Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Lens

by Geoff 11 Sep 0 Comments

Canon EF 17-40mm f4L USM

The Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Lens is an excellent ultra wide zoom lens for full frame cameras, it has quite a large focal length range from 17 to 40mm.

When used with APS-C cameras the 17-40mm focal length lens range gives an angle of view approximately equivalent to that of a 27-64mm lens.

The optical performance of this lens is excellent with distortions and aberrations remarkably small for such a lens.

The lens is a Canon L-Series lens and is consequently built to the highest professional standards and is regarded as a true professional lens.

Tbhis lens would be an excellent choice as a travelling lens due to its size and wide focal length range.

This lens does not have image stabilisation built in.

In the Canon wide angle zoom range there are three main zoom lenses to consider as follows:

EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye Zoom Lens – The perfect fisheye zoom lens for both APS-C and full frame cameras.
EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Lens – The latest iteration of this super wide angle zoom lens, which is suitable for low light zoom photography.
EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Lens – An excellent super wide lens for general photography. A lighter version of the above f/2.8 lens with a slightly larger focal length range. May be a good travelling lens.

There are several considerations in selecting any of the above lenses:

The L-Series lens will be built to the best quality standards and is designed as a real professional lens.
Wide angle fisheye lenses will give significant distortion to any horizontal and vertical lines in the image, but will give the widest angle of view.
An f/2.8 aperture lens will be a much better lens in available light as it had a one stop advantage over an f/4 lens.
An f/4 lens will be more compact and smaller and for travellers may be more convenient.

See the Flickr site for sample images from this lens.