Lens question: Canon 16-35MM f/2.8L USM or 17-40mm f/4 USM

Joined: 01 Jun 2005 Posts: 8

I am getting into digital photography and love to shoot landscapes. I want to add a good zoom lens at these ranges and am looking at these two lenses. Obviously the f2.8 is the preminum glass, but can anyone offer some comments about the two lenses and applications. The price of one is about double the other. I would take the leap if I was convinved it was worth it. Any guidance/thoughts/enlightment much appreciated.

Joined: 25 Aug 2005 Posts: 594 Location: Sydney

Howdy,

The ultimate question for yourself is whether the extra 1mm and 1 stop of light is worth the extra money. My personal view on this is that if you're shooting landscapes, you dont need the f/2.8. 17mm is not really all that different to 16mm. So if it was me, I'd go for the 17-40.

Having said that though, I own the 17-40, and I find it to be a great lens.

Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Champaign, IL

I agree. I debated this issue before deciding that the extra stop (which I didn't see as being all that significant while shooting landscapes, where you generally want was much DOF as possible) and the extra 1mm where not worth the additional $600-$700. That being said, the Canon 17-40 is an awesome lens and produced very good results even at f4.

Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 57 Location: Phoenix AZ

if you have the money then i would say never go with anything less than an L series lens from canon. having said that your comparing two way different lenses. also if your into landscapes than your probably shooting at i high F stop. I like to shoot mine at f16 or higher. f32 is great and if you ask Ansel Adams f64 is the way to go.

really though you should go with the L series lenses. they are more durable. faster in focus. quieter in the focus and the glass is the best that you can get. if you want to blow a picture up beyond and 11x14 anything less than the best will show some chromatic aberrations, and other unwanted anomalies.

Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 4:52 pm

I'm pretty pleased with my 17-40L. If you're talking about the 16-35 f/2.8L mkI (as opposed to the recently unveiled mark II), one common complaint I've heard is that it's not quite as sharp as the 17-40L (though it's really dependent on the reviewer, and honestly this is pretty nitpicky stuff we're talking here). The newer 16-35mm L is rumoured to address this and probably improve corner sharpness a bit (something which is noticable at 100% magnification on my 17-40L, but not a big deal in practice).

Whichever one you choose you'll probably be very pleased with it, so it really boils down to whether or not you want to spend $1000 or whatever it is for an additional stop of light. For me, it wasn't worth it. I'm an f/4 (more often f/5.6 - f/64) kind of guy.

I've used the 17-40L for a lot of landscapes, as well as a fair bit of street shooting, portraits, and that kind of general stuff, and it excels at all of these things, even in those cases where I don't (ex. the bride/groom shot, what a nightmare :). Never shoot weddings for friends. ).

Examples:

http://ashphotography.ca/gunther/uploads/pages/Gallery/citytonightIMG_3463.jpg

http://ashphotography.ca/gunther/uploads/pages/unseen/IMG_2033bluer.jpg

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 6:01 am

resevordg wrote:

if you have the money then i would say never go with anything less than an L series lens from canon. having said that your comparing two way different lenses. also if your into landscapes than your probably shooting at i high F stop. I like to shoot mine at f16 or higher. f32 is great and if you ask Ansel Adams f64 is the way to go.

really though you should go with the L series lenses. they are more durable. faster in focus. quieter in the focus and the glass is the best that you can get. if you want to blow a picture up beyond and 11x14 anything less than the best will show some chromatic aberrations, and other unwanted anomalies.

Where to start, both the 16-35mm & the 17-40mm Canon lenses are L series lens.

Adams was not shooting a 35mm format camera and as such could use f/ stops well beyond what is normally expected. Large and medium format cameras "normal" settings are significantly different from a DSLR. For example a 180mm or even a 300mm lens on a 35mm or digital camera is not considered a wide angle or landscape lens while on the larger format cameras they certainly are.

Shooting a digital or 35mm wide angle lens above f/16 will usually bring out diffraction issues and result in less than an ideal image. Even L glass will suffer this problem as it is a physics issue and not a lens quality issue.

The dof available on a wide angle lens is very, very large even when using an aperture that most lenses would be wide open at like f/4. Using one of Canons 1.6x crop cameras and using a hyperfocal distance of 12.5 feet will give a sharp dof from 10 feet to infinty at f/4. Taking the aperture to f/8 reduces the near in focus to about 5 feet and going to f/16 gains another couple feet of near in focus. Please note then stopping down the lens is not increasing any sharpness of the image from the hyperfocal point out to infinity but only shaving a few feet off of the point closest to the lens.

The image will sharpen or image quality will improve only by using the sharpest part of the lens as each performs the best at a certain range of apertures, usually a stop or two above wide open.

To the original question I think my 17-40mm f/4 gives excellent results and I haven't missed the extra stop, though I would like wider but a single mm isn't enough for me.

Joined: 09 Oct 2006 Posts: 52

thealfheim wrote:

Howdy,

The ultimate question for yourself is whether the extra 1mm and 1 stop of light is worth the extra money. My personal view on this is that if you're shooting landscapes, you dont need the f/2.8. 17mm is not really all that different to 16mm. So if it was me, I'd go for the 17-40.

Having said that though, I own the 17-40, and I find it to be a great lens.

"thealfheim" is alright. For landscape shooting you'd better take 17-40!