First of all, let me start to talk about the delivery/amazon.com service for this purchase of mine.
About the delivery/service: (skip this part if you are only interest in the lens review :) )
Usually I am very content with amazon's service. They respond fast and if something goes wrong, they compensate one.
Unfortunately this time, things weren't as great. And to be honest I was just disappointed of the service.
I have an Amazon-Prime account and therefore 2days delivery was 'guaranteed' (cite) since I have purchased this item from amazon. If it was not amazon prime and if it was just delayed for a day, I wouldn't bother mentioning it. Yet this time, the delivery was all confusing. I received daily messages that the item was out for delivery and a couple hours later that the item has to be sent back because of a wrong location. The lens ended up coming late about one week. All wouldn't be as but if I didn't have work to do and a travel for the weekend, for which I both bought this lens for. It is not the fact that it came late which disappoints me so much, it was the fact that amazon guaranteed
two day shipping and as they were usually reliable, I sold my other lens, expecting this one to come on time (It should have come on Wednesday, so I did calculate a possible two day delay...). It is moreover the opportunity costs I had to pay because I did not have a lens in this range neither for work, nor for my journey.
Amazon did offer me some kind of compensation on the first day of delay, a $15 certificate for the next purchase from amazon.com. To be honest with you, this was not worth even a tiny bit of what I missed due to the delay. And until now, I haven't received any information about the further process yet. In this case they should have kept better contact with their delivery/supply chain.
Now we come to the hot part :D
As you can see I still gave the lens 5 stars, because the lens itself is a great piece of glass. I got the lens while it was still on a very good deal!
I just got my copy of this lens today and tried it out right away and I am already happy with this lens! And as you can see I wasn't able to wait to share my excitement (which was quite dampened by the delay though)
Just look at the pictures which were uploaded. This thing is just great!
1) Overall first impression and optical quality:
I am currently using a Canon 7D. My other lenses are: Canon 70-200mm f/4 L, Canon 50mm f/1.8 and Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 fisheye.
The Canon 17-40mm f/4 L just completes my kit.
I haven't had the opportunity to fully tet the lens yet. What I can say is that in good to decent light conditioning this lens is performing at its best! The details, the saturation and the contrast are great with this lens. Moreover you can get really really close to the object. I have the feeling that you could use this one even as a macro lens. I might be one of the lucky person who got a very good copy of this lens, but I am very pleased with Canon so far and think, that their Quality control is really good.
And yes - this thing is BOKEHLICOUS :) Nice, smooth Bokeh!
2) The build quality
Those who had the pleasure to use L lenses before can tell that the build quality and ergonomic of these or second to none.
And the 17-40mm f/4 L is no exception. In fact, this lens is one of the lightest Canon L lenses. But lighter does not mean cheaper. In opposite! The build quality is great. A very sturdy piece of glass, good weight to carry it around all day, attached to a big camera such as the 7D or 5D MarkII without getting tired.
One also has to mention that this lens is weather sealed. IMPORTANT NOTICE: The weather sealing is only complete when you mount a 77mm UV Filter onto it (I decided to buy Hoya . very good quality, reasonable price. No flare at all.)
3) The price
This is in fact of the most affordable lenses by Canon. And yes, call it: BANG FOR THE BUCK. Of course, everything has to be regarded in relative terms. Whoever can really call around $700 to be cheap probably doesn't have quite a tight wallet as most of us.
But in terms of L lenses, yes, this one is one of the most inexpensive glasses you can get. And don't be fooled by the price, this has nothing to do with the quality!
4) What's great about it?
a) It is an L lens
b) Resale price does not drop significantly over time
c) comes with leather lens-bag and hood (for ASP-C DSLRs one has to be another hood though, since this is actually a FF lens)
4) looks sexy because of the red ring ;)
5) Compatible with FF DLSRs (for the future)!
And lastly, yes this lens does not have IS. But at this wide angle one usually does not need one.
And yes, this lens only has an aperture of f4. But as always, ask yourself what you really need and if you really need the extra stop to f2.8 which costs you almost $1000 more. For me, this lens is all fine. Shooting in really poor light conditions might be a little tough, but that's when you should use a flash and/or a monopod/tripod. But even handheld I did not have a huge problem with this lens, most of all because of the ability of the newer cameras such as the Canon 7D to perform quite well in low light in terms of dealing with high ISO.
An update will be coming soon, which will include more about the performance in normal and also in low light!
This product is available as Renewed.
Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras (Renewed) $548.90 + $17.44
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Works and looks like new and backed by the Amazon Renewed Guarantee
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Works and looks like new and backed by the Amazon Renewed Guarantee
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Vermeer wuld have used it
This is a magnificent lens deserving of high praise. In general, I tend to shoot "available light" and towards wide angle, and EF 17-40 F4L is one perfect lens for someone like me. On an APS size sensor camera (mine is Rebel XT), it works approximately like a 28-70 mm zoom--a perfect walk-around lens, giving you decent wide angle and at the tele end, a pleasing perspective on faces you expect from a moderate telephoto. I spent two weeks with EF 17-40 on the coast shooting nature and street stuff in small towns. It performed perfectly. But I only realized what a real treasure I have when I began having second thoughts about it on the eve of a long overseas journey. I asked myself whether I would not have done better buying EF-S 17-85 F4-5.6 IS. After all, it gives you better reach - an equivalent of 28-135 mm zoom on a 35 mm camera. Would it not be a perfect lens on an overseas trip? A dilemma worhty of Hamlet. So I decided to order it from Amazon while I still had time to return EF 17-40. As soon as EF-S 17-85 came, I did some tests taking pictures of still life, flowers and a portrait at similar focal lengths and at full zoom. The results put 17-85 to shame. Color and light were flat and paled next to 17-40. But there was still the problem of reach. I took a portrait at full zoom of the same person (40 mm or 65 mm equivalent and 85 mm or 135 equivalent), cut out the critical focus area from both pix and equalized the two crops in terms of pixel numbers. Unprocessed, 17-85 produced a perfectly focused picture, the 17-40 crop was visibly softer, but in terms of tonality and richness of gradations, it was way ahead of its rival. Photoshop to the rescue! After I fiddled with sharpening and contrast in CS2, the focus softness in 17-40 was gone, and the result was a better all-around picture of the same portrait detail. In other words, if you wish to take a picture, say, of a building's detail or a monkey mug shot in a zoo--a situation calling for a telephoto of 135 mm that 17-85 is capable of--EF 17-40 F4 can do the job, in fact a better job in terms of textures and tonality--and focus, too, if you do a little post-processing in SC2. I am returning EF-S 17-85 and will stick with EF 17-40, taking it on my overseas trip. Unlike EF-S 17-85 F4-5.6, which is a feels like a decent consumer zoom, EF 17-40 F4L is built like a tank and has weather sealing. It should also come in handy if and when I decide to switch to a full-frame camera (EF-S lenses work only with the APS-size sensors).
Top reviews from the United States
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Top reviews from other countries
Ophph
Great Pictures!
Reviewed in Canada on November 28, 2023Style: 17-40mm Lens OnlyVerified Purchase
Nani123
Weiter empfehlen
Reviewed in Germany on May 5, 2024Style: 17-40mm Lens OnlyVerified Purchase
Reginaldo Costa
Série L em alto desempenho
Reviewed in Brazil on January 17, 2021Style: 17-40mm Lens OnlyVerified Purchase
terry
Great landscape lens
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 10, 2021Style: 17-40mm Lens OnlyVerified Purchase
terry
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 10, 2021
Images in this review
Amazon Customer-Amel Akkara
Awesome beginner
Reviewed in India on October 19, 2018Style: 17-40mm Lens OnlyVerified Purchase
