Header banner
Revain logoHome Page
Ma En ᠌ photo
Taipei
1 Level
134 Review
243 Karma

Review on Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens - Compatible with Canon DSLR Cameras (Lens Only) by Ma En ᠌

Revainrating 3 out of 5

Average quality, not an outstanding product.

The only reason to buy this lens is if you want the best image quality and fast autofocus and you own a Canon crop camera. The lens has many serious flaws that directly affect usability. Unfortunately, there are no image quality alternatives to this lens in Canon's line of crop lenses, so it's unlikely to see an ate in the foreseeable future. The main drawback is the build quality. The lens is heavy, but there is play wherever possible, and it seems that it is about to fall apart. Oddly enough, at the same time I dropped it a couple of times from a height of 1 meter, and nothing happened to it. The consequence of poor assembly is that the focus ring moves too lightly, which causes the trunk to move out under its own weight. Therefore, when shooting at an angle, you have to hold the ring with your hand. For the same reason, it is inconvenient to carry the lens in one hand with the lens down - the trunk immediately leaves and begins to play unpleasantly. The second problem is an outdated set of technologies on board: the stabilizer is frankly weak, it's good if it compensates for 2-2.5 stops. On EOS R, an unpleasant feature was discovered: because. there the stub is always on, its noise starts to annoy. It is solved only by completely disabling stabilization. On the other hand, autofocus, even by modern standards, is fast, quiet and tenacious. There are both pluses and minuses in the picture: in the center of the frame the lens is always sharp, at the edges at a wide angle the sharpness is slightly reduced, but covering the aperture solves the problem. At 55mm the lens can be a bit soft at f/2.8, but this is usually not a problem. Due to old lenses, the lens likes to catch sun hares and fades noticeably in bright sunlight. On the other hand, the lens hardly suffers from chromatic aberrations and distortion. Despite its shortcomings, the lens is incredibly versatile and performs well in all types of shooting. But the cons outweigh the pros too much for it to be unequivocally recommended to everyone.

Pros
  • - Very beautiful and textured picture for the zoom lens - Sharp enough in the center at an open aperture (see comment) - Fast and accurate autofocus - Virtually no distortion - The only universal top lens in Canon's range for cropped cameras - Good solution for shooting 4K video on 5DIV and EOS R
Cons
  • Overall, not worth the money. - Very poorly assembled - The trunk leaves under its own weight; In fact, it doesn't hold wide at all. - Rather weak and noisy stabilizer; fully open at the same focal length gives more blur than a penny 18-55 IS II - The edges of the frame in the wide-angle position at F / 2.8 lose sharpness - Slightly soft at 55mm, but this has never been a problem for me - Strongly loses contrast when shooting against the sun