Does anyone have any experience with the 28-l35/3.5-5.6 "IS" USM lens? Does the image stabilizing capability actually give me two or three extra stops or what? I'm a little confused about the advantages of this lens, even though it appears to be a step up on the good old all-round 28-l05/3.5-4.5 USM - or is it? The advertising on this new lens tells me that its main feature is that it can be hand held in dim lighting conditions. So why not use a faster film or a faster lens? If you had a choice, would you purchase this lens or go the extra and buy the 28-70/2.8?

-- Robbi Pengelly (robb@sonic.net), March 20, 1999

Answers

Hi Robbi

The 28-135 IS lens is nice and the IS very handy. It's rather soft in performance at 135mm though. I wouldn't buy one.

As a nature photographer I use the 20-35L and the 70-200L, with the excellent Canon 50mm macro & 100 macro for my work. This is all I need. Excellent lenses all.

Cheers

-- Dr Peter Harper (p.harper@cont.canterbury.ac.nz), March 30, 1999.

Robbi, take a look at:

http://www.connect.ab.ca/~buddy/istest01.htm

and decide for yourself. My own tests corroborate these results.

-- Carlos Co (co@che.udel.edu), April 04, 1999.

sorry, cut and pasted from another post

formatting might be funny.
Get the IS if you want to shoot with a large DOF. If you're going to do large blow-ups, get the 28-70/2.8. If you're into MTF tests look here:
http://www.photodo.com/lens/Of course, the 28-135 was a great choice for an all-around zoom for me -especially for the money. It can be plenty sharp, -just more at certain lengths and apertures than others. I do want to add to my system to have extremely sharp and fast lenses, but I will do it with fixed lenses. (why carry such a beast as the 28-70 when 2 or 3 primes will be faster and cheaper?)

Well, here's the Canon site: http://www.usa.canon.com/camcambin/cameras/eflenses/ef75-300is.html Here's a press relase by Canon on IS: http://www.usa.canon.com/press/081795-5.html A spec page on the 28-135 IS states that the IS can correct a maximum angle of +/- 0.65 0 @ infinity, though I'm not sure if it's the same for the lens you mention. Also, another thing I've heard is that the gyros correct the lens seven times a second (though I am confused about an IS system that corrects about every 1/11.66 seconds). Basically, I really like my 28-135 IS as a standard zoom. Sure it's slow, but when you're shooting at f/16, it's much 'faster' than a fixed f/1.4 since you can handhold 2 stops slower. You can get more DOF in low light (handheld of course) than any other lens. I can get away with 1/15 consistently by very gently pressing at the top of my inhale and between pulses (in sniper mode) -of course I've heard of people doing 1/10 (and I may have gotten away with some of these too). The trick is to brace yourself. Of course with the 75-300, you're probably limited to maybe 1/45 to 1/180 for each extreme. As far as battery wear, I've gotten through about 20-25 rolls with a 2CR5 my Elan IIe (with a lot of time playing around) and only a few flash shots. I wouldn't worry about battery wear (and always bring a spare on a trip). Just turn it off while messing around, the flip it on when you're ready to trip the shutter.

-- Paul Runnoe (prunnoe@aros.net), April 27, 1999.