Rebel XT and 17-85 lens

I have recently bought a Rebel xt with a 70-200 2.8 & a 17-85 IS lens.

I love the 70-200! I am not having very good luck with the 17-85. The

pictures are not as focused and as sharp as I would like. Outside they are

better than inside. Up close shots are great but land scape and group shots

are blurry and not very sharp.

Can anyone give me some pointers on how to shoot this lens inside and out?

I shoot mostly in the P mode and set my ISO to 100 out side and 400 inside.

 

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer!

 

Rob Meyer in Alaska

This is my advice, I hope it can help.

Forget P mode at the moment. Try to shoot many times the same pictures with different aperture values, inside and outside. Try also to use manual focus, to look for maximum sharpness.

Then try to study the results to see if there is a relation between aperture and sharpness. You can read aperture from exif data. Please consider that ISO 400 gives less details than ISO 100. So if you have a tripod, use it to be sure there's no motion blur.

After that, if you still have problems, try to post some of your shots and let us see.

Is this the 70-200/2.8L, or 70-200/2.8L-IS?

 

Bear in mind that the 70-200/2.8L-IS is one of the sharpest zooms Canon makes. And the 70-200/2.8 is better.

 

The 17-85/IS while very good is still "prosumer grade", and will not produce as good of results as the "L" stuff. Remember: which one cost you more?

 

Regardless: Take a look at how you are shooting. At F8 or F11, the 17-85/IS should be sharp. Wide open, it will be less sharp. Also, I hope you are selecting the focus point, and not letting the camera do that for you. . . .

Im also looking into this lens (17-85IS) for a walk around lens. this is what i have learned so far... Its not great at 17MM but its alot better opened up a bit. I hear its a pretty good lens at about f8 or so.. maybe someone who has this might confirm? Try shooting in AV mode, set the lens to f8 and try it. The reason its better outside is, its an f4.. so in brighter sunlite it will be better. Indoors, use a flash! I have talked to a few who use it and love it.. With lenses, you have to find its sweet spot..

-zacker-

You all are Awesome! Thank-you for your help. I will work on finding the sweet spot for this lens. I am in the learning mode with my new SLR and this forum has been very helpful.

 

Thanks again!

At the wide end wide opened(F4) it's not a sharp lens. F 5.6 makes them better and F8 even more better. Inside iso 400- what times of exposure are you getting? If more then 1/60-1/40s for mooving subjects don't expect sharp pictures. IS can't stop people's from mooving. You can get sharp pictures even with 1/4s but only stationary objects. Is enought light inside? I find often that even during the day I need ISO800 in dimmer rooms (I live in dull England). At the night ISO 1600-3200 (and 100watts bulb is required with 17-85. It's not a fast lens like the 70-200 F2.8.

It sounds like you may be leaving it to the camera to determine the focus point. Adjust your camera focus point so that it always focuses on the center focus box. In this mode, first focus on the image area you want sharp, keep the shutter half-way depressed, recompose, and shoot. You might also want to use a higher ISO outdoors so that you get higher shutter speeds and/or greater depth of field.

Boy, This lens has the most wide ranging opionions of any Canon lens in history. It either has huge sample variations or I don't know whats going on with it; or the people who love to cut it down.

 

My entire Caribbean folder was shot with this lens handheld, and I found it to be awesome. The range is perfect for a cropped camera for landscape work.Yes, 17mm is the weak end, as is my 17-40 F/4L.

For outside work in decent light, I'll stop it down to F/8 To F/16. IS certainly allows you to to do this handheld. I'll usually set the ISO to 400 for handheld and 100 to 200 if I'm using a monopod with it.

I always use AV and the center focus point. Works good for me. I actually prefer this lens to my 17-40 for the range and the IS. In low light with a tripod the 17-40 gives excellent results, but still the 17-85 is on my camera much more.

 

Good luck

Rob, I just returned a 17-85 lens to Canon due to excessive chromatic abberation and poor resolution. The lens didn't even perform as well as the cheap 18-55. Canon said there was a problem with the zoom mechanism. I haven't received the lens yet, so I can't say how the repair affects image quality.

Rob,

Just wondering what did you finally do? I have a 17-85 and 30D. It is excellent at the longer range (>60mm). But the image quality is bad at wide open. My recent trip to rocky mountains was a disaster. I have taken pictures form F/9.5 to F/22 . All see to be blurry at wide angle.

I am wondering if its my copy of the lens.

thanks