gear

THE DIGITAL SOAPBOX OF ANDY CLEAVENGER

17-35mm AF-S D

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Email:  graycard18@gmail.com

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Performance-wise, this is the best wide angle lens I’ve ever used.

It’s very sharp at all focal lengths, and focuses much closer than the pathetic 20-35mm 2.8. This allows you to use the lens for what it’s intended; getting right up close to your subject and exaggerating it.

It’s a shame it’s so God damn big. That alone is what keeps me from using it most of the time. It simply won’t fit in any but my largest camera bags. So recreational use is out right there. At work, this lens has been replaced (with mixed results) by the 12-24mm. My wife who shoots weddings prefers this lens over the 12-24mm for a very good reason. Ultra wide angle lenses pull and distort anything that gets anywhere near the edge of the frame. This makes people look like coneheads if shot from above, or it exaggerates the size of their...  um...  back porch...  if shot from below. This 17-35mm, when used a 1.5X crop DX camera, is much kinder.

Even though we don’t use this lens much now, I will never get rid of it. It’s probably not too many years down the road before full frame will be affordable for the recreational shooter, and when that happens, I’ll already have just the right lens.