Back when I was first thinking about buying my 40D, I thought about the first lens I wanted to go with it. I considered the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM, but decided against it due to the relatively high cost. Then, after a couple of months with the EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM I settled upon, I decided I wanted, no, needed the 17-55mm!

The pull of the f/2.8 was just too strong and so last week I took delivery of the lens (and am now looking to re-home my 17-85mm) and it was just how I expected it to be; the fast aperture and IS resulted in an excellent low light performance and the autofocus is blazingly fast.

A couple of aspects which I’d read about, but weren’t expecting were:

• Slightly stiff zoom ring. The zooming action just doesn’t have the silky, dampened action of an L lens such as my 70-200mm f/4. Perhaps the stiffness will ease up over time. We’ll see.
• Clunking at each zoom extreme When you hit either 17mm or 55mm, you really do hit it. The clunking is even there when turning the zoom ring slowly.
• Dust behind the front element. I’d read about a potential dust problem, but didn’t think I’d be seeing it after less than a week. I don’t know how it’s getting into the lens, but I’ve managed to shake off a piece of dust that was sitting on the glass behind the front element. It’s not affecting image quality, though. I even attached a UV filter as soon as I removed the lens from its packaging so I don’t think the dust is making its way through there. See what people are doing to remove the dust [1, 2, 3].

These points aside, I’m going to give the lens a chance to make me overlook the points above and convince me that they don’t impact on what I’m expecting to be a superb lens.  After all, I don’t think a bit of dust inside the lens is going to be an issue at when something like this is taken into consideration.

Oh, and no, I don’t think it quite deserves to bear the L designation. At least not with the above, albeit minor, faults.

Follow-up

After a few months of using this lens, I have to say that I love it.  The dust issue that some people seem to complain about is a non-issue to me as image quality isn’t compromised at all.  The lens’ performance is outstanding; it’s incredibly sharp even wide open, focuses fast and works well in low light thanks to the fast f/2.8 aperture and IS.  For cropped Canon bodies, I think this is the best walkabout lens you could possibly get.  It’s not a cheap lens, but what you get is L-like performance on an EF-S mount.