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156 of 164 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb must-have mid-range lens for any photographer, 13 Mar 2005
Although a photographer will generally accept having to spend a little more for a good wide angle or zoom lens, many will make do with the standard mid-range zoom lens which comes with their camera. This lens in my view proves that to be a less than brilliant choice, as it is a superbly specified and well-built built mid-range lens which is quite affordable (particularly against the L-series offerings) and therefore a great lens for anyone's collection.So what does this lens deliver which others do not? Well, for one thing it has a wide zoom range - 28mm at its widest and 135mm at maximum zoom. This means that for much of the time you do not need to keep on changing the lens with other lenses in your arsenal. Certainly architecture and portrait shots are perfectly covered with this lens and even landscapes and wildlife subject to what you are trying to frame tend to be handled fairly well. It uses Canon's USM technology making focus incredibly fast - very useful when following fast moving objects. This was the first lens I bought with USM and is something I would not go without for any other lens from now on. The Image Stabiliser allows you to take photos at slower shutter speeds than would normally be possible due to camera shakes (as a rough guide it seems to allow an extra 2 fstops on your aperture). This works by in essence floating the glass elements with the lens body to counter camera shake... it does sound a little odd but works remarkably well and from my experience Canon has done a better job on this than any other lens provider for the Canon EF mount. The build quality of the lens is also something to be admired. It feels like a professional lens (in part due to it being quite large and heavy, a result of its wide range and high glass quality) and I like the fact that I can manually adjust the focus ring on the lens without being forced to switch the lens from auto to manual. For my own use. I have tended to use this on a digital camera (300D / Digital Rebel) with a 1.6x optical magnification making it equivalent to a 40mm - 215mm lens. Although this might seem slightly on the high side of an ideal mid-range the fact that it works for both my digital camera (with an EF-S mount) and my film camera (EF mount) means that I would not consider any EF-S equivalent. That said, the only downside is that I do sometimes wish the wide angle of the lens reached to 24, as with a digital camera I often find myself wanting to shoot in the 24-28mm range which allowing for optical magnification is equivalent to circa 40mm in old money. So to conclude... well, just buy it - for me it provides a superb quality lens offering a great optical range, high quality glass and the various other features essential for everyday photography for the professional and amateur alike.
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