Canon Zoom Wide Angle-Telephoto EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Image Stabilizer USM Autofocus Lens

This is a great lens which I purchased to complement a Tokina 11-16 f2.8 and a 17-40 f4L and bridge a small gap to a 70-200 F2.8L whilst giving me a cheaper walk-around lens that has some versatility.

Given that all my other lenses are razor sharp I expected this one to perform relatively poorly but I was surprised.

The lens is plenty sharp enough there is some slight softness at edges wider open but its a pretty even picture at 70 to 135. The image stabiliser works surprisingly well, perhaps too well, but there is a temptation to use very low shutter speeds when you don't need too.

It produces better pics on a tripod with IS turned off.

At F5.6 it is at its sharpest and tends to be sharper at the wider end.

Its a good walk around lens and renders nice contrasty well saturated colours, there is slight barrel distortion wide open but its ok and sorts itself out very quickly by 35mm.

It does need a hood fitted at the wide end.

I would say its better than the Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 USM but not as good as a 24-105 f4L but these are twice the price and on a small sensor body this lens is great.

In summary this is a good all round performer with no particular strengths or weaknesses its the Mondeo Ghia of the lens world and for most people other than serious professionals with huge sensors its plenty good enough. It is very good value for money and comes with my reccomendation.