Nikon AF-S 17-55mm f/2.8G DX: Real-World Sample Images

Nikon’s technical name for this lens is the AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED.

It’s designed for Nikon’s cameras with the DX cropped sensor, so to convert to full-frame equivalent, you multiply by 1.5. So on a camera with a cropped DX sensor it comes to around 26 to 83mm. At its widest end, it’s not notably wide. And zoomed in, it’s not especially tight and is on the very bottom end of the range you might use for something like portraits.

That 1.5x conversion applies to the angle of view, not to the aperture. The lens is still f/2.8 for exposure on a DX body, so your shutter speed and ISO settings are the same as they’d be with any other f/2.8 lens. What does change is depth of field: frame the same shot on DX and you’ll get a bit more of the scene in focus than a full-frame camera would give you at f/2.8.

But it nevertheless turns out to be a very useful general lens. There are of course lenses in Nikon’s range that zoom in much more than this, like the 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 for instance, but one of the key attractions of this lens is its fast aperture that remains constant throughout the zoom range (that is, the maximum aperture is f/2.8 whether you’re zoomed out at 17mm or zoomed in to 55mm, whereas some other zooms have a slower aperture when zoomed in). The f/2.8 aperture has become somewhat of a de facto standard for many “pro” lenses, and it’s what explains the sizable price difference between this lens and something like the 18-300mm.

And while the 17-55mm doesn’t have vibration reduction, that fast aperture helps it perform well in low-light situations.

Because it’s a DX lens, an FX body will switch to its DX crop automatically when you mount it, so you end up with a smaller file rather than a full-frame one. You can override that and shoot the whole frame, but the image circle doesn’t cover it. In his review of the lens, Thom Hogan found clear vignetting from the small image circle starting at about 26mm, so from roughly 26mm to 55mm you can get away with it in a pinch. It’s not a way to turn this into a full-frame lens.

So, all in all, I found this lens to be a great all-purpose travel lens and one that I left on my camera for quite a lot of the time. These days I’m mainly shooting full-frame cameras, but despite having been out now for quite some time — released in 2003 — the 17-55mm remains an excellent lens if you’re shooting on DX bodies.

I’ve traveled quite a bit with this lens. Here’s a collection of sample photos I’ve taken with this lens that hopefully gives you a sense of how it performs in real-world shooting. You can click on each image to open a full-size version if you’d like a closer look.

Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 sample images