get a fifty but I stand by it (even though it's a bit long for indoor stuff). The sneaker zoom will teach you more about composition etc since you can't change the focal length. And you might not have/want to switch that to another similar lens (except perhaps the 1.2L :D). I can pretty much guarantee you will want something better than the 17-85 at some point in time. Maybe not this year but the next... maybe.. who knows. :)

If you still want a zoom lens I'd recommend checking out the faster versions of similar focal lengths even though they are more expensive.

[RichardTaylor]

It used to be my general purpose walk around lens for a couple of years.
I feel it is a good (not great lens), and I was happy with it.
Now days if your budget can stretch that far I would consider the Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens because of the improved IQ and slightly wider.

See this review.
Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens Review

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by RichardTaylor

It used to be my general purpose walk around lens for a couple of years.
I feel it is a good (not great lens), and I was happy with it.
Now days if your budget can stretch that far I would consider the Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens because of the improved IQ and slightly wider.

See this review.
Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens Review

Agreed. The 17-85 is better than your 18-55, but not by a whole lot. The 15-85 should be a step up.

[BigVinnie]

I made that same move.

Before you make that change I have one question: How much do you use the widest setting? I found that from 17 to about 24mm this lens is not that great. Might even be worse than the 18-55.

Soon as I can scrape up the cash I'm going to sell mine and go back to primes.