Digital BW, The Print

Sam,

From what I\ufffdve read, you\ufffdve hit on the main difference between Canon\ufffds two ultra-wide zooms; the 17-40 is better on the short end, and the 16-35 better on the long end. For my money, since I was buying an ultra-wide zoom for the shorter end I went with the 17-40/4. However, I primarily shoot outdoors on a tripod so the f/4 is not an issue for me. If my requirements started to approach the longer end of my 17-40, I\ufffdd probably switch over to a 24-70 at this point. IOW, I wouldn\ufffdt typically buy an ultra-wide zoom for the longer end.

I can\ufffdt imagine you\ufffdd have any image quality issues with the 24 or 35/1.4 primes. From personal experience, I can tell you that the non-L 20/2.8 prime is definitely not the glass my 17-40/4 is. I don\ufffdt even use my 20mm prime anymore! You might want to surf on over to photodo.com just to see what they have to say. I wouldn\ufffdt take their word as \ufffdthe gospel\ufffd\ufffdjust another opinion.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Alan Huntley

> 
> From: Sam McCandless <samcc@...>
> Date: 2004/11/18 Thu AM 10:39:25 EST
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Canon 1Ds MK II
> 
> But I'm agonizing between Canon's two "ultra-wide" 16-35mm f/2.8 and 
> 17-40mm f/4.0 L zooms. Because all I've heard is that one is better 
> at the lower end while the other is better at the higher end. If not, 
> I think I'd prefer the faster 16-35mm despite the price difference.
> 
> And I'm also wondering whether it might not be better to give up the 
> benefit of zooming and get the 24mm and 35mm f/1.4 L prime lenses. I 
> have the 35mm f/2.0 prime and the 20-35mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom and think I 
> see a big difference between them - even with (film) cameras nowhere 
> near as good as the 1Ds MK II. So if the f/1.4 L primes yield better 
> images than the f/2.8 & f/4.0 L zooms, then by using the primes I'd 
> get the better-image benefit plus at least two stops of speed.