Canon EF-S 17-85mm 1:4-5.6 IS USM

The EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 USM IS is a lens that promises many things. It is certainly a very versatile standard zoom with a long zoom range and an image stabilizer that can save the day in many situations. However, the build quality is somewhat disappointing and optically it is also something of a mixed bag. The lens is very sharp in the image center throughout the range but at the wide-end the extreme corners leave something to be desired. The 17mm setting also suffers from rather extreme distortions and rather hefty vignetting @ f/4. Finally chromatic aberrations aren't really something to rave about either.

So at the end of the day the lens is a tad better than the cheapo EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 but it can't really compete with the new EF-S 18-55m f/3.5-5.6 IS or the EF 17-40mm f/4 USM L. The key feature of the EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 USM IS remains its versatility. While this may sound a little sceptical I should note that I preferred the lens compared to other higher quality options during testing - it is simply a darn convenient lens and despite the flaws it can produce very decent images as you can see from the samples - at least with a little tool support.

The Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 USM IS is a lens that promises many things. It is certainly a very versatile standard zoom with a long zoom range and an image stabilizer that can save the day in many situations. However, the build quality is somewhat disappointing and optically it is also something of a mixed bag. The lens is very sharp in the image center throughout the range but at the wide-end the corners are generally somewhat softer (but still acceptable). The 17mm setting also suffers from rather extreme distortions and rather hefty vignetting @ f/4. Finally chromatic aberrations aren't really something to rave about either.

So at the end of the day it remains a lens with a couple of compromises in terms of quality. It is more versatile in terms of range than the EF-S 17-55mm IS and EF-S 18-55mm IS and a bit better compared to the new EF-S 18-200mm IS.