A few of you commented on my previous posts about deciding on my next lens. For those of you who posted and emailed, I would like to extend my thanks- your advice and anecdotes were all very warmly received.

I was going to write about the decision support system that I wrote using Numbers (in fact, the draft is sitting here in ecto), but to be honest the DSS didn’t really help me make my final decision. The decision about what lens I should get was made by the reason I was looking to get the lens in the first place. As Frank Lloyd Wright had said; ‘form follows function.’

I wanted a lens to use as a landscape lens on my Canon 40D for an upcoming trip to the American Southwest. This isn’t our first trip out there and I’ve learned a lot about what I want and need in gear (photography and otherwise!). Naturally, I didn’t need a new lens (few could really say that they do), but I wanted a good lens to try to do justice to our planned destinations.

The real needs were real simple:

  • high-quality
  • wide-angle
  • fast-focusing

Having been in the deserts of the Southwest, I also had one strong desire:

  • dust resistant

Unfortunately, nowhere did these needs/desires require image stabilization (I’ll have a tripod) or really wide aperture (f/2.8 is great, but I won’t be shooting there anyhow).

So while I wanted to justify the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L USM, I didn’t need f/2.8. The EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM didn’t have weather sealing and I didn’t need IS or f/2.8.

In the end the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM will fit the bill quite nicely. A great quality lens with weather sealing (no more crunchy lenses for me!) for a very acceptable price.

For now, though the weather that it’ll be resisting is snow…

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