Canon EF 28 mm-135 mm F/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens

The 28-135 has gotten a lot of both good and bad press over the years. People either like it or they don't. There's little middle ground.

It's often available in kit with a DSLR body, where it usually only costs an additional $200. That's a great value! The lens normally retails for over $400.

I've used two of these lenses over the years and currently keep one as a backup to L-series. Image quality is excellent... On par with 24-70/2.8L and 24-105/4L, both of which cost a whole lot more! Build quality is pretty typical Canon mid-grade... Some plastic, not as well sealed against dust as most L-series... but with USM (Ultrasonic Motor focusing: fast, quiet and allowing full time manual override or FTM) and I.S. (Image Stabilization). Do not that with the type of IS on this lens it's recommended you turn it off when using the lens on a tripod. It doesn't detect lack of movement and turn itself off, the way some I.S. does on far more expensive lenses.

I do recommend getting the accessory lens hood and using it faithfully. It's large and will partly block most cameras' built in flash (but those are wimpy little redeye producers anyway, so of pretty limited usefulness IMO). But it will protect the lens. Don't bother with a "protection" filter. Cheap ones can cause focus errors, image softness, flare and loss of contrast. Quality, mutli-coated ones are less likely to cause problems, but are pretty pricey. Besides, just how much "protection" can you really expect from a thin piece of glass, anyway?

One minor gripe about the 28-135 is that they often tend to have "zoom creep". This is where the lens extends all on its own, while carrying it around mounted on your camera. It's usually just a bit irritating.

As an EF lens (not an EF-S), the 28-135 is usable on both crop sensor and full frame Canon cameras of all types.

28-135 is a nice "normal to moderate telephoto" focal length range on the crop sensor DSLRs most of us use these days. This isn't everyone's cup of tea, but can be very useful. It pairs up nicely with a wide angle zoom - such as Canon EF-S 10-22 or Tokina 12-24/4. In fact, this makes for a very versatile two lens kit that on a crop sensor camera (such as Canon Rebel/xxxD series or 20/30/40/50D, 7D) actually covers a wider range of focal lengths than most film shooters ever owned in their entire lifetimes, back in the days when 35mm was king.

As an f3.5 to f5.6 lens, the 28-135 isn't terribly fast (i.e., doesn't have large max aperture). I.S. helps it overcome lower light situations by allowing you to use a bit slower shutter speeds, as do the higher ISO capablities of many more recent DSLRs. Still, for portraits it can be nice to have a larger aperture lens that allows one to blur out busy backgrounds. The 24-104 is only one stop faster at it's long end. A 24-70/2.8 is only two stops faster. A prime lens such as Canon 28/1.8, 50/1.8, 50/1.4, 85/1.8 or Sigma 30/1.4, 50/1.4, 85/1.4 can give three to four stops more light and control over bokeh. And, slower shutter speeds made possible by I.S. cannot help with motion blur from a moving subject, only with camera shake.

Cheers!

If you need universal lens, and have canon SLR camera, it is good choice for you. It is not ultra-zoom, and photo is good on any angle. Lens provides good, not extremely sharp picture, and some softness is good for portraits, but not gives problems for other kinds of pictures. USM motor is good way to focus lens. It is accurate, fast and silent, and if you want, you can rotate focus ring in AF mode to. Image stabilizer gives you about 2 stops of exposure, where you can shoot sharp picture, but be careful, sometimes you can shoot sharp background, but peoples on top will be blurred because of motion.
I shoot with this lens mostly outdoor, and can say, that it is very reliable lens. Sometimes I'm was caughted in the rain, and can't stop shooting, but lens work great and under rain, and now.

Good universal lens!

wouI bought this lens to take on a snowshoe hike in the back country. We were in a narrow canyon and I thought the focal range would be perfect.

Getting aquainted with the lens I found the zoom ring to be wide and easily recognized by touch. The focus ring is behind that (closer to camera body) and is narrow and took some getting used to. Neither ring is silky smooth but the zoom ring was downright 'catchy'. It seems to be better after some use. Unlike my 16-35mm lens, this lens externally gets longer/shorter as you zoom in/out. If I held the camera face down gravity would cause the lens to 'fall out' to it's longest focal length, VERY annoying. The autofocus works well, quiet, quick and accurate. I took many hand held low-light pictures and most came out better than expected which I attribute to the image stabilization. Tripod shots came out sharp (be sure to turn IS off). On my 5d there is noticeable vignetting at the largest aperture. On this lens the EW-78B II lens hood didn't fit very tight, a minor annoyance. All in all I was very happy with the picture quality and utility of this lens. As a walk-around utility lens with AF/IS I think its a good buy.

Bought for the telephoto range, Put on backup 30D camera.
Not as well built as 17-85 no USM, but Very acceptable.
Been using it for Street photography and its been ideal.

Ok you can pixel peep and put grids up that shows up faults, but I have L glass I can fault too.

Pros: range, price, weight, Good IS, center sharpness.

Cons no FTM, bit of barrel distortion at wide end, CA if not careful

DPP can auto fix most of the problems though.

Love the price, its marriage saving money

In most ways this is an excellent lens. I like the sharpness and color, the focal range is very convenient although it is a bit lacking on the wide end due to the 1.6 cropping factor of Canon digital SLR's. This may be a problem for those that shoot lots of wide angle shots but not that much of a factor for my personal use. The image stabilization is a great feature that saved me many a picture in low light. The lens is a bit bulky but not overly so. For my experience with this lens I'll give it a solid 9 out of 10