upgrade kit lens!!

The 17-55 2.8 IS is the best general purpose lens for a cropped camera, and IMO, the best reason to own a 1.6x crop body.

If you can't afford the 17-55 IS, the Tamron 17-50 is almost as sharp for less than half the price. You do lose the benefit of IS though.

i recently picked up the 17-55 f/2.8 USM IS and i couldn't be happier. i picked up the hood at the same time. i recently sold my kit 17-85 for this and i'm so happy i did. such a big improvement! i lost 30mm of tele but it's ok. the f/2.8 makes it all worth it!

thanks everyone for your help.. help out a lot!!
thinking of the canon EF-S-17-85-IS-USM? what do we think??

most seem to say in terms of IQ its not much better so the only upgrade would be 1mm wider and the extra zoom than the kit lens

grs wrote in post #7772731
thanks everyone for your help.. help out a lot!!
thinking of the canon EF-S-17-85-IS-USM? what do we think??

Same as I thought before. If you want a single lens to cover almost all situations adequately, if not brilliantly, the Tamron 18-270 IS is the lens for the job.

If you are considering the 17-85, then personally, I wouldn't bother. The increment in price over the 18-55 IS doesn't buy you much, but the increment between the 17-85 and 17-55/2.8 IS does. In other words, if it's just a "standard zoom" that you want, and not a one-lens-does-everything solution, then either get the 18-55 IS or save for the 17-55/2.8 IS. The only exception would be if you found f/2.8 much more useful than IS, in which case you could consider the Tamron 17-50/2.8, but the 17-85 still doesn't enter into the equation.