Canon 17-40L

Launched in 2003 the canon 17-40L f4 has been around a good few years now, Yet still photographers covert this ultra wide angled red ringed lightweight. I say lightwight as it is the lightest Canon L series lens you can buy and also the cheapest! Check out my quick summary on youtube here The 17-40 comes with 12 elements in 9 groups featuring one UD element, and has a constant widest aperture of f4 throughout the zoom range. Its not super sharp shot wide open (more so than most lenses I might add!), but once stopped down to 7.1 and above it becomes tac sharp! It features a USM motor for fast, accurate and pretty much silent auto focussing. A great addition to the usm focussing motor is that you have manual focus override, so even when the switch is on auto focus you can still manually focus! The front element has a filter tread size of 77mm so you may have to upgrade your filters or purchase a step up ring for compatible filter holders. It has a closest focusing distance of 28cm which enables you to get extremely close to subjects, a lot closer than you can imagine. A surprising feature of this lens it that it comes with a lens hood! A felt lined one at that! Overall it feesl wonderfully smooth and professional. Controls feel fluid and precise. You will not be disappointed with the build quality, it really is built to last as well as being fully weather sealed if attached with a UV filter. This is a remarkably light lens considering the image quality that it produces. Images look beautifully rich and contrasty straight out of the camera. One thing I will mention is that images shot at the widest end of 17mm can look a tad soft in the corners, but this is true with most ultra wide angled lenses. Attached to a full frame body the 17-40L is perfect for landscape photography, but the 17-40 works just as well on a cropped framed body serving as a great walkaround lens with an equivalient focal lenth of 27-64mm. I guess if you are reading this review and are toying with the idea of the 16-35 2.8L then all I will say is if you really do need the faster lens then you really will need the 16-35L. However if you are predominantly shooting landscapes or working on a tripod then save yourself a huge chunk of money and opt for the 17-40L, I really cannot rate this lens highly enough! If you would like to buy this lens here is a link with one of the best prices around.