dSLR Dad

Photozone has published their review of the Canon EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L USM Image Stabilized (IS) Lens. This full frame lens is a push-pull zoom lens that is a Canon Luxury (L=$$$) design:

The Canon EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 USM L IS is an impressive piece of engineering. However, its immense zoom range doesn’t come without compromises – especially on a high resolution full format DSLR. The resolution figures are actually pretty good in the 28-100mm range but there’s an obvious penalty beyond 200mm with rather soft borders at large apertures. This is acceptable in some situations (e.g. for portraits) but if you need a high resolution across the frame you need to stop down to f/8, better f/11 here. The vignetting characteristic isn’t great but, frankly, this doesn’t really differ from most mainstream standard zoom lenses either.

The 28mm setting does also suffer from a fairly extreme degree of barrel distortion whereas the issue isn’t overly significant at other settings. Lateral CAs are reasonably well controlled and not overly disturbing. The quality of the bokeh is acceptable for such a lens but it can be rough in critical situations. The build quality is exceptional although some may not like the push-pull zoom design. However, with a little positive attitude you should be able to get used to it and the very smooth zoom action helps a lot during the transition phase. The 3rd generation IS is a significant and highly welcome addition to the feature list. On the downside the lens is heavy and not exactly small especially when used at 300mm – it’s not really a low profile lens. The price lifts it beyond the reach of most amateurs but then this is true for many L grade lenses out there. All-in-all a viable one-size-fits-all solution IF you’re aware of its limitations and shift around them.

You can read the entire lens test at Photozone

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 7:18 AM and is filed under Camera Lens and Accessories, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.