daring

A few years ago I wouldn't have considered paying this much for a lens. I balked at the price of the 17-40L but bought and used it for two years on a 10D. When I upgraded to a 30D, I replaced it with the Sigma 17-70/2.8-4.5 becuase 40mm was just too short.

A few weeks ago I purchased 17-55 for a wedding and have to say it's definitely worth the money. I'll miss the 70mm of the Sigma, but 55mm is so much better than 40mm. I do prefer the internal zooming of the 17-40L, but having f2.8 and IS makes this a much more useable lens indoors. Overall it feels real nice on my 30D, not too big and the zoom and focus rings have a good solid feel to them also.

I just shot a wedding with this lens and it performed beautifully. I considered using the Sigma initially, but after some indoor focus testings I never felt confident in it's low light performance and it tended to backfocus at a couple of focus lengths. The 17-55 focussed spot on all my shots at the wedding at f2.8. I was also able to reduce the use of flash and get some great natural light portraits, something I doubt the 17-40L or Sigma could have done without bumping the ISO way up. I'm very pleased with this lens and now that I have made the purchase I don't have any regrets. It's a keeper!