I've easily selected myself some longer Canon primes, but obviously as it's less easy to keep something framed at shorter focal distances, I'm searching for a short, fast zoom from Canon, and they seem to have left me out in the cold.

I don't have a full-frame digital body right now, but I intend to go that way when something that smells of "3D" or similar comes out (oh, and comes down in price a bit, too).

The 24-70 is heavy, and not-quite-wide-enough sometimes. The 16-35 is excessively wide for a lot of purposes, and while it's a lot lighter than the 24-70, it also costs more (although that's not a huge factor), and 35mm can be shorter than I want for a lot of purposes, too.

Having said that, I think there would be a good market among full-frame DSLR + film users for something along the lines of a 20-50/2.8L.

What does everyone else think? I, for one, would jump at the chance to buy such a beast if it performed well.

Thats funny - there are times when I would like a 20-60mm!

What you say is true. Manufacturers are not likely to have a zoom range that ends at normal f.length 50mm -ish. Its too boring in terms of marketing. Im back to two primes that do almost everything for me.

But... You want a zoom - perhaps a third party zoom will fit your needs? It seems that the 16-35mm and the amazing $79 50mm f/1.8 would come close with a fast lens change. (?)

Wishing You Great Light!

Paul

I think you're obsessing. The two lenses you have, which I also have, overlap between 24mm and 35mm. That's quite a lot of overlap. More than enough for me.

Didn't Canon recently make an 18-55/2.8 IS to fit just that range? Granted, I have not seen the optical quality, but I seem to recall it being quite expensive, so one hopes they have put some work into it.

I don't own either yet, and I think owning both gets me a bunch of range and a bunch of weight I don't want/need.




EF-S 17-55/2.8 IS, which isn't full-frame. I'm also not super-duper fond of IS zooms, as that just adds a lot more elements which increases flare, and either makes the lens cost more (it's a $1200 EF-S lens!) or degrades my image more than it has to. I'll shoot long IS lenses. Short ones don't interest me so much.

I am using a Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC with Canon 30D. This copy is very sharp, with good contrast and colour. May be a bit soft wide open... but still very usable. And the price is quite good, too .
And it's full frame capable (if ever I need it)

Allan

Erm. DC means it's not full-frame capable, last I checked (and I did just check the product page). DG are Sigma's "not just for cropped sensors" lenses. Nikon, Canon, Sigma, and a few others make 18-55mm f/2.8 or similar lenses, and none of them are full-frame that I am aware of. If such a beast exists and has good optics (and autofocus and build quality and ergonomics), I'll buy it.

I was thinking about the Sigma 20-40/2.8 EX DG but the ergonomics are really messed up (I'd like to know where Sigma gets their stuff... I want some, too!), and the optics are reportedly not particularly wonderful in any way, shape, or form...

Yes, my error It is only for APS-C sensors.
Sigma also has a 24-60mm f2.8 EX DG, which is highly rated on FM site.
If you are using full frame then it should probably fit the bill...

Allan

As I've said, though, I'm after something 20mm and up not 24mm and up, otherwise the 24-70 would solve my problem. I've played around trying to get by without going wider than 15mm (24mm on a 1.6 sensor) on my Sigma 12-24, and I just can't do everything I want with it, and I'm not going to settle for a 24-70 or 24-60 zoom and a 20mm prime or something. A 20-50 would be a fairly trivial lens to do "right", and it would cover everything I would want, and would provide a very useful range on both cropped and full-frame sensors.

Get the 50 1.8, you won't regret it.

Since when did the 50/1.8 zoom out to 20mm or thereabouts? And who said I don't already have one? The object here is to have one fast, sharp lens on my camera without switching them around to various normal-to-wide shots, simple as that. Canon does not presently make such a beast.

I appoligize, i was just seconding the comment left by pchaplo. Guess I should have specified that.

I suppose I ought to have been a bit less blunt about that. Everywhere I go trying to find a suitable lens, though, I seem to get quite the flow of suggestions of either "a 50mm and a 20mm" or "an 18-55 (or similar)" or whatnot, none of which do what I want.

I know what lenses Canon offers. I know Sigma offers something that's almost what I want (20-40/2.8), but it seems to have poor optics and lack FTM focusing and a variety of other things that I don't really want to put up with.

Did I miss something here, or did everyone else miss the 17-40L? It's a lot less expensive than the 16-35, and you get the extra 5mm at the (relatively) long end. It does go soft at 35 to 40 mm, but still very usable. A fantastic choice if you're thinking of going full frame in the future. It's not the 20-50 ideal, but it's the closest you can get that I know of, at a reasonable price and high quality.

I have both these lens and love both, The 16-35 is wonderful on landscapes for the full frame 1DS Mk II, Also use it with my 10D. Barrel distortion is neglible and sharpness and contrast are great. The 24-70L is a standard hard to beat, it is very close to the 28-70L that I purchased used as my first L lens. I still use it on my 10D. My lasted purchase the 24-105Lis is nice but not as nice as the 16-35 and the 24-70.

And?

I also recommend checking out the 17-40/4L. I think it is the closest thing available to what the original poster asked for in terms of range, quality, and price.

The build quality's there, and the range is sort-of close, but I am not buying/carring around an f/4 normal lens. The IQ of the 17-40 is also fairly poor at 40mm, which is where it counts (moreso than at the wide end, where you don't tend to crop, or at least don't plan to).

Basically my checklist is as follows: (hope I'm not leaving anything out)

- full-frame.
- L optical/build/AF/etc. quality. Weather sealing would be nice, and I doubt that Canon would cheap out on that. At these focal lengths, I also expect that they can build something on par with the 24-70 at the very least, give or take a tiny bit at the wide end.
- 20mm through 50mm at least (I don't care about anything outside of this, and a 2.5x zoom doesn't represent a lot of engineering compromises). I can't live with just 24mm, I have no use for anything under 20mm, and I don't see the point in changing lenses to have a 50mm given all of that.
- f/2.8 -- I don't care as much at the wide end, but I don't want a 50mm lens that isn't usefully fast under most conditions.


I have, as far as I can tell, totally done my homework on this, and concluded that such a lens a) would probably be useful for a lot of people and b) doesn't exist. I could probably list 95% of Canon's L lenses and non-L primes off the top of my head, so there's nothing I haven't already considered. I've also verified that Sigma/Tamron/Tokina don't offer anything remotely close (except for the Sigma 20-40/2.8, which is garbage).

My experience with the EF 17-40 4L USM is it's extremely sharp throught it's range with only slight degradation at the long end. All in all, it's certainly the equal of the EF 16-35 2.8L USM save being a stop slower.

It was not clear (to me at least) if you actually own both 16-35/2.8 and 24-70/2.8 and wishing for something in between or you are contemplating the purchase of one of them.

But if we are just wishful thinking here, I wish for a 70-200/4 IS or a 200/2.8 IS long before I wish for an additional wide zoom.

This is an interesting discussion on its own.

I think Canon doesn't make a 70-200/4L IS because it would be only a stop off the 70-200/2.8L IS (including IS "stops"), and thus they feel it would eat too much market share.

As for a 200/2.8, I wouldn't bother, probably. IS = more elements = less image quality, in the typical case. True, they've somehow pulled off *not* doing that in the case of lenses like the 300/2.8L IS, but the 200/2.8 is a sub-$700 lens, so either the price or the image quality would suffer, I'd think. I didn't wait to see if a 135/2L IS came out, because I figured nothing was going to appear at the same price/image quality point any time soon.

The price would be the easiest sacrifice.

Nikon has pulled off a good one with their 200mm f/2.0 VR lens, but I don't know whether it's good enough for full frame 135 format (even though it's not a DX lens). A similar product from Canon is over due, I think.

I agree with that, sure the 200 1.8 didn't sell enough for them to keep making it, but just look at the resale prices...somebody wants one.

(other than me)