Ray,
I agree with McRat in most of his comments - it's absolute right that today the production cost calculation manager are the people who design the production - not anymore the engineers.
In my business we got this problem in this way that the customer has to play the testing people.....
But to this lens - there was only one negative report at that time - there was a second one
mine....
Anyway - as I wrote before - this kind of lens is the result of the consumer - sorry to say this - but I think I can do it after I work now for more than 35 years on professional level in photography - the crowd, normal make a picture user, are too lazy to get a right lens combination. They got the opinion when they buy a big camera body like the 500 or 1000 Canon they are pro
and than they like not to spent money in proper lenses - they means that one lens have to do this over the whole range.
This is technicely possible - not with a perfect quality but good enough.....unfortunately also for a price which is far above the price the consumer like to pay.
Now the camera producer says - the market like to get a so lens - by the way, this is not the first time that we had this situation in the mid 80's a lot of lens producer offered the same for a while only to do the same sh.. as now - so they design and produce this lenses......on the price sticker the consumer like to see with a quality which not be called quality.....this is the reality.
To the warranty - by this price which this lens cost there is no space for free warranty......today the calculation is so close to the non profit (from the top manager view) that a stop on the production line will create a minus....
This is the other reality. The result of the consumer world thinking - like to get the product of 100 percent quality by 25 percent price......
To your problem now with the lens.
You stuck at first in the problem that your camera (so as the most DSLR user) got not a full size chip - what means that with 1.6 factor it's hard to get a proper wide angle.
The 24 - 105 Canon - which is a very good quality to the price - is with the 24 not small enough.
The Canon EF-S 17-55 (this one can't be used on a full size chip) is a good choice - a little bit cheaper (25 %) is the
EF 17-40 which is on the same level only with the shorter range - I'm very happy with this and you know my opinion about the quality level
......Oscar Wilde......
Forget the EF 17-85 - make a big loop around this....
To fill now the gap between the mild wide angle and the 100 mm - there is the EF 24-105 - which is unfortunately not cheap but will be work very well on the 7D. A cheap alternative would be the EF 28-135 (but this one could be a troublemaker like the 18-200, when you had bad luck - the risk is not so high as the 18-200 but there is the possibility).
Hope this helps.
To the use at World Final - the cold in the morning could be enough to crack inner parts in the lens......this is the sad reality.......this stuff is built to necessary limit.....by this temperature a normal photographer move not his a-s-s out of the door.....
