Canon EF 35-70 f/3.5-4.5

I'm having a bit of a film renaissance at the moment, so having just won an EOS 100 [Elan] for £5 off eBay, I needed to find a cheap widish lens to put on it as my EF-S 18-55 IS is clearly a no go. Anyway someone on another UK based forum was selling one of these for little money so I took the plunge.

I believe it was the kit lens that came with the 650 film camera way back, mine dates to 1989 according to the date code. It's a simple beast that at least features a metal mount and a distance scale with "macro" focusing - no better than my kit lens in reality. AF is snappy but very noisy, no ring USM here.

At any rate I wasn't holding out great hopes, but I tacked it onto my 450D and took a few shots in the last couple of days and it's not half bad I guess - soft and purple fringing fully open at the wide end and it's prone to flare but used sensibly it's been OK. Plus it's quite a nice focal length for portraits on APS-C sensors.

Here's a few samples:

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

Nothing wrong with that lens,the last two are sharp and nice colours

Great!

That's strange - that Canon EF 35-70/3.5-4.5 silently focuses perfectly on my Canon 5D Classic, not a whisper out of it!

As I only got it in the post today I have yet to try it and I think it's going to be very interesting on my Canon 1Ds Mark 111 with its 21 megapixels.

I know I'm very late in asking but if you're still there I wonder is the screech of this lens focusing coming from your camera?

I got mine almost new for 40 Euro including postage. I don't think it was ever used. it came in a little leather case with front and rear caps too. It looks like a lovely little gem and I hope it is. I'm happy with the distance window that seems to work very precisely. The fit of the mount is technically very precise too. The glass is immaculate . It will be a welcome change, if good enough , from the big L lenses and heavy Sigmas. And my 5D Classic is mint as well, one of the later 2008 manufactures that has the good LCD panel -I'd advise anybody buying to look out for that. Also the mirror does not fly out of the later models either.

And now the 64,000 dollar question - does anybody know where I can find a lens hood for it, and what is the number of the lens hood ? Thanks, Michael.

Michael McGrath, Kilkenny city, Ireland.