Kit lens - softness at full zoom?

[Watarski]

I've been primarily using my new XT for wakeboarding pictures. Unfortunately I have to zoom out all the way, and it is still not close enough. Aside from that, the pictures are a little soft, not as sharp as I would have hoped. I have started to look at zoom lenses and wonder if anyone has experience with this one: Canon-EF-28-135mm-f-3.5-5.6-IS-USM. For $400 that would get me in close enough without having to be at the limits of the lens. Thanks for the help-

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-28-135mm-f-3.5-5.6-IS-USM-Lens-Review.aspx

[Watarski]

no one can provide insight on this lens, or the softness of the kit lens?

[GNMink]

Look at a used 75-300 IS or the 70-300 IS either would be good budget tele's

The 28-135 is a "good" lens but seems to suffer from a wide variation between copies and is still not quite long enough for what your wanting to shoot.

The Kit lens is fine but on the soft side wide open, but its not a a very long lens even on a croped camera.

[twisted pixels]

Hi Watarski.
The 28-135 IS is a reasonably good lens for the money. I think people under rate it a bit. This lens has worked good for me for many years. Its a very good all rounder in my opinion and a good starting point if you dont have a lot of bucks to spend. It has produced some damn fine photos for me.

The kit lens I have that came with the 20D (18-55) Can seems to be a good lens providing you keep it at f8-f11. At the extremities it suffers.

Hope this has helped.

[kraterz]

The kit lens is very good value for money. Of course it's not the greatest lens in the world and yes it is soft at 55mm but stop down a bit and it is quite good.

[Tee Why]

kit lens is soft at the long end. Also consider AF issues shutter speed/subject movement as a possible contributing factor with fast action shots.
The 28-135 is a decent lens but not the sharpest at it's long end either. Consider a Sigma 70-300 or a Canon 70-300IS as well.

Good luck

[::John::]

As others have said, stop down a bit (F/8 or f/11 or so) and see how it goes - I managed to get some pretty decent pictures with the kit lens on the 350D - but I also had to perform some post-processing on them in Photoshop - you will see people referring to something called USM and post processing - they are sharpening the pictures after they are taken with a program like Photoshop or Elements - this is also standard for the 350D (and other digital cameras).

If you have motion, however, you will also see soft pictures unless you absolutely nail the photo when you take it - even USM can't help motion blur.

Good luck, take lots of pics and enjoy. It is a fun camera to have.

[basroil]

first off, this is the camera section, lens questions should really be done on the lens section... secondly, check to see how much you cropped from a 55mm lens before considering others. if you crop to 25% of the area and are satisfied, 28-135 should have enough reach. if you need less than 25% of the picture before you are satisfied, you need a dedicated telephoto. 7x-300 models from sigma and canon are worthy mentions, and if 500-600 is your price range, the 70-200f4 can't be beat in wide open sharpness.

[stjhie]

consider getting the 70-20mm f/4L USM lens. it's an "L" lens and a very favourite newbie lens. I'm thinking of getting it soon too.

[Petelebon]

This 28-135IS lens was meant for full frame sensor cameras and thus is not wide enough on cropped sensor cameras such as D rebel, D rebel XT, or 20D/30D.

The direct equivalent for cropped sensors is the Canon 17-85IS @ 1.6x factor. Although not a fan of this lens, i would choose it over the 28-135 for the above reason. An alternative would be the Sigma 17-70.

Moreover, if you need the 70mm to 135mm range on cropped sensors, i would definately look for lenses such as Canon 70-200L (F4 version), 70-300IS or Sigma 70-300APO and Sigma 70-200 f2.8 instead of your 28-135.

For wakeboard picture usage, you need extended telephoto zoom range. You should keep your kit lens (18-55) for general usage and get one of the above 70-200 or 70-300 lenses, ideal range for the kind of usage (wakeboard action pictures). The Sigma 70-300 APO is on the cheap side ($) but very good image quality. Canons (70-300IS and 70-200L) and f2.8 70+ sigmas are a bit more expensive, but very worth it.

Enjoy!