Canon 16-35 f4 IS vs 17-40

I am in the market for a UWA lens for my Canon 6d. I am currently looking at these 2 lenses. Canon Price Watch has the 16-35 f4 for $1039 AR and the 17-40 for $619 after rebate. $420 is a big difference and price is something i need to justify to my better half if i choose to spend the extra money.

I am looking for people who have had experience with these lenses to give me some feedback on what they purchased and why.

A little background on me. Currently have a Canon 6d w/ 24-70 F4 IS, Canon 70-200 F4 IS. My previous camera was a Canon t2i and had the Sigma 10-20 UWA for that. I primarily used my UWA for travel and landscape. Mostly shot at f8. You can take a look at my Flickr page to see some of the image i took with that camera/ lens and the newer 6d.

Any feedback would be helpful and if anyone needs more information from me just let me know.

The research I have done online seems to suggest that 16-35 but I have always received such great information from this forum I thought I would ask the question here and get feedback from people who have used these lenses in the real world and not in a lab.

I've been asking the same question here and there, so I'll follow and see what people say here.

From what I've gotten thus far, the 16-35 has better IQ, but is it worth the price difference? That pretty much depends on the individual.

The big thing for me is IS: The 16-35 has it, the 17-40 doesn't. But again depends on the individual as to whether that's a big deal. I have shaky hands, and don't always carry a tripod. So, yes it is.

Heya,

If you want the best, the 16-35 is it. If you need IS, the 16-35 has it. It's sharp corner to corner. Performs better than the 17-40 in every way. But you have to consider it's a different age of tech. And at $1k, it's actually well priced for a modern Canon L. Surprisingly. I see them used going for a nice deal in the $800ish areas often, pretty much new.

The 17-40 is a tried & tested, true, still solid performer. Great flare resistance. Pretty sharp. Has some minimal distortion and soft corners a bit here and there. But for the most part you'd never know unless you really got nit-picky about it.

Bottom line is this. If you were happy with the Wigma 10-20 on APS-C, you will think the 17-40 on the 6D's outputs are clearly superior and you will think "wow." If you were going from the 17-40 on the 6D to the 16-35 on the 6D, you'd see a small difference, but in many cases struggle to see that you were even using which lens really unless you really stressed some of the strengths of the 16-35.

So unless you're looking for every ounce of improvement, the 17-40 is really a great way to go. A used one for $500 is still a great deal for a solid lens.

It comes down to whether you want really good quality, or extremely good quality.

If I were going to buy one of them right now, and I do a lot of landscape/ultrawide work, I'd get the 17-40. Why? I don't need IS at all on an ultrawide for my use (I could see argument for someone handholding it in dark interiors often). The sharpness is already plenty, I don't need sharper (I don't make a living doing this). I'm ok with the distortion and corner sharpness at this point. Flare resistance is fantastic. Takes standard filters. Again, sharp enough for me at F8 and F11 in the corners. At half the cost, it just makes sense to me.

Very best,

MalVeauX wrote in post #17476180
Heya,

If you want the best, the 16-35 is it. If you need IS, the 16-35 has it. It's sharp corner to corner. Performs better than the 17-40 in every way. But you have to consider it's a different age of tech. And at $1k, it's actually well priced for a modern Canon L. Surprisingly. I see them used going for a nice deal in the $800ish areas often, pretty much new.

The 17-40 is a tried & tested, true, still solid performer. Great flare resistance. Pretty sharp. Has some minimal distortion and soft corners a bit here and there. But for the most part you'd never know unless you really got nit-picky about it.

Bottom line is this. If you were happy with the Wigma 10-20 on APS-C, you will think the 17-40 on the 6D's outputs are clearly superior and you will think "wow." If you were going from the 17-40 on the 6D to the 16-35 on the 6D, you'd see a small difference, but in many cases struggle to see that you were even using which lens really unless you really stressed some of the strengths of the 16-35.

So unless you're looking for every ounce of improvement, the 17-40 is really a great way to go. A used one for $500 is still a great deal for a solid lens.

It comes down to whether you want really good quality, or extremely good quality.

If I were going to buy one of them right now, and I do a lot of landscape/ultrawide work, I'd get the 17-40. Why? I don't need IS at all on an ultrawide for my use (I could see argument for someone handholding it in dark interiors often). The sharpness is already plenty, I don't need sharper (I don't make a living doing this). I'm ok with the distortion and corner sharpness at this point. Flare resistance is fantastic. Takes standard filters. Again, sharp enough for me at F8 and F11 in the corners. At half the cost, it just makes sense to me.

Very best,

Thank you very much for your comments. I don't make a living doing this and it's not going to live on my camera like the 24-70 does.

More input is still welcome from others.6

i moved up from 17-40 to the new 16-35 f4 IS myself and was very happy with the upgrade, it is definitely sharper, particularly in the corners, but not only that it has that new "clean", contrasty look about the images that's with canon's recent offerings, if that makes sense

i personally also find IS very useful as well, despite what people like to say you don't need IS for a lens like this, i take photographs of food a lot for example so when i am in dark venues and need to jack up aperture as well to get depth of field having the ability to shoot close to 1 sec shutter speed handheld becomes very useful, not to mention using the IS for creative purposes (think street photography where you may want to drag the shutter to capture movement of crowd walking)

but whether or not it's worth the extra $ is still up to the individual

and of course for the money you save on getting the 17-40 you can then invest on some good quality filters which i can't live without personally for my landscape work if you don't have some already

the 17-40 was to me very sharp, great colors and had that typical L quality look to it. The only issues was in the EXTREME corners where it was very bad but your talking the very tip of the corner and that was it.

Value wise the 17-40 is awesome. The 16-35 F4 IS is better... with IS. So just depends on your needs. I wanted 2.8 and IS so the option for me was the Tamron.

I was also unsure about the 17-40L, so I rented it on a vegas trip last year. By the time I went to Napa a month later I scooped up a clean used copy on these forums for $525. I will tell you why:

--$525 for L colors and contrast is a steal.
--I knew I would only use it every now and then, didn't need a $1k lens for that.
--the beat up rental copy I had in Vegas went everywhere with me, as it had for dozens of others before me. I didn't knock it around for grins, but I am not afraid to take it with me to a place like Red Rock Canyon or drag it up and down The Strip.
--I have never been dissatisfied with the IQ.

In short, I was mad at myself for not just buying one before the Vegas trip and saving the rental money. Everyone told me I would really like it, and I did.

Buy a used 17-40, and have fun with it. If you wind up using it a ton and somehow feel you need IS, you can always get your money back out of the 17-40 and you can upgrade.

PS--What Basketball Freak said about filters is so true. Use some of the savings and snag a decent one.

I had a nice sharp 17-40L and took many good images with it. When the 16-35 came out and reviews came in, I considered it, but for the price, I think the 17-40L is a better value unless you definitely need the IS or are printing large enough that the extra sharpness would be a benefit.

One morning, I was browsing a Canon refurb sale, and the 16-35 showed up. The sale was a 20% off one, so a grabbed one of the four available. At that price, it was great deal. Sold the 17-40 to a buddy and haven't looked back. I didn't think I'd care about the IS but it is helpful in certain situations as previous mentioned above. I like the fact that it takes the same size filters as the 17-40 did

Either way, you can't go wrong, it's going to depend on your personal needs.

I changed from the 17-40 to 16-35 to use on my IR bodies where I focus manually using magnified Liveview at arms length so the IS was a big benefit. The IR bodies don't have any anti-aliasing filters and this highlights the increase in corner sharpness of the 16-35. I think the overall quality difference is closely related to the price difference.

For landscapes alone you might not benefit from the extra outlay but once you start looking at architectural or indoor details then the difference should be more apparent.

Bob

I initially went from a 7D + EF-S 10-22mm to a 5D3 + 17-40L. I found the latter combo provided better results, which I mostly attributed to the 5D3's better sensor. When the 16-35L was introduced last year, I decided to upgrade before two week trip to Alaska. I found the corners to be sharper with the 16-35L (as others have mentioned), and the IS came in very handy when shooting interiors on the cruise ship and when we toured a historic copper mill in Kennicott.

Overall, if you are looking to get an UWA on a budget, the 17-40L is a very nice "bang for the buck" solution. However, I think the 16-35L is more versatile due to its image stabilization, plus it is a little wider. The improved image quality (especially in the corners) is an added bonus. If you can afford the 16-35L, I would go that route.

I had the 17-40mm and currently have the 16-35mm f4 IS.
IQ wise, to be honest, I have not noticed any difference. This is due to the fact that I always shoot from f8-13 with this lens. There may be some differences in the corners, but I do not pixel peep.

The IS is a real nice feature though. It does make a difference for me and does come in handy. But, is it worth the extra $400? Eh, in my humble opinion, probably not. But I am perfectly happy with my 16-35mm.