EF 28-135 IS USM Sharpness???

[AjP]

Hello guys, I have a question about sharpness of 28-135 lense, yesterday I was playing with it and took picture with focal 135 and with 100% magnification, images was not sharp at all. anyone has any problems with this lense. when I make image small it is look great, but not in 100% magnification.
Thanks.

[TARPONTIM]

I shoot with this as my walk around lens and i have no complaints. Mine is an image stabilizer. try one on a trypod.

[ssim]

I don't own this lens but did have the opportunity to use one for awhile last year. This lens has mixed reviews, some love it some hate it. My experience with it was that it was not sharp enough for my liking. The version that I used had a general softness to it.

Having said that I did see some of the work that someone else did with the same lens on film and it was very good. They had some 11x14 prints made and the quality was very good.

Personally, I would not buy this lens as the reviews are just way to mixed.

[Andy_T]

Take a look at this thread (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=38424)... stopping down the lens might help you here.

While quite a decent consumer zoom, the 28-135 is not in the same league as the 24-70/2.8 L or the 70-200/4.0 L. These lenses are designed and manufactured according to higher standards and are very sharp even wide open.

Why is this the case?

Quite simple ... when you view the image as a 100% crop on your PC (assuming you have a 72 dpi monitor), this is the same as blowing it up to a size like 30x50. This is most likely a lot larger than you normally print your images.

Professional photographers using film who want to print images of that sort, either used medium format cameras or very sharp lenses ... and these are more expensive. The 28-135 should be more than sufficient if you print up to 8x10 or 12x16... and that is the use that Canon has foreseen for it.

Best regards,
Andy

[Cadwell]

The EF 28-135mm IS USM isn't the sharpest lens in the bag, no. That's one reason why it almost never has a place in my bag. In fact the only time in recent memory that I used it was when two of my other lenses weren't available to me and I needed a 100mm or so lens to do pan shots with...

[Andy_T]

Cadwell, why don't you just put the da** thing on eBay?
If I look at your gear list, it just doesn't fit in there :D

It's a very sought after lens, so you should get back a lot of whatever you paid for it...

Best regards,
Andy

[AjP]

Thank you guys for the answers, I got an idea. 28-135 is my walk around lense. I'm in process of buying 70-200 2.8 L IS and may be 24-70 L in close future.

[Andy_T]

AJP, try stopping the lens down ... IS should give you a bit of latitude to do that.

In the meantime, also consider looking at the Tamron 28-75/2.8 XR DI.
It's very close to the 24-70/2.8 in image quality and to the 24-85/3.5-4.5 in price.

Best regards,
Andy

[Dante King]

I must have gotten a very nice copy of this lens then, as mine is very sharp thru most of the zoom range.

[cc10d]

Mine is the best of the consumer level lenses I have from Canon. I believe it is one of the best non-L lenses available. If one demands L performance one must pay to get it. I have used the 28-135 IS for many different situations and have had very acceptable performance. At smaller arperatures it is very good indeed. It does not get the frequency of use it used to, now that I have purchased more L lenses, but I do not fault the lens, I believe it is a good performance vs. price value.

[steibeldj]

Yep, stop it down to f8-11 and let us know what your copy looks like then. If you're going to let it go, you'll find that (unless your copy is bad) it will be snapped up quickly.