EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM vs EF-S17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

[takashi_rei]

Hi guys,

I got a canon 60D. I been hunting for a good walk around lens. I saw this two len and i can't make up my mind which 1 to buy.. Could some1 pls advise me..

I got a kit lens which is 18-200mm IS 3.5/5.6 and a 50mm F1.4 USM lens which i love very much

[gturner]

What does walkaround mean for you? Cityscapes, people, sport? Give us more to work with.

I use a 24-70 on my 50D and 5Dmkii and love it. The 2.8 is more useful than the IS for me, but having them together in the 17-55 is very hard to ignore.

If you have full frame aspirations, then look at the 24-105 or 24-70. If you are sticking with the 60D for a while, then the 17-55 would tick just about every box.

[RichardTaylor]

For me 24mm on a crop camera is not wide enough for general purpose photography. It's a great when used on a full frame camera (That's my walk around combination)

+1 on the 17-55 suggestion. (I don't own one)

[inkista]

I've used a 24-105L as a walkaround on a crop, and while it worked pretty well, there were occasions when it simply wasn't wide enough. It's a perfect match on a full frame.

The basic tradeoffs are kind of obvious. The 17-55 is a stop faster, and will be wide enough on a crop body, but has less reach and cannot make the transition to full frame if you plan to go there soon (if not soon, however, I wouldn't sweat it. It'll hold most of its value for resale quite easily. All the $1k+ lenses do). The 24-105 is only f/4 (not great for available light of moving subjects), not particularly wide on a crop, but has more reach. It's also a lot bigger, heavier, and more conspicuous, with the L build quality.

My recommendation, actually, would be to look at the photos you've taken with the 18-200 with an EXIF analysis program, like ExposurePlot and see if you favor the 17-24 range, or the 55-105 range more. That's how I made my decision to get the 24-105. Looking at photos I'd taken with my 18-55, less than .3 % were taken below 24mm, and about 80% were jammed up against the 55mm end of the lens. I tended to shoot long, not wide. That's been changing of late, though.