Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Standard Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Standard Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras
My family bought me the EOS 50D for my 50th birthday. Knowing I'd want instant gratification, they opted to make this purchase with the EF28-135mm kit lens. I have since shot around 5000 images with this lens, and being the ultimate critic have done a lot of situational testing shots (ok, I'm an amateur techie), juxtaposed in between 1000's of more important vacation, soccer, music concert, and wildlife shots.

I have to say that I'm fairly pleased with the results in general. I do see some softness in some shots, but always get acceptible results for "family photos". Stopping the lens down a bit to F7.1 or F8 helps, but I think some of the softness is just inherent with the glass being used in this lens. The zoom range is great (4.8X), and makes this lens good for general walkabout, but I find myself in a bind at times without wide angle capability due to what the 50D's APS does to 28mm.

As mentioned, the lens softness is to be expected from the glass Canon used in this lens. I've also shot about 5000 shots with "L" glass, so I have a good basis for comparison on the 50D. I've gone through several micro-focus adjustment exercises with my copy of the 28-135 and found that at 28mm no correction was needed, while at 135mm the lens was front-focusing around +1 setting. So I opted to set a -1 adjustment for this lens in the 50D's lens calibration memory. I also compared the best micro-focusing I could obtain with LiveView fully zoomed on tripod, to that of AF on the same test shots, and saw similar performance. This particular result leads me to my general softness comments.

Even so, I'm still pleased with the lens and shots taken in all sorts of light. (Note, the 50D does an excellent job with higher ISO settings, so I've captured some really good low light shots with the 28-135 as well as "L" lenses, benefitting from IS, and DIGIC IV assistance.)

I did notice the well publicised lens creep issue with this lens, which can be really annoying when you need to shoot several shots with one hand (holding on with other hand, holding branches out of the way, etc.) I tried the well publicised rubber band trick, and that worked exceptionally well, except I noticed after several weeks that the focus ring had become jammed and was very hard to turn. I diagnosed this to the fact that the rubber band keeps the focus ring from turning at all, as well as adding tension to the zoom ring. The lens tries to move the focus ring slightly when focusing, and over time can mis-align the internal workings with the focus ring. Forcing the focus about 90 degree's rotation seemed to realign the mechanism, and focus ring movement became smooth again. I think I'll look for a narrower rubber band, or live with the lens creep. I thought I'd broken the lens at first...

IS and USM are must-have's, in my opinion on any lens. I found at least 2 stops of benefit from the 28-135 IS, even more after I'd been jogging or climbing and was out of breath. And I know that the people sitting around me really appreciate the silence of USM AF.

No lens hood or case comes with this lens - that's typical for non-"L" lens.

The macro focus feature and capabilties of this lens are very good. Again, stop things down a bit, have good light, and you will be pleasantly surprised.

Why only 4 stars? Not because of its softness (most cheaper lenses have this limitation, especially above 12 megapixels). No, mostly because of the lens creep, new out of the box (I would expect this over time, not new), and because of the focus ring getting jambed (this is supposed to be a lens with no mechanical link to the focusing ring, so that you can manually focus after setting AF in AF mode, so why would it jamb???).

Would I recommend it to a friend? Absolutely. I've got many, many good shots to attribute to this lens, and I never leave home without it. Someday I'll be an all "L" glass guy, but until then, this is my mid-range lens and it does the job.

I've owned one of these for about 5 years and through usage it doesnt seem to focus from side to side. I've chalked this up to wear so I ordered another one but when it arrived the auto focus motor was frozen so I sent it back and rented a 24 to 70 L series lens from Lens Giant for a month. Wow, it is great but the price is 3 times the 28-135mm. The 28-135 is a good lens at f.8 and above at short distance. Not so good wide open with large groups such as wedding party altar shots. I'm still debating on what to by but I think it will be an L series.

The Canon EF 28-135mm IS lens is Great. I have used is almost exclusively for 6 months. It is my #1 all around lens. I no longer use the 18-55mm lens that came with my XSi. I take many photos from wide landscapes from the Grand Canyon to fine macro flowers. The manual/auto option allow me to vary any focus. The IS works great to stabilize shots. The lens is a little heavy because of its size but not unbearable. You can view many of my photos taken with this fine lens at [...]

A great little lens for the price, I like the versatility it allows. I have other lenses that overlap this one's do more with it than any other one lens. Even at that it is not the one lens for everything but it does allow for more without changing out the lens as often. I really like it and I would recommend it for anyone even though it is a little slow. Images are crisp and there is no apparent loss at the edges.

Recently I bought this lens for a Canon EOS Rebel T1i 15.1 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with 3-Inch LCD and EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens thinking it would be a great choice for all-around shooting due to its versatile focal length. In addition, since the T1i has some limited video capabilities, I figured it could double as a video lens. Unfortunately the image stabilizer is too loud to use during video shooting when using the built-in mic, but arguably the T1i is at least partially to blame since it does not provide an external mic input. Anyone shooting DSLR video with this lens might do well to switch IS off before rolling.

If your application is still shooting, however, you'll probably be well satisfied with the versatility and performance of this lens. Note that not all Canon IS lenses are created equal, however, and the older IS technology in this lens is good for about 2 stops of shutter speed versus 3 or 4 stops for the latest technology. Still, the Canon 28-135 IS USM is difficult to beat for value and may be the most versatile Canon lens under $500.