I recently decided to update from my existing Pentax ME Super and purchased a Canon Elan IIe, with a 28-115 IS Zoom. I typically did a lot of landscapes in the past and had on many occasions, wished that I had something wider then my old 28 mm. In my ever expanding plan to increase my camera equipment, I'm thinking of purchasing the Canon 17-35 Zoom. Everything I've read about, says it's great, if not one of the best zooms currently on the market. I just read "How to Photograph Landscapes" by Joseph Lange. I was extremely impressed with the photos in the book, but noted that 95% of all the photo's were taken with either an 35-70 mm or a 70-200 mm, vary little with 20 or 24 mm and nothing in the 17 to 20 mm range. I'm now rethinking my purchase of the 17-35, any thoughs or suggestions would be appreciated.

Regards Charlie Lozinger

-- Charlie Lozinger (clozinger@dnet.net.id), March 03, 1999

Answers

Charlie, the conventional thinking on landscape photography is that you should use a wide-angle lens to get a lot in the picture. That's true, as far as it goes, but while everything is in the picture, everything is also very small in the picture except foreground objects. This can be very effective, but most of the time I prefer a longer lens, which compacts space and gives a view more similar to what the eye sees when looking at a distant object. Distant mountains look like mountains again, instead of little bumps on the horizon! If I could have only one focal length for landscapes, it would be 135mm.

-- Dave Jenkins (djphoto@vol.com), March 03, 1999.

The 17-35L is not that great relatively speaking. The 28-70L and the 70-200L are much closer to prime quality than the 17-35L. I'd skip this lens and plan to get the following (in the order mentioned):

70-200/8, 1.4x, 20/2.8, 50/1.4, 300/4 (IS version if you like it).

However, since you mention that you wished you had a wider lens than the 28mm you might want to get the 17-35L or better still the cheaper and sharper 20mm lens. After all, it all about your taste and not emulating the approach that you see in books.

-- Costas Dimitropoulos (costas@udel.edu), March 03, 1999.

I believe it is a bit of a waste to spend all that money on a fast wide angle zoom lens. It make more sense to spend money on a fast telephoto or telephoto zoom. My use for a wide angle lens in nature photography is landscapes and for that I always use the lens stopped down. Stopping down to say f8 or f11 you can just as well buy the EF 20-35 f3.5-4.5 consumer lens. Stopped down it will be hard to tell the difference between the 20-35 and the 17-35 L. However, the 20-35 have more distorion (barrel) at the wide end. For that reason I sold mine, replace my 28-105 with a 24-85 3.5-4.5 (which is great stopped down), and bought a 20 f2.8. I can recommend this combination.

-- Nico Smit (nico@anp.co.za), March 03, 1999.

If your experience usually dictated a wish for a wider lens, this lens gets WAY wider. It is really unbelievable how close you can be to something, yet how much of it this lens can get in the picture. Staggering.

My copy of this zoom lens is lightning fast, extraordinarily sharp, and damned difficult to manually focus. (The lens works perfectly, but I have the hardest time trying to tell if it's in focus when looking through it.) I think others share this sentiment.

-- mike c (mike@eagleriver.com), March 03, 1999.

Charlie, for the price of the 17-35mm f/2.8L I would suggest saving some money and getting the 20mm f/2.8 USM and/or the 24mm F/2.8 (non-usm). Your 28-135 IS lens should work great when stopped down for landscape photos with lots of DOF for the longer focal ranges. Most every review I've read on the 17-35mm is really positive, but 17mm is REALLY wide and you could run into problems with vignetting and polarizers, etc. I have a 20-40mm lens and at 20mm I get a lot of landscape in, but like others have posted, the mountains, etc come out really small on the print. You need at least 11x14 and larger enlargements to get some good detail of the mountains... it's all up to you really, you'll be the one taking the pictures...good luck

-- Bill Meyer (william_meyer@stortek.com), March 04, 1999.

Well - you certainly got a lot of good help - here's my 2 cents

I have this lens and use it for city, architectural and landscape work. (I also have the 24mmF2.8 - which I never use - it's in my wife's bag). It's great - you can be bold at the wide end and conservative at the short end.

I DO use a full width POLA with no problems at all all the way to 17mm (the lens hood cuts off more ange than the filter - a good way to check if you are buying or stacking filters.

I've been suprised how often I choose this lens and how it has drawn me down into this end of the focal lenght spectrum for a major portion of my shooting.

-- Mike Milton (ArtTech_Explorations@csi.com), March 04, 1999.

I'd like to thank everybody for thier input. After much thinking I decided there was only one sure thing to do and that was to by both the Canon 17-35 and the 70-200 (I've already got the 28-135 IS). Next I'd like to purchase the Canon 300 mm IS and posibly the 1.4 and/or 2X teleconvertor. Any comments on them would be appreciated.

Thanks everybody for your help and for supporting this Forum.

Charlie Lozinger

-- Charlie Lozinger (clozinger@dnet.net.id), March 09, 1999.