I am using a Canon EOS 20D since April 2005 (!) with 2 lenses:
- an ultrawide-angle, the famous Canon EF 17-40mm, absolutely great
- a standard zoom lens with Image Stabilized, the Canon EF 28-135mm
I have taken a majority of my pictures with the 17-40mm, which is really very nice. Now, for travelling, and specially when you are in a “non-safe” atmosphere (humidity, dust, sand, etc.), it is quite difficult to change your lens. Without speaking about the transport ;-)
Canon has released this autumn a new lens, which is to my mind the “perfect” compromise between an ultrawide-angle and a zoom lens, the Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6, with Image Stabilization, but without the USM (Ultra Sonic Motor). Perfect compromise for the usage means also automatically … some optical compromises! Which “forces” me to start to use a “post-production” software, to be able to correct some very visible optical aberrations (barrel distortion, chromatic aberration, softness, etc.) with this lens. I am using DxO Optics Pro, but I will talk about that in a coming post!
Good summary from Wikipedia
Reviews indicate that the 18-200 does not compare to the 28-300L in terms of image quality, though this is understandable since the latter is priced much higher, due to it belonging to the L-series line. Most reviewers have criticised the lens for high levels of barrel distortion at the wide end, and chromatic aberration and softness evident at all focal lengths and apertures. The lack of an UltraSonic Motor has also been noted by reviewers, and along with the 18-55 IS has given rise to concerns that Canon may be moving towards removing USM from their lower-end lenses. It has generally been rated higher than Sigma and Tamron’s offerings however, and has gotten generally positive reviews with the caveat that it is designed for convenience rather than image quality.