Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM Wide Angle Lens for Canon SLR Cameras
by Canon
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM Wide Angle Lens for Canon SLR Cameras
Customer Review: Not worth the money
Summary: 3 Stars
Good looking quiet lens, but my version is very soft, not even close to a 17-55 f 2.8 EFS zoom. This puzzles me, since the zoom is not for a full frame and is a zoom. But after testing the 28 f/1.8, it doesn't start to sharpen up till 2.8 or above. which means the 1.8 stop is useless. it's not much sharper at 2.0 or 2.2. It also has flare, lots of CA and doesn't always focus correctly. By comparison, my 17-55 F/2.8 is razor sharp even at 2.8, focuses perfectly every time, and has image stabilization. Big disappointment from Canon. I wonder why they don't introduce primes for EF-S. I have an XSi, 10-22, 17-55 f/2.8 and the 70-200 f/2.8 IS L (a razor sharp lens!) so I guess I don't need any primes. Save your money and spend it on the camera (7D), not this prime lens.Customer Review: Responce to Nov 23 review
Summary: 3 Stars
The reason I bought this lens was to use it indoors in lower light conditions. I have had this lens on my Rebel XT for about six months and it does a fairly a good job. It maybe true that the 50mm 1.4 is better but that type of lens on a 1.6 cropped sensor is only good for portraits in my opinion. It is true this lens is a little on the soft side. You will not have to worry about it long as your not blowing up your image too big. Since there is not much to choose from in 28mm f/1.8 arena for a reasonable price, this was the best choice. Take a look at the picture I posted and judge for yourself. Can you purchase a better lens that will break the bank? Sure! But why would you want too!Customer Review: A frustrating lens that should have been great
Summary: 2 Stars
The Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 lens focuses quickly and accurately, and can produce nice pictures as long as you keep your subjects away from the edges of the frame. The center is sharp, but even on an APS-C (cropped frame) camera such as a Digital Rebel or 50D, the edges are quite soft at f/1.8 and remain noticeably soft no matter how far you stop it down. On a full-frame camera such as the 5D Mark II, the edges are unspeakably bad. The lens also shows strong chromatic aberrations and heavy purple fringing around specular highlights. Stopping down does not reduce these effects significantly, but it is usually not a problem on indoor shots as long as sunny windows and unshaded lamps (including flourescent tubes) are kept out of the frame.
My goal in purchasing this lens was to improve my indoor martial arts photography, but its optical defects were so frustrating that I found myself taking any excuse not to use it. I simply couldn't trust it to produce usable images. I ended up selling it. Now when I need a fast lens in about this focal length, I usually reach for the less-expensive but optically superior Canon EF 35mm f/2 Wide Angle Lens. The 35mm f/2 does not have USM, so it does not focus quite as quickly or silently as the 28mm f/1.8, but it produces good pictures without weird color artifacts.
The EF 28mm f/1.8 USM is the worst prime SLR lens in Canon's product line as far as I know. It is the only such lens that I recommend avoiding.
Customer Review: Okay lens, but could be much better for the price...
Summary: 2 Stars
I rented this lens for a week to see how it would perform. I tried various shots indoors and outdoors in a variety of settings.
I was looking at a wide angle lens for my XSi, which is a crop factor, so this would end up around 45mm on a full frame.
Good:
1) Very fast focus
2) Able to perform a manual focus override
3) Lightweight and small
4) Good bokeh
Bad:
1) You need to stop down to f/4 in order to get anything resembling a sharp image. The center was generally fine, but the corners were terrible, even on a crop camera. This was an huge disappointment, as the 50mm f/1.4 was razor sharp at f/2.
2) I noticed a lot of CA until you stop down to about f/2.8, when it became reasonable.
3) Price - it's a little high (~$500) considering you can buy the 17-40 f/4L for about $200 more, and you get more focal range to boot.
Overall, I was very disappointed with the results, especially when this was after using the 50mm f/1.4, which was simply incredible. You would be better off in the long run by purchasing the 17-40 f4/L, which is what I'll be purchasing next.
Customer Review: Get a 50 mm f/1.4 instead (and stand back further!)
Summary: 2 Stars
This lens is not so good. It is quite soft even stopped down to f/2.8, 3.2 or even f/4.0. The color rendition and white balance are also off, with and without flash. I think the sample photos someone else posted are quite telling, they are soft and dull though actually quite a bit better than what I was able to achieve indoors. Outdoors it is probably fine, but for me, I want a fast prime for shooting indoors without a flash. There aren't a lot of great options in this focal range (the Sigma 30 mm has serious focusing problems--I tried it out; and the Canon L series primes are heavy and very expensive, though certainly intriguing). I have the 50 mm f/1.4 and, man, is that an awesome lens. I'm not sure why this one is more expensive, but I would avoid it. I'd even suggest trying the Sigma before this one, but be prepared to send it back a few times to get a "good copy". If you have your heart set on this one, you can have mine--I'm sending it back to Amazon tomorrow for a refund.