Canon 2562A002 EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 is USM Standard Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras

This lens is smooth. It offers me so many new photo ops that I never had before. The IS (image stabilization) is a charm. You shouldn't use it with a tripod, but for the most part it does not blur the picture if you did. (Sometimes the sensor that is trying to constantly focus will move and blur the image when on a tripod. Its best to just flip the switch off and this will not be an issue when shooting) It performs well in low light, both indoors and out, and really enables you to get those shots at dawn/dusk that you otherwise wouldn't stand a chance at getting. An external flash will also give you extra options for shots, but if you are saving money in the short term, this lens will get those low light shots without needing to purchase an external flash as well. Keep in mind the (IS) won't make every shot crisp in low light, but between using that and a tripod, you'll always be able to get that shot, regardless of light. I've had my lens for 2 months, and I've already impressed more friends and family than ever expected. Common questions and comments you'll get include "how were you able to get that shot", "that looks like something a professional would take" and "you really know what you're doing". Of course, even the nicest camera and lens cannot make you a better photographer, it only gives you the tools to do more with your creativity. Aside from having an on/off switch for the IS, you can also turn on/off the manual focus, so that if you aren't ready to take full control, you don't have to. The weight of the lens balances well with a battery grip added to the body. (The battery grip is optional, I got mine through Opteka, and its a great addition for longer battery life and offsetting heavy lens weight.) The overall range that it shoots makes it ideal for your every day lens. With a 1.6x factor on an XT/XTi, you're actually shooting 44-216mm. This will allow you to take your standard shots, get some great portrait photos of friends/families for those special occasions (including weddings), and also give you enough zoom to impress even yourself with the shot potential you will have available... until you find the need or the money to get that telephoto lens. The macro setting also impressed me. It performs surprisingly well, and will leave you smiling day after day. It is not a true macro, but will certainly zoom in within an inch of the subject. The lens has just enough to satisfy both your zooming and macro needs, so you don't have to spend bundles of money on various lenses until you're ready to get serious. The example photos illustrate both of these features remarkably well. This is a great purchase if you aren't able to jump to the L series of glass, and I'd strongly recommend considering this as your optimal walk around lens.

While I considered purchasing a Canon 10D, I also started looking for a good first lens. Most of the reviewers and Canonites on the various forums suggested this lens as a good starting point. The 28-135mm IS USM Zoom is the one I use all the time now on the Canon 10D, and that will be the case until I get over the sticker shock of the 10D/28--135mm combo and start adding other lenses to my kit. In the meantime, this lens gets the job done very well. It gives you good range for a variety of of shots, from portraits to telephotos. There is even a macro mode, which gives you the opportunity to do close-ups--not really a true macro, but okay for shots of flowers, your kitty cat's face, etc. It is the flexibility of this lens that makes it so appealing if all you have is just one lens. And remember that if you mount this lens on a digital camera, like the 10D, the range is actually extended by a factor of 1.6. The USM focuses fast, and the Image Stabilization (IS) really works. In fact, I've been spoiled by it, and IS is now a must for any of the longer lenses I might purchase in the future. The IS system "locks" on target so that camera shake is eliminated or at least seriously minimized. This means fewer shots ruined by camera shake, and the IS system allows the user to shoot handheld at slower shutter speeds. This isn't just advertising hype. It works. The image quality is quite good. I get good color saturation, contrast, and sharpness. After tweaking some shots in Photoshop, I was able to turn out some excellent 13x19 inch prints. As others have pointed out, if you are just starting out with a Canon DSLR or SLR and want one good general purpose lens, this is it. As of August 2008 I have sold this lens because I have moved on to Canon "L" glass, but the EF 28-135 is still a great lens to start with if you are just beginning to learn photography.

I bought this lens because of Canon's reputation and my prior experience with their products. I'll say right off that I am not disappointed. Actually, I'm quite fond of it and it has become my primary 'walking around' lens. As pointed out by numerous other reviewers the lens is quite capable of producing excellent images, especially stopped down a bit, has very good color fidelity, and sports super fast focusing with little of the 'hunting' that bedevils too many other AF lenses. The IS is a great feature too. I'm generally not a big fan of zoom lenses (all my other lenses are of the fixed focal length variety) because of extra weight, mechanical complexity, and often compromised imaging capabilities. However, this lens won me over because it doesn't cost a king's ransom (the "L" lenses come to mind) and is surprisingly light and small given its wide focal length range and decent low-light capabilities. But here's the puzzle. As also mentioned by many reviewers, the lens suffers from "lens creep" where, when it is pointed downward and gravity has a chance to work, the lens will extend to its maximum 135mm focal length. This will happen even faster, and with greater surety, when the weight of a glass filter and/or lens hood is added to the mix. The practical result of this is that the lens, being fully extended, is more open to damage from accidental impact, and if you don't happen to be shooting at 135mm then you will have to re-zoom the lens every time you bring the camera to your eye. This characteristic isn't a deal breaker for me, but it is odd that Canon hasn't come up with a simple fix. Regardless, I've become accustomed to the lens creep, and find the positive features and overall quality of the lens, especially considering the low price, more than enough compensation. Yes, I would heartily recommend this lens to a friend, albeit with a bit of a disclaimer first.

Overall: 73% (3.63 / 5) Don't compare this to an L lens, because its not. but it's price/picture quality are great and provided you dont mind dealing with a few small easily reconsiled issues with the build, this lens will quickly become your favorite and never leave your camera mount. Picture quality: 4 / 5 Images taken with this lens look fantastic. And that's all that really matters. The IS is fantastic and gains you a few stops. 3.5 is good for indoors (especially with IS) use a flash if zooming indoors. Ease of use: 3.5 / 5 I was tempted to give this a 3 star rating here, but this will depend on shooting style I believe. People handholding using primarily autofocus will find the variable aperture makes more work for them. this lense has a macro focus range as well! However, how hard is it to compensate for a variable aperture? Not very, especially at the price point of this lens. If you find yourself manual focusing you'll love the full time manual ring with auto focus over-ride. A nice feature (especially if your camera has live view) the AF is very speedy with a USM Motor. Focal range is very handy and great to work with. Even on a crop sensor (such as the rebel series) if works out to 44.8 - 216mm still a useful range. Build quality: 3 / 5 The main body is sturdy. switches feel durable. 2 major points of interest bring the score down. Lens creep and movement when the barrel is extended. It feels worse than it actually is, and provided you don't drop it all the time, it will last you years to come. To deal with lens creep. Extend the barrel before you start walking around (you'll need to zoom to frame your next shot anyway, so its really not a big deal) I really question canons engineering on this one. Rather than dealing with the lens creep by elimination, they seem to have designed the lens to hold itself when fully extended. (it doesn't creep when zoomed to 135). The result is a lens that when you examine it for the first time, feels like it wants to shoot either at 28 or at 135. If you buy this lens, it's going to feel like it was meant to skip 50mm all the way to 125mm. In practice however, It wasn't ever really a problem as when you're shooting, you have a hand on the barrel of the lens anyway. The barrel felt loose at first to my tastes, but in practice it felt great in my hands. Value for Cost : 4 / 5 This lens puts out fantastic images. At its price range, its undeniably among the best lenses on the market. I was disappointed canon won't include lens hoods without the L designation. Compared to canons competitors (tamron / sigma) their warrantee sucks, but the resale value it nice! I picked mine up for 299.99 refurbished (new is 375.00 as of this review) For 3 reasons. 1. Cost 2. Its tested before I get it, so I know it works. 3. I get a better warrantee with a refurbished item!

Lense has been great so far. I have it on my 1D that I use for a quick grab.

Either it was damaged in shipping, or I got a defective lens. For whatever reason, the picture quality on any photo taken on this lens (with every setting, stop, is on/off, tested) came out blurry, particularly on the left side. Photos taken with my old stock 18-55 lens were dramatically clearer. The zoom range was decent, but I'm disappointed. Sending this lens back. It didn't even come with a manual. I was really looking forward to a lens upgrade. --- Update - I reordered the same lens from the same folks and, surprise, this one came in a real Canon lens box with manual and everything. Clearly the one I sent originally was not brand new. Be advised, if you don't get a manual and a canon box, you're getting sent something that someone else returned. That said, the new lens is beautiful. The shots are crisp and even using it for a few pictures, it's pretty awesome and the best lens I have. If I could, I'd change my rating from 1 star to 4. For the hassle I went through returning the bad lens, I have to take away a star.

First off, this isn't an L lens. Let's make it clear that I am rating it in it's class, in that odd in-between area between the basic lenses and the pro gear. I've been using this as my primary lens on a Canon T2i for 3 months now, and am starting to find where I like it and how to get it to work with my behavior. The IS (image stabilization) is single mode for four axis (up down left right) and works REALLY well, and doesn't seem to be much of a battery drainer as I can fill a 32Gb card (1000 RAW shots approx.) and half of another before I need to change my batteries (using a 2-cell grip); with IS turned off I still can't fill that second card before the camera goes into low-power standby. Not having any 2-axis mode can make IS panning shots a bit of a pain as you have to turn the whole thing off, so it really turns into how smoothly you can hold the camera... no cheating here, folks! While an f/3.5 isn't great, shooting in low light such as stage photography works fairly well as long as your camera has good noise reduction; however stepping up to the f/5.6 when pushed out to 135mm ISO becomes somewhat more tricky, in finding proper light without filling the shot with noise. The aperture is a step and a half down from better quality parts like the 24-105mm f/4L at full zoom, and while the f/4 allowed me to keep at ISO 1600, in the end shooting stage at ISO 3200 with a better quality sensor and a much cheaper lens turned out to be the route for me, and the 28-135mm has been pretty much my given choice for most of my photography. Sharpness is artistically good wide open at f/3.5 through f/5.6, but you will see some softness, especially towards the edge (will be more apparent on full-frame cameras), but sharpens up nicely as you approach f/8, and then softens up again as you push up towards the minimum at f/22, but isn't problematic at all anywhere, largely the reason why I chose this lens. A lot of the other (cheaper) options see a narrower band of "really good sharpness" where here I often shoot with the aperture wide open because it just produces cleaner images. The fact that this lens has full-time manual focus is a joy that you will not get with the basic options, and is something I really recommend to anyone who is chasing the subject and can't make them pose. If the camera locks focus while they are in motion, it is almost constant that it will be off, because the camera's focus intelligence just isn't up to that level, and being able to manually adjust focus at a whim can save you from taking pictures of out-of-focus blur. Placement of the zoom and focus rings is very neat, making the lens easy to work while your eyeball is stuck to the viewfinder. The distance scale is an excellent resource for fixed point shooting as you can easily dial it in after you've found your focal point. And the switches for auto-focus and IS are placed neatly on the left facing surface so again you can easily make adjustments without interrupting your shooting. This lens is an internal zoom, so the end ring does not rotate, which makes it ideal for using polarizing filters. The ultra-sonic motor is quick and quiet, far faster than cheaper lenses, but again an L lens will embarrass it on both factors. In general, if you are looking to build a good rig without spending yourself dry, this is a great way to go. If you are spending the money to buy a higher-grade camera than my T2i, then perhaps you are outside of the class for this lens, and the L series would treat you better, but in general this particular part will treat you right.

I bought this lens to get away from the mostly useless Rebel XT kit lens. I didn't want to drop $1,000+ but at the same time I wanted decent performance. Well, I got it. This lens takes gorgeous pictures with just a hint of softness at 135mm (stopping down a bit helps there) and virtually no barrel distorsion at 28mm. The f/3.5 limit is a bit annoying for low-light situations, but I don't expect f/2.8 at this price range and just use a flash when I have to. Color saturation is excellent and I haven't been able to see any chromatic aberrations at all. Of course, the IS is fantastic, and I find that I can't live without it anymore. I fear I'm going to have to upgrade to an all-IS setup soon. Being able to shoot pictures at lower shutter speeds without a tripod opens up a whole new area for most amateur photographers like me. The build is very professional and it just feels good. It's a large lens (diameter and length) if you're used to the 52 or 58mm glass. It looks very good on a Rebel XT and 30D. On the other hand you might find buying 72mm filters a bit more expensive. Finally, auto focus is as good as most other Canon lenses - I don't use AF very much but I'm constantly surprised at the ability of this lens to focus in very low light or non-standard backgrounds. Very nice. Many other lenses are recommended as an upgrade to the Canon kit glass - this is just a bit more spot on than most. The price is right and the performance cannot be beat.

D'une bonne qualité optique, ce zoom correspond bien à mes attentes. Livraison rapide et un emballge parfait pour la protection du produit. l'objectif EF s'adapte bien sur les différents boîtiers. la stabilisation me change considérablement. je recommande ce produit.

Ottimo rapporto qualità prezzo, obbiettivo abbastanza performance, è adatto per ogni situazione sia esterna che in studio. Non certo una serie L ma fa il suo lavoro discrete te! Spedizione celere, ottimo venditore. Di sicuro effettueró altro acquisti da questo venditore.

さすがキャノン、オートフォーカスは問題なし。このレンズ、手ぶれ補正は弱い、 画質は良かったです。

Great lens - have only taken a few shots so far but it meets my needs for something in between my 18-55mm kit lens and my 55-250mm lens - shipping was super fast and I got it before the expected date. Weight is perfect and the build is solid

I am very much an amateur photographer, so this lens was my first venture into 'serious' lenses. It was a big step for me as it cost almost as much as the camera (a basic Canon DSLR). I really wanted a wider angle lens than this, but, after months of research, I kept coming back to this one as the reviews for it were so good. The only negative aspect of some reviews was that the lens extends under its own weight if held upside-down, and it does - but is this really a problem? It's never really bothered me. Other than that, the lens is absolutely superb. It's the first stabilised lens I've used and the stabilisation is very impressive, you can take excellent photos indoors without a flash quite easily, and it will even work in quite dark situations (although this is pushing the stabilising mechanism to its limit, so it can be a bit hit and miss). It also focuses very quickly and smoothly - and almost silently - again, very impressive. The other thing about this lens which is so good is the detail of the images it produces. I have enough of a background in physics to know how lenses work, so I've never paid too much attention to claims like this, but it's true - this lens will show up detail other lenses just can't capture (and, if you're as short-sighted as me, you didn't even know was there!). The combination of being able to work indoors without a flash and the detail of this lens means you can take really good portraits. The only downside of this is that sometimes you get too much detail - my son was less than impressed when my photos of his baby daughter showed up the new-born spots on her skin, and my wife has forbidden me from taking close-up pictures of her! All in all, a really excellent lens, and a real revelation, if, like me, you've only bought budget lenses before. However, having said all that, unfortunately the lens failed after just over three years of use - the autofocus stopped working altogether and the exposure became completely erratic. Even on manual focus, most of my shots were wasted as the picture was horribly over-exposed. I spent most of a long holiday having to take all my photos with a cheap telephoto lens, which was the only other lens I had with me! (Which indicates just how good his lens is - you start using it for everything, only using other lenses if you need wide-angle or long telephotos, it becomes not just your main lens, but nearly your only one.) I have had the lens repaired, but it's sadly not as good as it once was, the autofocus hunts too much and often won't settle on a final setting - and sometimes fails altogether. I would send it back for a re-repair, but the repair was done through Jessops... Anyway, I haven't docked any stars for this failure, as it's such a good lens it would be a shame to mark it down for what might be just an unlucky electronics failure. Plus I'm not entirely sure it wasn't me who caused it to fail - I don't treat my lenses as carefully as I should.