Canon 17-40 Reviews and Samples

Collected here are links to Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM user and professional reviews, and samples of photos taken with this lens.

Canon 17-40mm Reviews

Photozone.de's Canon 17-40mm review
There are six sample shots taken with the Canon 350D / Digital Rebel XT, and the conclusion is:
"The Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 USM L showed a very good to excellent performance in the lab as well as during the field tests. The lens exhibited very little vignetting and excellent resolution figures. On the downside the level of distortions could haven been a little better at the wide-angle setting. Typical for most wide-angle zooms chromatic aberrations can be visible but the problem remains comparatively low. The construction quality is next to perfect. All-in-all probably the best standard zoom for APS-C Canon EOS DSLRs at the moment."

EF 17-40 review at The-Digital-Picture.com
The review article summarizes the 17-40mm as:
"Because it is a very high quality but moderately-priced ultra wide angle zoom lens, the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0 L USM Lens is one of Canon's best selling lenses."
Incorporated in the review are resolution and vignetting tests. Also useful are the excellent, albeit resized, examples of photos with the 17-40 which give a good idea of the applications this lens can be put to.

User image samples

Alaskan Aurora, September 2007

View a larger version of Jason Langiewicz's three gorgeous images in this forum post. Exposures ranged from two to fifteen minutes, at ISO 160 and 200.

Yosemite and beyond

Adam Attoun shared these wonderful set of images in this thread. The post-processing resulted in images with strong colors which might not appeal to some, but I found them to be just to my taste.

All of the photos except the panorama were shot with the 17-40mm lens. The last photo is of tufas at Mono Lake.

Other Resources:

1. Official EF 17-40 site - get MTF charts and full specifications of the lens.
2. EF 17-40 user reviews at Fred Miranda - a nice compilation of user opinions on this lens, with an overall rating, pros and cons.