Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM Reviews

Nice range for a cropped DSLR. Optically ok, maybe a bit soft at the wide end. Fairly fast and reliable focuser. Build quality good, yet not up to EF24-70. I guess pricing is about ok. Very usefull wide zoom.

Excellent sharpness and build quality. Colors and contrast are outstanding. Resistence to flare is the best I've seen. However, it displays visible barrel distortion at the wide end and some pincushion on the long end. Corners are soft on a FF sensor, and there is some vignetting. These traits can be annoying as its strong sides make me expect perfection all around. (tested on EOS 5d)

Top len's,razor sharp,build is superb.
no softness with my copy,in my view is
just about level with the 24/70.F4 is
fine my handheld shot's ar pin sharp.

Superb lens on a classic 5D for full-frame landscape work, used it for almost two years. Once I got the 5D2 the results were disappointing, the lens doesn't quite seem to resolve enough. I sold it and got the 16-35mm for my 5D2 in 2009, and the WOW returned. For older 5Ds or for crop sensor cameras, this is a gem, the expensive 16-35mm would be overkill. If I owned a crop sensor camera I'd use this 17-40mm as my kit lens, the results would be outstanding (at least image-quality-wise, lol).