I have a 17-55 IS...is it normal to have Vignetting at 17 and 18mm?

[AberyClark]

Could it be the Hoya UV filter? Canon Hood? If i'm around 20mm or above Vignetting is very little or not noticable at all...but quite major when wide open. Thoughts? suggestions? I hope I don't have a defective lens or XTi. The two low res examples: the first at 17mm the second at 23mm

[Tsmith]

First shot is at f/2.8 so that very well might be the norm with this lens.

[Collin85]

If you suspect the filter, have you tried some shots with it off then? Although vignetting is well controlled on this lens, at 17mm & f/2.8, there might be some minor falloff.

[sWampy]

Could very easily be the filter/hood, take them off and see. I know on the 17-85 IS you can't put both a filter and screw on hood without getting vignetting. I don't get vignetting on it with a filter and the canon hood that fits on the outside of the lens

[J Rabin]

Of course it has noticeable light fall-off (not vignetting) at wide angles and near wide open to about f/4.
Why would you expect it NOT to show light fall off? 35mm full-frame lenses on a 35mm camera show light fall off strongly at 24mm f/2.8. All my old slides show this. An EF-S lens is a "full-frame" lens on an APS-C sensor camera.
I think photographers got accustomed using larger 35mm lenses on reduced APS-C sensors, did not see light fall off at the frame edges when pixel peeping on computer, and somehow thought this was the norm. Haha. That image is not related to filter.

In this wonderful digital darkroom era, all you need to do is shoot in RAW, and process RAW images in a converter offering feature to reduce "vignetting" (even though that's not what this is), or just stop down above f/4.

The problem is excerbated when photos are underexposed, or indoors against light backgrounds, and your two snow examples above are certainly strongly under exposed. A properly exposed image shows less.

[nicksan]

Since this is an EF-S lens that would be kinda expected...
One of the advantages of 1.6x and EF lense is that you are only using the center area of the lens, which typically is the sharpest...

[BigBlueDodge]

Your lens is fine. My 17-55 has light fall off as well. A J Rabin points out, an EF-S is designed to function similarly on a 1.6x crop camera, as a regular EF lens is supposed to function on a FF camera. If you think that light falloff is bad, you should look at what wide angle lenses do to a FF camera.

[harrin]

Here is a sample picture about 17-55 vignetting, took at 17mm and f/2.8 with Hoya HMC normal (not thin) UV filter and Canon lens hood.

http://www.harriniemi.net/testi_vinjetointi.jpg

[Tee Why]

Looks normal to me.
see the review/comments on vignetting here.
http://photozone.de/8Reviews/lenses/canon_1755_28/index.htm