Is 17-40/F4L the best alternative lens for Rebel D

Hi,

 

I have Rebel2K and 28-105 USM II. I love this combination a lot.

I plan to buy Rebel D (300D) this summer due to its recent price cut.

Not sure if 18-55/3.5-4.5 is the one I should use for most of tours,

important events and sightseeings. From this forum and others, I

found so many people dropped down good comments on 17-40/F4 L and

although most of them seem to be 10D owners. I wonder if I should

buy the Kit package or just the body + 17-40/F4 L. Any pro and con?

 

Thanks,

 

Dennis

The kit lens is comparable with your current lens (maybe not so sharp, supposedly), however the 17-40L is in a different league.

If you're happy with what you've got then the kit lens is a bargain. If you aspire to a bag full of L lenses, and don't plan on reselling the 300d, then get the 17-40.

I agree. Don't forget: 10D buyers (even before the 300D came out) are in general (there are exceptions) a little more demanding than Drebel owners. And the 18-55/EF-S won't fit on a 10D (unless you apply a hacksaw to the lens -> there are techniques out there).

 

But fundamentally, the 10D and 300D have the same sensor and more-or-less the same firmware. If an EF gives good results on a 10D, results on a 300D should be more-or-less be identical.

 

The 18-55 seems to be a well regarded kit lens. Seems to produce better results than the 28-80 kit lenses. May be comparable to the 28-105 you have now.

 

The 17-40/4L, however, is a lens of different character. Big, heavy, HUGE filter (as you will see when you try to get a polarizer). Image quality is as good as it comes for a zoom. Many have compared it favorably to both primes and the more expensive 16-35/2.8L.

 

Watch out for Photokina in September. Canon may introduce a new body (likely a 10D replacement).

Don't dismiss the 18-55 - I was going to throw/give mine away but after seeing the results I'm impressed - sharper that my 24mm 2.8EF prime! (although I was never happy with this lens on film) If you shoot RAW you can get rid of any CA in Photoshop's RAW plugin app and the resulting images look sharp and clean across the frame at apertures 5.6-11. It may not stand up to much hard use but at the givaway price that it is when included in the kit you would be daft not to give it a go.

I have the kit lens and it is quite a bit softer than either a Canon 50mm f1.8 or a Leica 50mm R Summicron.

Dennis, the 17-40L is a great lens with good build, sharpness, colour rendition, flare resistance and weather sealing, not to mention the super fast and totally silent AF. You will love it !

 

The image quality is astounding, though my only complain is that it is only f4, but for the price, I think it is a great lens in all respects if you are planning to get one.

 

All the best............Wee-Ming<div></div>

Either of these lenses gives you moderate wideangle to short telephoto. The 17-40 will be sharper and much more expensive but will work with full frame DSLRs if you (and/or Canon) decide to go that route in the future. The 18-55 performs well enough for many amateurs, is inexpensive, but will not work with full frame DSLRs. So it depends on how serious you are and what your future plans may be. Good luck!

I have perfectitis terminalis in it's acute state. It's symptoms are that I can't buy anything but the best, even if it's more expensive (my wife hates me for this) and I can't recommend anything but the best. Now you can understand why I advise you to get the 17-40/4.

 

Happy shooting ,

Yakim.

Well, it seems that we should comply with coupling of "17-40/10D" and "18-55/RebelD", but not cross-over. "18-55" should be adequate with RebelD as long as staying in lower level of amatuer ranking. Do I understand this correctly?

I think you guys all provided constructive opinions here. Whether or not making further progress in digital photography world is the issue I should ponder seriously. Budget, on the other hand, is my another issue I'll have to weigh on...

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Dennis

A freind on mine conducted a few informal tests and found that the ef-s 18-55mm lens was actually sharper than the 28-105 mkII on a 300D / digi rebel. It looks as if it is a kit lens with a difference.

 

However, i cant see it matching the 17-40 - but as its roughly the same range, is it worth spending 4 or 5 times more on the 17-40 ? I doubt it.

 

There was an article on photo.net comparing the 18-55 ef-s to the 24-70/2.8L - do a search if you're interested.

 

(I'm a 10D & 17-40L owner)

I've had a DRebel for about a year now and I got the 17-40/F4 L last week. The 18-55 is a

great for snap shots and pictures where you'll be happy with "good". As I've become more

discriminating with image quality the 18-55 was giving me a lot of shots destined for the

reject pile. The center of the images were generally acceptable, but just got muddy toward

the edges.

 

The 17-40 is worth the added expense. The images are vastly sharper.

"The images are vastly sharper." - I think many people would like to see this - could you post a coupel of 100% crops? - preferably converted from RAW with no USM.

I happened upon a DRebel kit at my local Canon dealer which had been returned by a guy after 2 weeks because it was "too heavy for him", priced below the price of a body only. After taking six test shots with the kit lens I saw that it was optically as awful as it was constructed--and if I could see how bad it was on a digital shot, it's *really* bad. I immediately eBayed it and got around $125, so as the saying goes, there's one born every minute. I already have the 20-35/3.5-4.5 which is a surprisingly good lens for the price and had been using a 14mm Sigma for the wide shots. I have just received my 12-24 Sigma, and will use it along with my 28-135IS, which gives almost seamless coverage between the (35mm equivalents of) 20-200mm and that should cover anything unimportant enough for me to shoot with a digital. I'll probably end up selling the 20-35 and the 14.

Not exactly as claimed here, but as one demonstration of the 18-55's inferiority, I'd posted a couple of such pics previously in a separate thread.<p>

 

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=008HwB">Unsharp pictures with Canon Digital Rebel. Is this normal?</a><p>

 

The 18-55 was also compared more formally to the 24-70 f/2.8 L here, and the results there were also no surprise for those not taken in by the apparent 18-55 hype. That said, I've recommended the 18-55 myself as a cheap option to wide-angle coverage on cropped DSLR's.<p>

 

<a href="http://www.photo.net/equipment/canon/efs18-55/">Canon EFS 18-55/3.5-5.6 vs. EF24-70/2.8L shootout!

David vs. Goliath - can the little guy win?</a><p>

 

One of the respondents to the above also posted a reference to his own site, comparing the 18-55 to a 17-40 f/4 L. Here're the pics:<p>

 

<a href="http://jacek.polczynski.com/technika/20040210hard04.htm">Help, Polish!</a>

I paid more attentions on the bookshelf comparison although it's in Polish.

 

The 18-55 seems to draw very significant chromatic abberation at various ranges... The 17-40 keeps images sharp consistently, I am very impressed. Cost-effect wise, however, the kit lents shouldn't be blamed too much (~$100).

 

Thanks,

 

Dennis

The 18-55 is a fine lens, and compares well with $200 lenses. Which is a complement since this is a $100 lens.

 

Against the $700 17-40/4L, it does not look as good. Many have a hard time understanding why.