Excellent image quality. Great sharpness and contrast. Very useful IS, full time manual focus, silent.

Big and heavy, but that's only to write something down. In the end when you see the results you will not care about this.

I've tried a few lenses before I finally settled on this one. I have tried the all around sigma 18-200 IS, that proved to be very soft at certain points in the zoom range, I swapped it for another one and found similar issues, not as bad and not at the same focal ranges... It really turned me off the lens. The having read excellent reviews on the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 I geve that a try. If it would have been sharper I may have given it some serious consideration, but at the same time I had purchased this canon lens and it simply blew it away. No matter what people that have a really good lens that does not have IS say... Get it !!! It's really really worth every penny.
In the end the reason you buy these lenses it to take good pictures, well even at 2.8 when the lighting is not optimal IS is there to save the shot.
Yes it is heavy on my 40D, but I'm sure when I get the 70-200 f/2.8 IS I will change my mind on that.
I will not complain about build quality. It seems perfect to me. It is solid, the materiels used are well finished and the overall feel is very good.

Customer Service

Henry's service has been excellent. I have not dealt with Canon yet.

Similar Products Used:

listed in the review

Build quality.
Fast maximum aperture, which takes advantage of the finer 30D autofocus capabilities associated with f2.8 and faster lenses.
Superior picture quality.

Wish the short focal length was 15mm.
Not dust sealed like the L lenses.
Fits only digital Rebel, Rebel XT, Rebel XTi, 20D, 30D, and probably the upcoming 40D (or whatever they call it).
Attracts a lot of attention, especially with the hood attached.
Lens hood doesn't come with lens, is expensive (I paid $62 online), and was hard to find a few months ago (that may have changed).
Value rating of 4 is because I think the lens is priced about $200 to $300 high and you have to cough up extra for the hood.

I have used this lens for about five months now and shot several hundred pictures with it. It's used only on a 30D body. Some people have noticed barrel distortion and some pincushion issues with their lenses. I haven't, but I shoot normal subjects, not closeups of newspapers or symmetrical brick walls! If you use this for casual shooting (like vacations) or for portraits, barrel distortion or pincushioning shouldn't be an issue. The lens seems to yield neutral colors and good contrast. I haven't had a single out-of-focus shot yet! In the past, I've only shot with prime lenses, but this zoom rivals any prime I've ever used. The lens is heavy and large, especially with the hood, but that should be expected for a constant aperture 2.8 lens with this kind of build quality.

Customer Service

None for this lens. Customer service was great for my 50mm f1.4 (repair) and a macro flash module (dropped).

Similar Products Used:

This is my only zoom. My primes are 20mm f2.8, 35mm f2.0, 50mm f1.4; 85mm f1.8; 200mm f2.8L. This zoom is on par with all of my primes. Canon bodies used are the 30D and EOS 3 (lens won't work on the EOS 3, though).

Fully usable at f2.8, fast, accurate autofocus, image stabilisation that really works, minimal distortion, excellent sharpness, very well controlled chromatic aberration ( but there is some visible in some shots ). Sharpness equal to primes at all focal lengths.

Heavy, expensive. Slight loss of contrast at f2.8 and 17 mm, with slight flaring of highlights, this disappears by f4 at 17 mm and is not seen at any aperture from about 22 mm. Slight chromatic aberration with colour fringing can be seen in some photos. Mild barrel distortion at the wide end, mild pincushion distortion at the long end.

This lens is quite heavy and expensive for an EFS optic however the performance is excellent at all apertures and focal lengths. I have tested this against an EF 50 mm f1.4 prime, with both on an EOS 20D and cannot detect any difference in image sharpness or resolution, when photographing either an optical test chart or a landscape scene. This is an excellent lens to choose when the benefits of f2.8 are required, such as with documentary work by available light. In outdoor settings it is difficult to distinguish between this lens and the EFS 17 - 85 mm in terms of sharpness and resolution. Only the greater colour fringing gives the 17 - 85 mm lens away.

Customer Service

Not required but usually excellent from Canon Australia.

Similar Products Used:

Canon EFS 17 - 85 mm
Canon EFS 10 - 22 mm
Numerous Canon EF primes.

Image stabilization
Speed 2.8
Sharpness
Image it produces

Not weather sealed

I own a 20D, 1D and a 1DS and the following lens.
EF 24 1.4 L 35 1.4L 50 1.0 L 85 1.2 L 135 2.0 L 200 1.8 L 500 4.0 L IS
24 -70 2.8 L and the 70-300 IS DO

EFS 10-22 60 Macro and the 17-55 2.8 IS.

The 17-55 2.8 IS is one of the sharpest lens I have ever used. It as good as any L optic and thats because optically it is a L lens. You will not be sorry if you buy this lens.

Customer Service

None

Similar Products Used:

16-35 2.8 L
17-35 2.8 L
20-35 4.0 L
28-70 2.8 L
24-70 2.8 L

Resolution, Contrast extremely good. Wide max. aperture, very capable Image Stabilization. Construction quality

Size, weight, price - but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs...

(Price Paid is in pounds sterling)

Finally we small sensor digital SLR users have a top quality standard zoom lens to do justice to our camera. This lens has almost the same zoom range as the 'kit' 18-55mm lens but the two are about as far apart as it is possible to get. The 17-55mm lens has a constant f/2.8 aperture and Image Stabilization so you expect it to be different - bigger and heavier - and it doesn't disappoint! This is a very big heavy lens and dwarfs an EOS 350D for instance. But it handles well. The zoom and manual focus rings operate smoothly and are well placed and have good grip and different tactile surfaces. The lens has a distance scale window which is very welcome. Construction quality is superb, although it doesn't have the moisture and dust seals that some recent 'L' lenses have. There has been some criticism about plastic use. I don't find fault with the use of the very high grade polycarbonate plastics used by Canon here - it is lighter than metal and more hard-wearing.

So how does it perform? Well, it's very nearly perfect... and I dont say that often, or lightly. It's one of the sharpest lenses I've ever used (including primes). Chromatic Aberration which put me off its cousin the 17-85mm lens is well controlled so is unlikely to be a problem in use. I've been disappointed with some results I've had from the 17-85mm so this one quality was enough to persuade me to buy the lens - even at twice the price of the other lens.

It does have faults; vignetting is very visible at f/2.8 at 17mm focal length. But it disappears at f/4 - and remember that other zoom lenses you might be considering are wide open at f/4 at this focal length!

Also there is some barrel distortion at the widest focal length, which neutralizes and becomes pincushion distortion as you zoom to the long end. To my eye except at the wide extremity, this distortion is negligible.

Contrast is consitently high and colour balance is pleasantly neutral.

This review has to be an 'initial impressions' review since I've had the lens less than a month. But I've already taken some pictures that delight me, that I could not have taken without it. It has revealed my EOS 350D sensor to be better than I had thought.

Now all we want is a small light high quality fast prime standard lens from Canon to compete with the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 - and hopefully to wipe the floor with it (the Sigma gets mixed reviews with some quality control problems) - so that I can carry a camera around with me when travelling without getting a hernia in the process!

In the meantime this is unquestionably an 'L' class lens for EFS mount cameras. Canon seem to have made a decision to reserve the red engraving for EF lenses. A pity, I think.

Similar Products Used:

EFS 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS lens
EFS 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 lens
EFS 60mm f/2.8 macro lens
EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS lens
EF 300mm f/4 L IS lens
EF 1.4x extender mkII