17-85 IS USM - any better choice?

I sold mine for about $400 and went with the 17-55 IS. It hurt a lot to drop that kind of money on a lens, but man what a difference.

Personally I'm not surprised some people like it and some do not. I for one did not, and I shot a lot of pictures with it. IS was great, but overall picture quality was sort of mediocre. C/A was so bad I got to where I always looked for it. Eventually I just hated using it, and no amount of justifying would save me. The 17-55 is a night / day difference.

I guess that's my actual recommendation - save up your money. Either go with the 17-55, or even better the 24-105 that was mentioned first. It's a ton, yes, it may mean peanut butter & jelly for lunch and ramen for dinner for a while, but you will love it.

Or... perhaps get a pair of lenses - a 50 1.8 or 1.4, and something smaller, perhaps the Sigma 30mm 1.4. Instead of zooming, just walk forward or backwards? I've spent entire days with just the 50 on, and not been too unhappy that I couldn't zoom in or out.

well, I already have 50mm 1.8, I love it... but I need allaround lens anyways, I'm too limited with 50mm range... if 85L wasn't out of my budget I would definetly get it! but its too expensive

signa 17-70 yeah, that's the one, I heard its tack sharp...

Most people say the sigma 17-70 is pretty much as sharp as the sigma 18-50 which I can confirm is very sharp indeed.

It's a lot of lens for the money and it seems the quality control is a lot better than some sigmas.

Can't go wrong with a 17-70 from what I've read.

With regards to the C/A and the distortion at the extreme wide end of the lens, in this day of post processing being expected when shooting with DSLR cameras, I don't see how this is much of an issue. Programs like DxO, or any number of Adobe plugins will correct for those flaws quite well.

That being said, I would also take the 17-55 in a heartbeat if I could justify the cost. I do find myself using the wide end of my 17-85 quite often, so if I were to replace my 17-85 it would have to be a lens that offered a similar wide end.

When I was looking for a shorter zoom as a walk-around lens, I narrowed down the choices to the Canon 17-85mm and the Sigma 17-70mm. I got the Sigma and have not come anywhere close to regretting the decision...

I have not used the 17-70 Sigma at all but have held it in the store and played with it on a camera.

The range of the Canon alone is a huge thing, that 15mm on the long end is important, I sometimes wish for even more. I am thinking of moving to the 24-105 IS but would sure miss the wide end and would be swapping to the 10-22 more often.

The AF is reportedly much faster on the Canon. The Sigma seemed a bit noisier too.

The Canon has IS. But the Sigma does have faster glass. Both have their benefits.

The Sigma does feel better to hold leading me to believe it a better build.

The Sigma is reported to get better IQ at the wide end, the Canon at the long end. When I stop down on the wide end to f8 I get some very sharp images. I am sure the Sigma might do the same on the long end.

The Canon is 20-25% more on average though can be bought quite reasonably on Ebay. This difference would be negated if you had to sell a used 17-85 in order to buy a 17-70.

Long story short, they do seem very comparable with a few more features going to the Canon, but if you have yourself conviced the 17-85 is that bad of a lens no matter the proof to the contrary, you will not likely be able to shake this opinion. If there is any way to get ahold of a copy of the Sigma (maybe rent one) to compare objectively, that might help your decision.

As a side note, when I first started using the 17-85 I was getting lots of soft images and was not real pleased. Once I tried experimenting with different setting I became more confident in it's performance and got way more keepers. I think this is true with many lenses.

I don't think you can go wrong with the Sigma 17-70, there's alot of threads lately that cement that fact. I've actually pondered letting my 17-40 go for this lens for the versatility.

I personally use a Tamron 17-50 and have been very impressed with the optics. If you can live with the shorter range, I'd recommend this lens as well. If you want the longer range and can live with slower speed and slightly less sharpness, then the Sigma 17-70.

My 17-85 is very close to my 24-70 L in terms of sharpness. I took the same shot and printed them 13x19 and could see very minimal difference as far as sharpness goes. Maybe I have an excellent copy of the 17-85.

Hi Sandro. Sorry it's take a while to get this 100% crop. This is with only levels adjusted with no sharpening. I don't know if it's sharp according to anyone else's views, but to me, it's impressive....

see this post, it is one i have taken earlier, and posted... (on my 17-85mm)
https://photography-on-the.net …highlight=look+​at+my+frog
You cant get much sharper than that... read my C&Cs!!! i dont think they are bad shots myself

!7-85 is my all around lens, it never leaves my camera, however i am looking at a 24-70 2.8L because i need it for wenddings. I cant complain about it though it is not a bad lens, i would definately reccomend it!!!!

Also see this thread... it will help you with sharpness... read all the posts
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=216165

btw, no sharpening, just levesls in photoshop!!!!

This may be true, I haven't tried too hard. The built-in correction in PS / CS2 helped but couldn't quite eliminate it.

I'm a "time is money" kind of guy, and regardless of what software could or could not do, I just did not want to have to spend the time messing with it. I wanted the shot simply to be good the first time and was disappointed that the lens couldn't deliver that. I'm an engineer, and maybe it's the way I'm wired, but when I put time into something, I want it to work correctly and the way I expect. I don't want to do something and then have to fix it again later.

Exactly. Once I started to get annoyed at the results of some of the pictures, I began seeing the same flaws in all of them, and developed a real dislike of the lens. Tried telling myself that it really was a nice lens, and worked fine some of the times, but I just couldn't shake the fact that I no longer wanted to use it. Somewhere in this time I bought the 50-1.4, and it was a real awakening. I thought "a-ha, *this* is how pictures are supposed to look". It was all over at that point.


I won't say that anyone's pictures with that lens are not sharp, what I see above seems fine. 2 things come to mind on that though:

1) It's not all about sharpness, there's also color, chromatic abberation, bokeh, etc. to be had. Any one quality on it's own may not be too bad, but all put together...

2) It's hard to put up a single picture and judge it on those kinds of terms. However if you do back-to-back comparisons, you really start to see it. I took a variety of test pictures around the house, indoors and out, shade and sun, all on a tripod, comparing the 17-85 (set at 50mm) to the 50-1.4. I would take a shot with one lens, swap them out, and take the exact same shot again. Afterwards, I dumped the pictures down to the PC and set up two instances of ACDSee and flipped back and forth between them. The 17-85 shots seemed fine on their own, but compared against those from the 50's - let's just say the 50 smoked it in every way possible.

I guess I said it, but again - I think you can look at shots from the 17-85 by themselves, and say and believe the lens is wonderful, everyone else is crazy. But if you repeat the same shots with it and something else that is claimed to be better - an L lens, or a nice prime such as the 50, then you will realize how good or bad the 17-85 truly is. Hey - maybe you'll still be real happy with it and not see any difference at all. When I did that though, it really settled it for me and the lens went up on ebay pretty much immediately.

I was only posting a picture that really came out for me nicely. Im sure if i would have taken it with a prime, or an L, it would have been even better. I have the 17-85 as my primary lens right now, and i would recomend it to anyone. If someone was to go out and spend about 550 on a mid-zoom lens, this is really the way to go. HOWEVER, i most definately agree with you tracer bullet, that if those pics were taken with another one of the mentioned lenses, it would have probably pleased me more. the only thing is those L's cost twice as much. For someone who can afford them, by all means, get em! Someone trying to save a little green though, may not be ale to afford the better quality (ie: myself 2 years ago).

I 'do' see many problems with my lens. It is not something that can not be worked through though. Someone could not mind the imperfections and have themselves a beautiful lens. Although, my photography has been taking off lately, and i have (to my standards ) been doing better, so that is why my 17-85 is going to hit ebay pretty soon, and be replaced with a 24-70L or a 24-105L. havent really decided yet. I may need the 2.8 speed of the 24-70, and end up going with that.

That 17-85 is not a bad lens though, and will suit some other lucky ebayer, i think, just fine!