17-55 f/2.8 or 24-105 f/4 IS lens? help needed

haroldo317 · July 17, 2006

i believe there are some other people with shaky hands like me, who need IS lenses, so can anybody show me samples of what's been done with these lenses?
Andy has made a great job with the 24-105 and i'd like to ask him which is the best for some portraits and macro under low light(walkaround lens).
can anybodyelse help me? please!
thanks a lot

Manfr3d · July 18, 2006

haroldo317 wrote:

i believe there are some other people with shaky hands like me, who need IS lenses, so can anybody show me samples of what's been done with these lenses?
Andy has made a great job with the 24-105 and i'd like to ask him which is the best for some portraits and macro under low light(walkaround lens).
can anybodyelse help me? please!
thanks a lot

Go for the 24-105 if you are using a fullframe body.
Go for the 17-55 if you are using a crop body.

Reaons:

f2.8 will give you shallow depth of field and faster shutter speed,
the 24-105/4.0 will eat one fstop in exchange for 35mm reach.
Not very fair, because for extra reach there are these nice white
70-200 zooms cannon makes, which you can add later (unilke an extra fstop)

Scott_Quier · July 18, 2006

Manfred makes a couple of good points.

Here's something else to consider, just to make your decision a little more difficult. I use my Tamron 28-75 as my walk-around. I was just commenting to my brother that I would love to have had a little more reach and that I had the 24-105. On the 1.6 crop, the 75 still didn't do the job in a number of instances and I had to attempt to get closer to my subject. That altered the awareness of my subject and ruined the shot.

But then again, when I'm walking around, I'm not much worried about DOF.

Nikolai · July 18, 2006

It's a toughie...

haroldo317 wrote:

i believe there are some other people with shaky hands like me, who need IS lenses, so can anybody show me samples of what's been done with these lenses?
Andy has made a great job with the 24-105 and i'd like to ask him which is the best for some portraits and macro under low light(walkaround lens).
can anybodyelse help me? please!
thanks a lot

I'm assuming you have one of them EF-S capable bodies, i.e. 10D, 20D or 30D.
Now, what are you gonna use it for? Depending on what you do each one can be irreplaceable.

24-105 would give you a nice solid reach if you cannot get any closer, but there will be times when it's gonna be too narrow...

17-55 would give you one extra f/stop, shallower DOF and some extras in a wide angle dept, but there will be times when it'll be too wide...

17-55: ...******** f/2.8
24-105: .....**************** f/4.0

Also, if you eventually plan to get an EF-only body (5D, 1D-series, etc) , EF 24-105L lens looks like a much better investment..

Decisions, decisions...

DanielB · July 18, 2006

Nikolai wrote:

I'm assuming you have one of them EF-S capable bodies, i.e. 10D, 20D or 30D.

:nah 10D is only EF

leebase · July 21, 2006

The answer is in the specs. I doubt the choice lay between how good a photo someone like Andy can take. I'm sure he can create beautiful work with either if he's not too busy finding converts for exotic lenses like Distagon's to shoot with.

Your decision should hinge on:
1. Which is more important to your style of shooting 17-23mm or 56-105?

If you asked me, I'd want the wider. You'll need a zoom anyway and zooms go from 70-200. Yes you can get 16-35 of 17-40 zooms for the wide....but you KNOW you'll need a long zoom anyway....you wouldn't need an extra wide zoom.

2. How important is an extra stop? For me, it's very important -- but for narrow dof and low light. Sometimes f2.8 is too slow for my tastes. This is actually becoming an argument in FAVOR of the f4 zoom. I'm coming to the conclusion that then the lights low, I'd rather use an f1.8/f1.4 prime over a zoom anyway.

3. Do you plan to go to full frame any time soon?

I like having a wide lens. I started with the Tamron 28-75 f2.8 and loved the lens, but it's not wide enough. I eventually added the Tamron 17-35 lens which I really like as well. It became my most used indoor lens simply because of the wide angle -- though clearly it was much shorter on the long end than I desired.

When I made my choices, there were no 17-50 zooms. Since IS seems to be on your "must have" list, I won't bother to mention Tamron's 17-50 f2.8 which would by my own personal choice if I didn't have a full frame camera (which I've since acquired).

Oh --and remember that cameras focus better with f2.8 than f4.

Lee

17-55 f/2.8 or 24-105 f/4 IS lens? help needed

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