Canon 17-55mm/24-70mm

[Carl in Louisiana]

I remember reading somewhere here about one of the forum members having the 17-55mm lens. My question is which of the two mentioned would be best for the Canon 60D and please help out by stating why. I want to get another lens and I am looking hard at these two. I will be shooting in a lot of low light areas and sports so that is the reason for these two. Should I go the extra 300 or so dollars for the 24-70 or save the 300 or so dollars and go with the 17-55? I still have a ways to go on the savings part but like to give things a long looking over before deciding. Oh and I don't see myself upgrading to the FF. Thank You for any and all comments to help out.

Carl

[Donald]

I don't have either lens, but there has been a lot of discussion on here about them in the past.

So, until others offer comment you might want to check out this, and this.

[Colin Southern]

Basically the 17-55 on a crop-factor camera like the 60D gives the same field of view as a 24-70 on a full-frame camera, so think of the 17-55 as being the "24-70 for crop-factor cameras", although personally, I'd probably go for the 24-105mm in preference to the 17-55 if I had to have just 1 general purpose lens.

[rpcrowe]

I had both the 24-70mm f/2.8L and the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lenses. I purchased my 24-70L before the 17-55mm was offered by Canon.

Both lenses produced excellent image quality. You hear a lot of negative reports about the 24-70L but my lens, which was an older copy, produced outstanding image quality.

When I used my 24-70L, it was usually in a three lens setup. I needed a wider lens, so I carried a 12-24mm Tokina and I needed a longer lens; so I carried a 70-200mm f/4L IS lens. Since I don't like to change lenses in the field, I would carry at least two cameras, and sometimes three. This meant a heavy equipment load. The 24-70L is nicknamed "the brick" for a good reason! It is a darn heavy lens.

When Canon introduced the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens, I decided to try it. I love the combination of 17-55mm f/2.8 IS and 70-200mm f/4L IS lenses on a pair of cameras. That has become my standard travel and general photography setup. The 17mm short side is plenty wide enough for me although the 55mm long side is not quite long enough. I would not be happy using the 17-55mm lens alone because of the lack of focal length of the long side but, with the addition of the 70-200mm f/4L IS lens (especially on a second camera) the setup is ideal. See my China galleries which were shot exclusively with a 17-55mm f/2.8 IS and a 70-200mm f/4L IS on a 30D and a 40D camera ( http://rpcrowe.smugmug.com/ )

I like the IS capability of 17-55mm because, combined with the constant f/2.8 aperture, this lens is quite a viable low light glass.

If I were only going to use one lens, I might consider the 24-105mm f/4L IS lens. I am not a great fan of wide angle shooting and the 105mm long side would be worth the hit I would take on the short end.

For a while, I kept the 24-70L and primarily used it in studio work. However, I loooked at the use I was getting out of the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS and 24-70mm f/2.8L lenses and decided to part with the 24-70L I sold it to a friend in my camera club who uses a full frame camera and is quite happy with the lens...

The nice thing about high quality lenses is that they maintain great resale value. I purchased my 24-70L used and sold it after about 4-years (at a profit) to fund my 7D camera.