User Review: Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

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

Block diagram of the 17-55mm
Courtesy of Canon Camera Museum

Marketed: May 2006

Lens Construction (group): 12

Lens Construction (element): 19

No. of Diaphragm Blades: 7(circular aperture)

Minimum Aperture: F22

Closest Focusing Distance (m): 0.35

Maximum Magnifcation (x): 0.17

Filter Diameter (mm): 77

Maximum Diameter x Length (mm): 83.5 x 110.6

Weight (g): 645

The Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM is the replacement lens for my then 18-135mm IS and I have been using the King Of The Crop for over a year. This general purpose zoom lens features a constant f/2.8 aperture throughout the zoom range, 3-stops image stabilisation(IS) and Ultrasonic Motor(USM) focusing mechanism.

The 17-55mm is designed for EF-S mount(APS-C 1.6x) and will not fit full-frame and APS-H(1.3x) camera bodies. In 35mm format, it will translate to a focal length of 27.2-88mm. What is going to follow next, is my short user review based on my past one year of experience with this lens.

General Handling
Holding up the lens, the first thing you will notice is the weight. Yes, the 17-55mm is a heavy lens. At 645g, the 17-55mm is over three times heavier than the 18-55mm kit lens but offering similar focal length as its younger sibling with just 1mm more at the wide end. The weight of the 17-55mm feels rather balanced on my 7D with BG-E7 battery grip.

Build quality of the 17-55mm is good, one step up from the kit lenses but still not quite at the L-lenses' level yet. The 17-55mm is put together with high quality plastics but it does not exude the usual plasticky feel. The AF/MF and IS switches give a tactile feedback when being utilised, definitely a plus point. Focus ring is smooth as butter but the feel of the zoom ring can be further improved on.

Here you can see the zoom and focus ring, distance window, completed with a metal mount.

The switches.

The 17-55mm has a 77mm filter diameter, so be sure to get some form of protection for the huge front element.

Seen here the 17-55mm is fitted with the 77mm B+W XS-Pro UV filter.

Size comparison:

Size comparison with hood mounted, from L to R:
Tamron 70-300mm VC USD, Canon EF-S 17-55mm IS USM, Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM.

Size comparison with hood mounted and zoomed out, from L to R:
Tamron 70-300mm VC USD, Canon EF-S 17-55mm IS USM, Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM.

Real-time Operation
Mounting the 17-55mm on my 7D was a breeze, align the white dots and it clicks in place, just like any other EF-S lenses. Focusing is fast and silent, all thanks to the USM system. Focus accuracy is spot on 98% of the time, unless the focus point is at the edge of high contrasting areas.

Due to the internal focusing mechanism, the front element of the 17-55mm does not rotate and it translates to the relative ease of use for polarizing and graduated neutral density filters. However, the lens barrel does extend and retract, when the lens is being zoomed in and out.

Full-time manual focusing is available in one-shot focus drive mode which means there is no need to switch to manual focus when you want to manually adjust your focus point when in auto focus mode.

Image stabilisation is activated when the shutter button is half depressed. The lens lets out a faint "zzst" before the viewfinder is stabilised. My non-laboratory test had shown that the IS worked even when slowed down to 1/8s of shutter speed at 55mm, pretty much 3-stops of additional hand-holdability as advertised.

The in-built flash on my 7D is nearly unusable with the 17-55mm, more so when I mount the hood on the lens. The on-board flash does not extend high enough to avoid casting a shadow on my photos.

Image Quality
A lot of people said that the 17-55mm is a hidden L-lens and there is certainly no denial to this fact because it acts just like the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L on a 5D Mark 2, with the advantage of having IS. This wolf in sheep skin is sharp at wide-opened, razor sharp when stopped down to f/4.0 and f/5.6. Colours are leaning to the warm side, the usual characteristic of Canon lenses.

One of the main reasons which got me to acquire the 17-55mm is its ability to deal with colour aberrations(CA). Colour fringing can hardly be seen in my images(only minute amount at the edges) and I attribute this to the two ultra-low disperson(UD) elements in the lens. Sharpness and CA performance are generally constant throughout the range.

The 17-55mm does vignette, especially at f/2.8. At wide-opened, I estimate the light fall-off to be about 1 to 1.5 stops. Stopping down will yield some improvement but it will not remove the vignetting completely. Having said so, I do not really notice the vignetting effect in real-time usage once I get passed f/5.6. YMMV though. Nevertheless, the light fall-off can be easily corrected via post-processing.

Sample image of my niece at f/2.8.

100% crop of left eye(unprocessed RAW image).

Bokeh from the 17-55mm is average and not the best out there. The quality of blur does get a bit distracting with a complicated background.

Example of iffy bokeh, note the distracting background.

However, avoiding cluttered background can still get you decent quality of blur.

Not the best but at least acceptable to me.

Overall, the 17-55mm does impress me in the IQ department. Even after one year of usage, the images produced from this lens continues to awe me, time and again.

Conclusion
The 17-55mm is definitely a high performance lens, a keeper if the focal length works for you. It is a joy to use and the resulted photos are of high quality.

Likes:

• High image quality
• Bright and constant f/2.8 aperture
• Silent, fast and accurate focus
• 3-stops image stabilisation

Dislikes:

• High price for a non-L lens
• Lens hood not included in the package despite the high price
• Mediocre bokeh
  
• Incompatibility with full-frame camera body

If you are bounded by budget issues, you can always consider third-party offerings such as the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 VC/non-VC and the Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 OS HSM.

I got my copy of the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM at SGD1535 from MS Color.

Sample Images