Compare Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens to Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 Lens

To meet user demands for a fast EF-S zoom lens, Canon has specially designed a new lens with a large aperture of f/2.8 for select Canon Digital SLR cameras.* The large circular aperture produces a shallow depth-of-field, creating background blur that draws attention to the photographic subject. The lens construction includes UD and aspherical elements, which deliver impressive image quality throughout the entire zoom range. Image Stabilizer lens groups shift to compensate for camera movement so that the image appears steady on the image plane, ensuring clear, crisp images, even in dim light. With a Ring-type USM, inner focusing and new AF algorithms, this lens achieves autofocus quickly and quietly, and with full-time mechanical manual focusing, manually adjusting the focus is possible even in AF mode. Less

This lens, used alone without attachments, performs macrophotography from life-size to 5x magnification. This lens offers much better portability and operability for outdoor high magnification macro photography of flowers, insects, etc., than conventional bellows systems. The optics uses a 3-group floating system, which moves three lens groups independently for focusing. This compensates aberrations caused by the large changes of image magnification inherent in macrophotography, while achieving high magnification from life-size to 5x and a fast f/2.8 maximum aperture. A UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) glass lens element corrects chromatic aberration, which is often a problem in high-magnification macrophotography, and achieves a high-resolution and high-contrast image without color fringing. Less