I purchased my 17-85mm when I got my Canon 60D last November, at the time the current selling price of the lens alone was ￡350, it offers the same specification as the Canon 18-55mm and that the same of any kit lens including the Nikon 18-55mm, being F3.5-5.6, up close the lens is big, heavy, has a...

67mm thread; Metal Mount; Strong; middle focusing ring

no lens hood included

Great lens but there is better out there

Fast; reasonably inexpensive; Quiet; good images

Better lenses avaialable to do the same job

This lens is somewhat of a mixed bag. Optically, it's a great step up from the kit lens, and a reasonable compromise on price vs. performance. The image stabilisation is great, if not quite as great as the marketing material might suggest.

I found this lens to be a great walk around lens. With the IS it provides lower light hand holdable shots otherwise not possible. Great overall lens for the 20d. Cons: A little vignetting at extreme f4 @ 17mm.

Firstly, let me tell you that I'm a Canon nut. I can't get enough of the stuff and embarrassingly, I've even been known to trawl a popular online auction site to buy apparel that's adorned with the Canon insignia, in that oh so recognisable font. However, I'm not on their payroll.

I've been staring at this lens for quite some time. I've read a LOT of reviews of this lens, some lo

IS; stationery front element; good range for walk around lens

Many have bad things to say about it; slow max aperature; C sized sensors only

When new this is a brilliant lens. Sharp images and fantastic wide to telephoto range. I'm on to my second one of these lenses on my 40D, the first accumulated small particles of dust between the elements and the second one has done the same over a period of a year.

I would like to recommend this lens who are trying to upgrade from their kit lens. Other than a bit of chromatic aberration at the edges of leaves when zoomed. This lens rocks. I bought this lens when i bought my camera body. Till then this lens was my great companion.

The Canon EF-S 17-85MM f4-5.6 IS USM is the lens that I bought to replace the Sigma 18-125mm F3.5-5.6 DC. It was Canon's first EF-S zoom lens with IS (image stabilizer). It was significantly more expensive than the Sigma it replaced.

I got one of these as my first step up from the kit lens on my Rebel XTi, the 17-55 kit lens. It gave me about half of what I wanted but overall I was disappointed. It did not help that I came into this owning an S2 and an FZ5.

it's a nice range; plus with IS it's much more useful than the kit lens; and not too much more expensive

it's even slower than the kit lens focus isn't that great in low light