jarek

1.8 would be very good if you are on limited budget, I would not worry too much about all that plastic - I had mine 2 years before I sold it and it was still like new. For $80 you get 90% of IQ of 1.4.

1.4 is sharper though and has more solid feel to it. Still the build quality of 1.4 is not even close to L lenses. It is worth the price for me though.

I own Canon 10-22. It is little bit pricier then Sigma 10-20 but to me it is justified by negligible barrel distortion @ 10 mm and very good work in contra-light.

No need to rush things. Cool down. There will always be another one to buy if you decide to go that route.

I tried 2 copies of 24-105 and both were soft from 70 - 105, especially at f4. Comparing to 70 - 200 f/4 : no contest. There might be some better or worse copies out there but in general I think that 24-105 is just far from stellar at the long end. I gave up on that lens since I tested the second copy.

Cokin P will vignette on 10-22 between 10-12 mm. You must go with Cokin Z Pro to avoid vignetting. I used to have Cokin P but had to upgrade to Cokin Z after buing 10-22. Cokin X would be an overkill.

With very high probability Cokin P will vignette @ 10-12 mm, regardless of the holder and the ring. I had to switch from Cokin P to Cokin Z (4X4 inches) when I bought my EF-S 10-22.

I saw myself a copy of 28-70L just this year in a local Ritz Camera store. I don't think they sell used stuff, but I didn't ask them.

Thanks a lot Peter. This is very useful information. Since my 17-40 really is not that great, I might start to think more about this solution.

Did anybody try to adapt EF-S 10-22 to EF mount getting effective 16-22 wide

angle on full frame?

I wonder how image quality of such a thing would compare to 17-40 at respective

focal lengths. Actually I would expect to beat it, but I dont know anybody who

tried.

I returned 24-105 2 times before giving up. At f/4 from 70 up they both had sharpness comparable to your tamron copy at f/4, assuming you focused on the registration plate. They were quite better from 24-70 but anyway I considered that unnaceptable. I tested them with auto and manual focus so this was not a focusing problem.

Generally, I think this lens is too much of a compromise, and performance from 70-105 is questionable.

When it comes to edge to edge sharpness 17-40 is really better on 1.6 crop. On FF the edge sharpness is really so-so. You can even see that on 1.3 crop, as a matter of fact Canon's own sample pictures for their newest Mark III show edge softness of 17-40 very well - see this http://web.canon.jp/Imaging/eos1dm3/html/eos1dm3_sample5-e.html

 

Of course on 1.6 is not super-wide anymore but still a respectable standard zoom.

The new 16-35 will be taking 82mm filters as you can see on this photo: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0702/07022208canoneos1dmarkiii.asp

17-55 2.8 IS will be great for this purpose on 20d.

Here is one that I know of, but it is in Polish.

http://www.optyczne.pl/index.php?test=obiektywu&test_ob=49

 

Translating the summary:

 

Pros:

Very good IQ in the center

Very good IQ at the edge @ 50mm

Working good against harsh light

Quick and quiet AF

Good build quality

Small dimensions

3-year warranty

 

Cons:

Bad IQ at the edge @ 150mm

Too big chromatic aberrations

Visible astigmatism in 100-150 range

Significant vignetting @ 150mm

Significant front-focus

On 20D I use Z-Pro with my 10-22 lenses without any vignetting @ 10mm. That should be very similar to 16-35 @ 16 on 5D.

Well I will rephrase then:

5D can fit 17 RAW or 60 jpegs in the buffer (regardless of card used). If you are getting your buffer full quite often - get the fastest card you can get, if not anything will work fine.

No it would not, unless you are getting 5D buffer full quite often.

Get the kit lens. It is only $100 or so and good as a starter. Once you find out its limitations and what you really need (faster?, wider?, longer?) you can buy different lenses, and sell the kit lens. In my opinion this will protect you from buying things you will not use and very much worth the price of the kit lens. Other suggestion would be to go with Rebel XT first and after a year switching to different body if you find XT to be insufficient.

Mine rattles quite a bit, and it does not take a quiet room to hear it. I've heard complaints from other people about this lens being soft wide open - mine produces super sharp images even @ 1.4 - so maybe it goes in pair with rattling :).

With Sigma 28-300 you will loose auto-focus at the long end since XTi (like most other Canon SLRs) maintains AF only up to f/5.6

I also recommend http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/ for lenses reviews.

17-40 is a wonderful lens and distortions at 24mm are minimal (see photozone link above).

Good study of lens distortions can be found on photozone: http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/

It makes no difference at 24 mm, even on a full frame camera.

For instance 5mm filter on 20D with 10-22 lenses vignetes only sligtly at 10-11 mm. At 12 I can see no difference between my Pro1 (3mm) and regular Hoya HMC (5mm).

10-22 and 24-105 are perfect combination for what I am shooting.

10-22 is build very well, with its metal body - it is very close to 17-40. Image quality (sharpness, CA, color) of 10-22 and 17-40 is on the same level. So you must decide if need ultrawide or just wide. Having both - I use 10-22 more often, limiting usage of 17-40 mostly to indoor shots with flash, where its focal range is about perfect on 1.6 factor.

I thought it was not too bad ... until I got a few L lenses. Now I don't use it anymore. I would rate it like this:

image quality 6/10

AF speed 6/10