Tokina 10-17 or Canon 70-200

[Nettheim]

I' m stuck in a jam. I'm selling my bike at the moment and have enough money for one of either two lenses.
Either the Tokina 10-17mm or the Canon 70-200 f/4.
I just want peoples opinions on what you would pick. If you have both a telephoto and a fish then which one you use more and what do you prefer.
I will be shooting mostly MTB if that helps.

Cheers

[wazonthehill2]

What do you already have
What do you typically like to shot

[Nettheim]

I have a standard canon 17-85mm IS USM.

[PiroStitch]

Is that motorcross or mountain bike? If it's mountain bike, are you talking about downhill/cross country or trials?

When I was shooting downhill mtb, I found I rarely used my tele. Mainly the wide and mid-zoom lenses served a better purpose, then again my preferred style was to get in nice and close to the riders along the track. If you go for panning shots, it's easier to pan handheld with a lighter lens unless you get a monopod for the tele.

Your current 17-85 should serve you well and my suggestion would be to get the 10-17 to get some nice, wider shots.

[ozimax]

17mm and 200mm focal lengths are two different fish entirely. What are you going to photograph mainly? That would be my question, before deciding on which lens to purchase. I have owned the 70-200 F4 and it is a wonderful lens.

Ozi.

[wheels]

I've got the Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS and love it. It lives on my 20D. The F4 version is still a great lense as well. Here is a review, just find your lense and click on it:
http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/overview
Having said that I'm looking for a nice wide lense as well because the Canon lense isn't my choice for wider shots and the current kit lense I have for that isn't quite up to it. Point to note tho, if you intend to use the 70-200mm all the time you do get a bit sick of lugging the thing around. Granted the F4 is a bit lighter than the F2.8 but it is still heavy!
Ozi makes a good point as well, your 17-85 has a lot of the wider stuff covered already. Go big!

Edit: Something else I neglected to mention - you already have a 17-85mm. If you have any filters for it the 70-200mm F4 takes the same filter size - 67mm. Makes life easy! Not sure about the Tokina? Can you actually fit a filter to it?