Looking for my first 'L' series

[mark]

on a crop body the EF-S 17-55f2.8 IS is superb ... it is not an L but that is because it is in EF-S mount otherwise it would be and if you want ulta wide then the EF-S 120=22 is the only option





good luck

[mark]

oops typo ...thats 10-22 and yes the canon is a little more but twice the lens of the others un less you consider tokina

[Fabricio]

You left the 24-70 out. I personally think is the best way to go or the first I would get among the ones you listed.

[Stefan Stuart Fletcher]

I've owned the 24-105 and traded it in for the 24-70 because IQ was better (less flare and better CA, although barrel distortion is noticeable wide open), plus the faster lens. I would strongly recommend the 24-70 as an excellent all-round lens. For UWA, I'd go for the EFS 10-22 (if you're not planning on upgrading to a FF in the near future), which out-performs my copy of the 17-40 on my FF. If in doubt, don't spend money you'll miss later. Save up for the best and then upgrade your body as your photography improves. A good 50 mm lens (Bryan seems to have been unlucky with his copies of the Sigma 50 1.4) will serve you faithfully and well. The Sigma 30 needs to be tested extensively before buying.


I caught lens lust early and it nearly killed my enjoyment of what we do. Remember: even kits out-perform the equipment used to shoot some of the most iconographic images of the 20th century. What matters is skill - and a lot of luck.

[nerdmonkey]

I agree about looking into the 17-55 IS or the Tamron 17-50 if you want something a little wider. I have the 24-105 which is a great walk-around lens with some reach, but lately I'm really enjoying having the extra stop and ability to decrease the depth of field in the Canon 17-55 f/2.8 IS over the increased reach.


If you know the 70-200 is coming soon and you're not making the jump to a full frame camera anytime soon, I would take a serious look at these 17-5x lenses first.

[Benjamin]

Personally I think the 24-105/4L IS is more usable as a general purpose / walking around lens. However, in this case you may also consider the 24-70/2.8L since that you mentioned the upcoming 70-200/2.8. As far as I can see the 24-70/2.8 is an overall betterperformer than the 24-105/4L IS but lack of IS.


I think if you get the 17-40/4L youmayhave some hard time to fill the gap between 40mm - 70mm. That's an extremely valuable range in my mind.

[Groundfault]

Dont forget my body uses a 1.6 FOVC. This means it's not really a 17-40, but more extended. For an all-around lense, it could be a good choice, and60% cheaper than a 24-70 f2.8L !

[Benjamin]

Surely I have taken your 1.6x into consideration, just didn't mention since it's obvious. if you know the answer already then why ask??...

[EdN]

You're getting a lot of great advice from people and your decision is going to be a tough one. It would be great to buy "one of everything" but that's not practical for most people. What it will have to boil down to is what suits you the best for how you shoot and what you shoot. Here are some more thoughts based on my experience to cloud the waters some more.


I used the 17-40 F4L as my walkaround lens for my Digital Rebel and it did a superb job. I got the 24-105 F4L IS partly as a gap filler between 40mm to 70mm as I already had the 70-200 F4L. For my type of shooting, I found later on that the 40-70mm range wasn't that important because I love my wide angle shooting which was covered by the 17-40. Soon after that, I went 5D and the 24-105 became the walkaround lens. During the time that I used the 24-105 on the Digital Rebel, I noticed that the image quality was better on the 17-40 than on my 24-105. The images in particular were noticeably sharper at the corners. This is something I still notice on the 5D but I still love the images that come off that 24-105.


The 24-105 is a large lens. It's well balanced on a 5D but it was front heavy walking around with a Digital Rebel. In your case you have a XTi which is an evensmaller body and this may make it even more unbalanced but your battery grip may offset that.


The 24-105 is a significantly bigger lens than the 17-40. If you have small hands like me, it's just a little bit more awkward to manually adjust the focus because the focus ring is just a bit too far away for my short fingers. On the 17-40, I don't have to change the position of my hand on the lens when manually focusing.


The 17-40 is an internally focusing zoom. This means the length of the lens does not change as you zoom in our out. This is a great feature to keep your lens clean and makes the lens more rugged in construction. The 24-105 extends out as you zoom out. I don't think it's a huge deal sucking in dust as you zoom out but I find I am more conscious to make sure I don't get junk stuck on the barrel that zooms in so I don't contaminate the inside of the lens barrel.


I also played with a 17-55 F2.8 IS EF-S at a camera store. I was always curious about it. So here's a couple observations. The size and weight of the 17-55 is not much different from the 24-105. I thought that as an EF-S lens it would be more compact but it's not the case. I build quality was definitely not as good as the 24-105. The zoom ring was particularly annoying. There's some rubber gasket inside the barrel so whenever you fully zoomed out, the compression of the rubber gasket would unzoom it slightly when you let go of the ring. It had a bit of a squishy feel zoom out as it hit the rubber gasket. I don't know if this happens with all the lens but it sure was there with the demo. As a non-L, it didn't have a lens hood nor the soft leather case. The former is important and the latter is not. Price wise, it wasn't much different from the 24-105. I never shot anything with it so I can't tell you anything on the optical quality.


If you have any thoughts of getting a full frame body, the 17-40 automatically gives you an extra-wide zoom. That's what happened to me.


I'm sure you'll be quite happy with any of the lenses discussed in this thread. It's all great stuff.

[Colin]

I used my 24-105 mostly on my 5D. It used to be the primary lens on my 30D, and it worked alright for that, but 24mm on a full frame is actually pretty wide. On my 30D, it wasn't really that wide at all. It was fine, and I preferred having a little more telephoto than wide, all things being equal, if I was only going to get one lens...


Of course, having one lens is a difficult proposition to stick to.


I started with a 28-135, which for cheap, was pretty good for what it was. However, I found 28mm not nearly wide enough on my RebelXT. So, I got a 16-35 f/2.8L, after which I just got addicted to the feel of using an L lens. It just feels so right...


I think that the current active lineup is 4 zooms, 5 primes, and a whole bunch of knick knacks. They're ALL very useful for particular purposes, and I can imagine a few more lenses being handy for a few more applications.


It really is a disease


But if I could only have a single lens, I think the 24-105 would be it, even with an APS-C 'cropped' sensor. I concede that there are great arguments for other lenses, but that's just me.