A question that I often see being asked in photography forums is

What’s a good walkabout lens for my xxxD?

Rather than it being a reference to lenses with legs, a walkabout lens is one with which you might take out on a day of walking whether it be to a park, to the shops or to your friends barbeque. The requirement being that because you don’t know what type of subject you’re going to come across you take a lens that can cover most general situations rather than lugging about a heavy bag filled with lenses.

Prime lenses don’t fall into this category very well unless you’re deliberately wanting to restrict yourself to a single focal length. As such, zoom lenses - particularly those around the ’standard’ lengths - are favoured for this role. In particular, zoom lenses that start at a wider (<= 35mm) focal length and reach up to short telephoto (=> 50mm). These ranges often provide a good balance between focal length range, image quality, cost and weight.

As I shoot with a 40D, my own choice of a walkabout lens has to take into account the ‘multiplication factor’ due to the cropped sensor. Initially, the Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM zoom was my choice of lens. After deciding that I wanted a standard zoom which offered a faster aperture, I bought a Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM zoom lens despite reports about problems with dust. After my initial encounter with dust inside the lens, I’m glad to say that I’ve not had any more such issues and that the lens has performed brilliantly for me.

If I could only take one lens out with me, perhaps if I was traveling and wanted to keep weight to a minimum, my choice of walkabout lens would be the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM. It’s certainly not the cheapest lens in this category, but it’s by far one of the best for a cropped sensor Canon DSLR in terms of features and performance.