Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 AF Lens

When someone is looking for a good quality but affordable walkaround lens, the Canon EF 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens is one of the lenses I will often recommend to them. Though this lens gets some professional use, the 28-135 IS is an upper-medium grade consumer lens with image stabilization and a great focal length range.

The Canon EF 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens is an easy-to-carry 3.1" x 3.8" (78.4mm x 96.8mm)(DxL) and 18.9 oz (540g). Size and weight are relative, but most will consider this a small and light lens. A plastic lens barrel helps keep the weight down while the metal mount is the same as on Canon's best lenses. The Canon 28-135 lens build quality is decent - in line with Canon's better consumer zooms, but there is a noticeable build quality difference between the consumer zooms and the L series zooms. There is also a noticeable difference in weight. And price. Expect some slight play in the two-part extension of the barrel, expect rings that are not silky-smooth.

The Canon EF 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens focuses reasonably fast and very quietly thanks to Canon's USM. Initial acquisition is very fast - the lens then makes a secondary fine-tuning adjustment if necessary for very accurate focusing. FTM (Full Time Manual) focusing is enabled - a window provides distance information and the manual focus ring does not rotate during AF. The manual focus ring is small/narrow and requires familiarity to quickly find while shooting. While focus is internal, the 28-135 extends like most normal zoom lenses while zooming until reaching its longest length at 135mm. No focal length lock is present, so expect some zoom-creep when carrying this lens in a downward position. Next to the great focal length range, Image Stabilization (IS) is my favorite Canon EF 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens feature. Some debate the usefulness of IS in a shorter focal length zoom lens, but I think it is great. If your subject is not moving, you can shoot handheld in much less light than without IS - or at a lower ISO setting. To activate IS, simply turn the IS switch to the on position and press the shutter release half way. You will hear the stabilizer start up (a click and then a continuous hum - they are not loud). The image in the viewfinder will jump slightly (this is an older version of IS - but still very useful) and the viewfinder will become still (unlike camera-based IS). Keep in mind that the version of IS on this lens needs to be turned off when tripod-mounted. Not doing so may cause the image stabilizer to act erratically.

When on my Canon Rebel which I also bought from, the results are excellent.
The service that the provider gave, it came much faster than I expected.
I commend it.
Peter Russell-Smith

I have already very expensive lenses covering 70-300mm and 15-30mm,which I use most of the time but was missing a lens covering the 30mm to 70mm range for my Canon EOS 5D camera.
I checked for a a good quality lens which was moderately inexpensive and was surprised to find this Canon lens which had the bonus of an image stabilizer. I am quite pleased with its performance which is very good for its cost.

Not any better in terms of picture quality than the basic 18-55mm lens that came with the Cannon EOS new. In fact it is worse. When using the full-auto setting the picture is always very dark and when using the image stabilizer mode the picture is more blurred than without it. Either this lens has a problem and is sub quality or it is complete and utter waste of money. I feel sick.

Excellent price for the type of lense purchased, reasonable delivery time. Informed when desptached. I shall use Emilyandlily in the future for further purchases.

The 28-135 f3.5 range of this lens covers most of the distances I would normally cover when carrying my camera. The colours produced are vibrant and focusing noise almost non existant. This is a great lens to use as a standard one.

took a week to really learn how to use this lens, and now I feel better about it. At first I was a little disappointed because pics came out pretty soft. But after taking time to learn it's strengths it's a good all around lens. IQ is good. Not L but good. I would recommend if you need a good general lens with the bonus of IS.

I needed a lense for recording events at my primary school.Since this covers such a wide range of subjects the lens had to be versatile and responsive in all lighting situations. Dispite having to be a "jack of all trades" cost was an important issue as funds were limited. The Canon EF 28-135mm on paper covered all the main areas desired. I was really pleased to find it performed as described giving me excellent results in all lighting conditions. A very pleasing purchase which I can highly recommend.

I decided to replace my standard 28-90 on EOS 33, and this lens is better for design and especially for the picture quality. The stabiliser works very well. I have compared with the 18-55 on EOS 400D, and the difference is even greater...

Purchased this lens off ebay as a first real purchase of this site as previously reluctant to buy from the internet. In addition it was the first time that i have used paypal. This transaction was completeted smoothly without any hitches, glitches or anything else going wrong.
I am completely over the moon with the lens purchased having read several reports and write ups about the performance etc and will buy further products via this source.