Rated 
a good marker on the road to the perfect EF-S lens
Started Aug 2, 2007
Strengths: Speed and focus accuracy, image quality, sharpness, moderately priced
Weaknesses: 55mm is a little short but for about 80% of the shots that I want to take it is long enough
First, I would rather have something more like a 20-135. Beyond that this lens is the best that I have tried out of the 17-85 F4 and the 28-135 F3.6. I think the F2.8 is almost required to get decent focus accuracy and reliability. It may not need to be a *constant* F2.8 but at least at the wide angle it should be F2.8. The short porch is very nice, makes it easy to shoot whatever you are standing in front of, the 28-135 is just too long for this. The only thing this 17-55 leaves me wanting is another 2x or so of zoom range. It would be great at 20-100, even. Wide-angle at night only works for close-up subjects, and the 55mm limit means a lot of walking around to get a good crop on the shot. And you can't use "digital zoom" if you don't get a good focus, so with the Rebel XTi and just about every lens that I've tried, I can't rely on getting a good focus at high zoom. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. But otherwise, I think this lens is worth the $900, the 17-85 is worth the $400, I'd stay away from the 28-135 and the kit lens is not all that bad for "free". What I really want, now, and I guess I'm going to have to wait for, is a good-quality 20-120 or so, F2.8-F4.5ish lens with IS. There is no point in getting a lens that will not focus reliably. Now as far as speed...I've shot this camera handheld at night at full zoom and gotten good shots, plenty of times. Pick your poison: ISO1600 RAW to ISO400 jpeg, it'll do it for you.
Report this as inappropriate
