17-40L or Flash?

3kids1036,
I would say the 17-40L first (but both if possible). I have taken a number of very low light shots with it without flash. Here is a 49 second exposure with the 17-40L

The Band

I think I am going to go with the lens....I am WAY beyond excited!

tsaraleksi wrote in post #2036314
The 17-40 is fine indoors, as long as you aren't some kind of crack fiend you should be able to hand-hold down to 1/40 or so with the wide end of the lens. This gives you a fair bit of freedom indoors. I have a flash and a 17-40 and use the lens more. But I guess it all depends on your purposes. Note, though, that the pop flash will not work with the 17-40 attached.

ROFLOL!!! I am sure I can hand hold perfectly fine! LOL

3kids1036 wrote in post #2036468
I think I am going to go with the lens....I am WAY beyond excited!

As well you should be. If you're not familar with wide angle, it will be a wonder to behold, and if you've switched from a film system, it will be a relief to have the view back. I continue to love using my 17-40 (ps pick up a film EOS body and then revel in a true 17mm FOV... it's amazing)

I'd say the 17-40 as well.

Get the 17-40 for now. THe 50mm will hold you over for right now in the dim light situations. For a flash, can I recomend the Promaster 7500DX. It was 50 bucks cheaper than the 430EX Speedlite, and my local shop swears by it.

I have a 17-40L and a flash - an oldie but goodie - and use the lens a LOT more than the flash. But I do use the flash a lot too.
i use the lens as my walk-about, and one thing about the 17-40 is that it shades the built-in flash. so you will need a speedlite, but as various other posters have said, it can wait.

John_B wrote in post #2036411
3kids1036,
I would say the 17-40L first (but both if possible). I have taken a number of very low light shots with it without flash. Here is a 49 second exposure with the 17-40L

The Band

Click for Specs

Man John I clicked on the link, and ended up spending the last two + hours on your site, I notice most of your landscape shots are partial or spot metered, how do you keep a balance between the sky and land without blowing out the sky or under exposing the grounds, awsome stuff man.

Ps edit I also say go 17-40

Ideally get both, if you have to get one before the other get the 17-40 first. I shot with the 17-40 without flash using only ambient light for a long time. Since most of my subjects are static it's no big deal, I use a tripod. Pop over to my site and you can see some outdoor landscape stuff, all shot with the 17-40. If you go in my abandoned gallery almost all of these shots are with the 17-40 too, in low-light, no flash.

Now that I've got the flash I've been practicing using it outdoors to reduce shadows and better expose subjects, and working on bouncing for natural looking light indoors. Both are essential to me.

Or you could get both and just have the 17-40L shipped to me

fritz1 wrote in post #2037637
Man John I clicked on the link, and ended up spending the last two + hours on your site, I notice most of your landscape shots are partial or spot metered, how do you keep a balance between the sky and land without blowing out the sky or under exposing the grounds, awsome stuff man.

Ps edit I also say go 17-40

use a graduated nd filter

check the stop difference (using spot or partial if u want) between the sky and the foreground, use the darker half of the ND filter to decrease the stop amount of the sky, and expose for the foreground (therefore, you expose the dark areas properly, but since you reduced the intensity of the sky as well, you're pretty much exposing it back to how it actually looks... resulting in an image with properly exposed sky and foreground)

17-40 is fantastic on a crop body.
It's ability to lock focus in low light is amazing.
The big flimsy hood is a dissapointment. As the hood is made for a full frame body, it's not doing much on a 20D. You can use an EW-83DII hood instead.
(I've tested on a 20D and it works great) Much more convenient shape, much more solid , and actually works as a hood should!
There's one other hood that works too, forget which one.

since you posted on the lens forum and not the flash forum, I think we can guess what answer you want to hear.

* Shall I buy new trainers or new jeans next???

I can't say more than what they told you
lens first, flash is there waiting next, or borrow one if you really need flash for some works.