Canon EF-S 17-55mm IS USM f/2.8
Does this glass deserve a red ring and a magnesium alloy body?

Any owner one who has the 18-55mm kit lens is pretty familiar with this focal length and it was chosen because its very useful. The EF-S 17-55mm IS USM f/2.8 has an equally convenient focal lens equivalent to 27mm to 88mm (35mm equiv.) that makes this a very practical lens for landscapes, portraits, etc. It is not a long telephoto, so forget about photographing some cheetahs at the Serengeti, but you will find this focal length very handy for everyday shooting.

This is an "S" lens, which means that you can only use it with APS-C sensor Canon cameras. If you plan to upgrade sometime to a full frame like the 5D be aware that this lens won't work with it.

Big Tasty

This is an extraordinary lens from many points of view. This lens is big and heavy: 3.3 in. x 4.4 in., 22.8 oz. / 83.5mm x 110.6mm, 645g. If you use it with cameras such as the 30D or the 40D the camera will be very well balanced with the lens. Probably Rebel users will find their cameras too small and light.

Once you get used to size, there's another noteworthy feature: a constant maximum aperture of f/2.8. That's as fast as you can get with a Canon zoom and it is great for the tele end. Ordinary lenses have smaller maximum apertures at the tele end, and that's a shame, because using a longer focal length is when you really need a greater aperture to minimize the camera shake and to enhance the background blur. This lens solves the problem: you can use the tele end and set the maximum aperture; that will enable you to avoid camera shake and to have a shallower depth of field. Note also that this lens has a 7 circular blades so it provides a very nice background blurr that is unusually good for a true wide angle end and an already nice bokeh improves significantly at the tele end (great for portraits).

Just having a f/2.8 maximum aperture is great, but there is also the Image Stabilizer feature to gain 3 f-stops. We miss the panning stabilization; on the other hand a good news is that you can use a tripod and the IS will detect it causing no trouble. This lens is just fantastic for hand-held photography in low light conditions. Any Canon camera has a remarkably good low noise performance at high ISO levels, so you can crank up the ISO settings with no fear, add a fast lens with Image Stabilizer and you have the low-light hand-held rig par excellence.

A visit to the museum

We took this lens to a ride in one of the most difficult and challenging low light conditions: the legendary National Museum of Anthropoly and History in Mexico City. We chose a Canon EOS 40D with the EF-S 17-55 f2.8 IS without a tripod: pure handheld photography with flash strictly prohibited. Check our gallery at the end of this review to check the impressive performance of this lens/camera power combo under low light conditions. Take a look of just a bit of our full set of samples:

Now, the only thing that would make things better with this lens would be great optics.

Optical Quality

This lens has 19 elements in 12 groups that includes UD and aspherical elements. That means that this glass features the same top quality ingredients of the "L" lenses. If you thought in the previous paragraphs that this lens sounds good, here is the truly good news: this is an optically excellent (yes, excellent) lens. Sharpness at f/2.8 is good, but at f/4.0 improves and you'll have razor-sharp images at f/8.0

We found very lilttle Chromatic Aberrations. This is a true wide-angle lenso, therefor there is some barrel distortion at the wide end. We were surprised that such a good lens had noticeable vignetting. It is not the worst we've seen, but it is there. You can get rid of it with Adobe's Lightroom and, in some cases, this defect may provide a certain character to the photos.

This lens features a ring-type ultra sonic motor that provides very fast and almost silent auto focus. The AF can be override with full-time mechanical manual focusing. Canon says that this lens features new auto focus algorithms. Certainly auto focus is fast, silent and precise.

Wait a minute...

By this time we are in love with this lens, and maybe you are getting a little infatuated. Not that fast. There are to quirks to this lens, and one of them isn't a minor one.

Everything is superb, but built quality is not at the same level of optics inside. This polycarbonate body (that's an elegant way to say "plastic") is pretty much like the EF-S 10-22. It is though and light, but it's plastic after all. Why didn't Canon choose a magnesium alloy body and a nice red strip with an "L" designation? It remains a mystery. Some argue that it is for marketing reasons, others assert that there can't be such lens as an EF-S "L", and the final theory is cost reduction. We haven't any hypothesis. This is a though, durable lens, with a metal mount but that lacks weather sealing (anyway, there is not a subframe Canon camera with full weather sealing). Maybe you can live without a magnesium alloy body anyway.

The not-so-minor quirk to this excellent lens is the price tag: $930. It is an expensive lens. With that money you can almost buy a Rebel XTi body plus the EF-S 17-85. It is not an L lens but the price is comparable to other L lens. The EF 17-40 f/4 L is priced at $640; although you won't have the f/2.8 max aperture nor the image stabilizer. It seems like Canon's guys did their homework and left us with no options: there is no other comparable lens (at least in Canon's line) with this quality at this focal length. The EF-S 17-85 is not greater thant the infamous kit lens; the EF 24-105L is a suberb lens but the focal length is a 40mm-168mm 35mm equivalent.

What can you do? Well, maybe you can use a red felt-tip marker and convert your golden strip in a red one and try not to think in the polycarbonate to imagine that you are handling a L lens. That way the price tag won't hurt that much and if you see the results you'll think that it is a L lens. It's a shame it isn't because such a capable glass deserves the red stripe and the magnesium alloy armor.

Our letter to Santa Claus

We would love to see an EF 17-55mm f/2.8 L IS USM at $1,200. There is no such lens, but it would be this lens with the very well deserved "L" denomination.

EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM samples

Unprocessed images with a Canon EOS 40D

>> Don't miss our A Night At the Museum feature

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