Sticky-Ring said:
Tell me about it
so if its a canon lens it realy needs to be an L??
L lenses are good if you have the money, want to make huge prints, and have edge to edge sharpness. People on here recommend them readily because they're very good quality, and they assume you don't want to compromise with your purchases.
Realistically there are some great alternatives from third party lens manufacturers.
The 17-85 IS USM will be good as a walkabout lens, it might be the only lens you'll ever need. If you're going to print average sized prints then what does it matter about it being less sharp than the L lens which doesnt have IS and doesnt have the focal range? It's true that it has barrel distortion at the wide end and if that's going to be a major problem, then you can consider the Tamron 17-50 F2.8 which performs a little better in this area.
So, no, in my opinion you don't have to go for an L to get acceptable results. It's better to think practically about whether you'll be prepared to keep changing lenses, whether you shoot indoors, whether you shoot landscape or not, and whether you want a large focal range zoom or multiple lenses with shorter zoom ranges.
I'd recommend going to your local camera shop and actually trying them out.