Hello all..

I'm in search for someone's opinion please.

I've have a Canon 350D with the 28-55mm standard kit lens.

I am traveling to Greece in a few weeks and would love to buy a good lens to travel with.

I would like all purpose general lens - something I can keep on my canon most of my holiday. Obviously a lens that will travel well.

Any ideas please? I'd appreciate anyone's input or ideas.

Thanks........

A lot depends on whether you tend to do more wide-angle or more telephoto images. I tend to be somewhat of a wide-angle guy, and for my Canon 10D, I found that the 17-40 f/4 L lens was an ideal walk-around lens for me (full-frame equivalent focal range about 27 to 64mm). I used it for more than 90% of my photos and love the lens.

Now I have a 5D (full frame) and I have gotten a 24-105 f/4 IS L, which stays on my 5D almost all the time. I do very much like the Image Stabilization, too, which I don't have on my 17-40. But there is now available a new 17-40 L with IS.

For me, if I were shooting with a 350D today, I'd get the new 17-40 F/4 IS L lens and possible add a longer lens for occasional longer shots. But, as they say, YMMV.

I recently returned from two and a half months in Southeast Asia. I traveled with a Pentax K100D, 10-16mm, 18-55mm, and 50-200mm.

The lens that I generally had on the camera was the 50-200. I switched to the 18-55 when I couldn't back up enough, usually building shots.

After the first few days I just left the 10-16 in the room. I wasn't getting anything with it that justified carrying the extra weight. Were I in a place that offered more "expansive landscapes" then I might have found a use for it.

Just some thoughts..

I've traveled with just the 17-85IS. Dicey in museums, tho.

Something like the 17-55 f2.8 IS or tamron 17-50 f2.8 (No IS) would be a far superior lens.

Do you need a lens longer than 55?

i was in Greece a few weeks ago, and used the 5D and 24-105 about 90% of the time and 70-300DO on the 20D the other 10%

i'd recommend the 17-85IS which i've traveled with a lot on the 20D - i think the IS makes it an ideal museum lens - very desirable in Greece as vitually all the museums allow photos without flash

a telephoto is nice for some architechtural details, closeups of fisherman, etc., but certainly not essential

I second the 17-40mmf4 L lense.
I was in Thailand last year,used it 95% of the time
The other lens I used was the 50mm F1.8.....for indoor shots of the many temples throughout Thailand.

the 17-40 will certainly give sharper images than the 17-85 which is soft at the wide end - but the short maximum focal length is a serious drawback for a general purpose traveling lens

Definately the 17-40 or the 24-105, both great, light lens. If you were just taking the one I would make it the 24-105 without a doubt because of the extra versatility.. have a great time

the 24-105 is a great lens - on a full frame camera

but it's not wide enough for general travel use on a crop frame camera and at focal lengths longer than 40mm isn't significantly sharper than the 17-85 on an 8 megapixel camera

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to read my post and send such good replies.

I am still looking to see what lens I can afford and what I think I should buy..

The majority of photos I take are normally people/cats/musicians - I love taking photos of street musicians in black and white..

I do take allot of nature/landscape pics (but don't really need allot of zoom)

I will let you know what I'm buying )

ONE other question - I've got the "Error 05" on my Canon 350D (unfortunately I don't have the time to send it in for repairs before I go on holiday) so I'm going to have to get myself an external Flash - can I assume that the Speedlite 430 EX (in my budget range) is a good choice?

Speak to you soon!!

340EX is a great Flash, if you are traveling its big brother the 580EX although better is also heavier, thus the 340EX is a wonderful choice. as for the lens, if you dont need much zoom, possibly the 20-35mm lens would be of interest, its really small, and whold get you the view you want, and with the beloved XT the image is quite adequate (i know ppl with full frames will be screaming that its not a good lens) but for a crop its really a good choice!