Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 Image Stabilized USM SLR Lens for EOS 20D & Digital Rebel Cameras

Rating:
Summary: Excellent lens. Quite worth the price if you value IS
Review: At about $600, this lens might seem expensive for an F/4 (At about 24mm, it's F/4.5; F/5.0 around 35mm; F/5.6 around 50mm+). However, the image stabilization is excellent and fun to play with. It is easy to get very crisp images, even in low light. And, of course, because it's ultrasonic, auto-focus is speedy.

I'd recommend this lens to anyone, but if you're relatively new to digital SLRs, and you have purchased an EOS 20D kit with the EF-S 18-55, I'd highly suggest the EF-S 17-85 as your next lens. It's quite versatile (a great lens to keep on your camera when you're not doing anything specific) and will let you better evaluate the camera. Remember, this is an EF-S lens (as opposed to EF), so it's intended for the APS-C sensor of the EOS 20D or EOS 300D.

Rating:
Summary: Light weight 5x zoom, with below average results
Review: I am a Canon fan, their products in general are superior to others, however this lens is not up to the mark: it is undoubtedly the slowest lens on the market, at 17mm it is an F4 and by the time one tunes for 50mm it is an F5.6, making it a stretch to use it in daylight without a tripod. Canon's mammoth 1200mm is an F5.6 and the average 50mm is an F 1.4, so for what purpose is there a 50mm that always thinks its dark outside? The 5x zoom is useful having a wider zoom range than most any lens available, however the trade off is a very dark and slow lens, Canon then compensates by sticking the marginally useful image stabilizer on it because one is always shooting at 1/20 due to this inferior design. (Canon's pricey 24-70mm is an F2.8 for example, twice as fast.) Its focus in general is poor, never sharp and always a long focal field, forget the portrait with the blurred background, its not going to happen at F5.6. It has some use as a light weight walking around lens for shooting small shots at a high ISO for newspapers or such, but not a pro lens, not by a mile, barely an acceptable consumer lens.

Rating:
Summary: Sharp but slow
Review: I bought this lens with a EOS 20D. The lens is reasonably sized, and the pictures looks sharp and overall very nice. However, the maximum aperture of this lens is 4.0, and in fact beyond 50mm (80mm equivalent) it goes down to 5.6. The IS works great and compensates for this fact iin low-light conditions quite well, but it can't give you the depth of field of larger apertures. I ended up buying a 50mm 1.4 (about $300) and boy is that a nice, sharp, fast lens. You can't go wrong by buying both.

Rating:
Summary: Great lens, but worth the price?
Review: I have been using this lens for a week and getting absolutely flawless pictures - no flares, fringing etc. I also did some semi-controlled tests with Image Stablizer and it works as advertised, resulting in much sharper pics indoors. USM focusing works great too, and the lens is/feels well built.

One gripe - at $600, I would have liked it to come with a hood ("sold" separately but not available yet) and a case (also "sold" separately).

The real question IMO is not whether it's a great lens or not, but whether it's worth $600 as opposed to the kit lens (EF-S 18-55) + EF 28-135 IS. This combo is $100 cheaper and gives greater coverage on the telephoto end. On the other hand, EF-S 17-85 lens claims to have better optics, circular aperture, convenience of a single workhorse lens and IS on the wide end too.

Ultimately it's your call. My take is that if you spend $800 to $1500 on a digital SLR, you owe it to yourself to spend $600 on good lenses (and another $200 on 420ex flash ;-).

Rating:
Summary: Great Lens that can be had for less than MSRP
Review: I purchased a 20D 18-55mm Kit after selling my Digital Rebel on short-notice. I then turned around and ordered the 17-85mm IS lens and I will say that the reviews are correct.

While the lens does not take you to realms that the L Series glass would take you, the Image Stabilization, wider range, and better clarity makes this lens, in my opinion, the perfect "leave it on the camera" lens. The 17-85mm IS lens is MUCH heavier than the standard 18-55mm lens and the construction certainly feels worth $500 or so versus $100 of the 18-55mm kit lens.

As soon as I got the lens, I put it on the 20D and took some quick pictures both inside and outside the house. I reviewed the pictures and noted that this lens has less trouble indoors with lower lighting, etc.

In the end, the lens is a perfect mate for the 20D or Digital Rebel, alike, as an all-around, leave-it-on-the-camera lens.

Rating:
Summary: great lens BUT HIGH PRICE
Review: I think the good price must be no more that 500.00 - but I love this lens good wide angle and good telephoto all pictures very crisp, very fast focus very good IS system, strong lens,

Rating:
Summary: Good lens, but EF-S is bad for photography
Review: While I understand that there are few reasonable wide-angle solutions to small sensor DSLRs, I do not think that EF-S mount lenses are the answer. They are like pharmaceuticals that deal with symptoms rather than curing the illness.

In a few years, who knows whether EF-S lenses will work on any current cameras? To spend hundreds of dollars on a lens now is potentially very wasteful.

Also, if people do buy into the EF-S lenses, Canon will have less motivation to make affordable larger sensors. Those who use both film and digital cameras will be forced to buy more lenses than necessary, simply to get equivalent views.

Larger sensors are the cure to our wide-angle woes. EF-S lenses leave us temporarily satisfied but the disease is left to attack us again.