Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM UD Wide Angle Zoom Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras
by Canon
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM UD Wide Angle Zoom Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras
Customer Review: Nice slightly overpriced travel zoom
Summary: 4 Stars
I've had this lens for about half a year and had a chance to take it on a couple of trips and walks around the city. I have also compared it to the kit zoom, 17-55 and 17-85 zoom I used to own. Here is the quick summary of cons and pros:
Pros:
Zoom range: really great for travel, the best of all for cropped sensor
Center sharpness: top notch
IS and build quality.
Sizewise it's a good match to both rebels and x0D series.
Cons:
Slow: 3.5-5.6 range seriously limits the usability of this lens for portraits and low-light shooting
Corner softness: midframe to corners are significantly worse than the center. It is comparable to the kit zoom 18-55 here (the extreme corners are a bit better)
Vignetting: the light loss in the corners is the worst I ever saw ... and the shading is not properly centered, so automatic removal is not perfect
Chromatic aberrations: quite strong. Fortunately can be removed by software.
All of the cons are forgivable to a mid-range consumer zoom. However at this price (I paid 720) I expected it to be closer to my 17-55. As it stands it is simply the next, improved version of 17-85mm zoom which I used for a while. Unfortunately, outside of the very center it is clearly not in the same league as 17-55mm. Therefore I think 500 or so would be a much more fair price for the lens. If money is less of a concern I'd recommend this lens (preferably in addition to the 17-55mm). It's optimal for daylight hikes and travel.
Customer Review: Canon 15-85
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm going to start by saying that I'm not a pro-photographer, I've been into SLR photography for about 4 years and currently have a 50D. But I want to make it clear that this is a hobby, I shoot portraits of family, travel, architecture, landscapes, ect. Why do I say all of this? Because there's people that will use this lens under the same circumstances as me, and then there's amateur-pros that won't find this useful.
Build quality:
The build quality good, the lens feels solid and heavy it's obviously not a L-lens but this lens should last you a while if taken care of. However I've had it for 5 months and it already has a couple of specs of dust.
Ease of use:
It's as easy to use as any other lens.
Features:
Auto focus is spot on and plenty fast.
Image Stabilization is great, this was actually my first IS lens and to be honest I was pessimistic about it, but it works really good.
Reliability:
It works as expected, no problems so far and don't foresee any due to it's solid build.
Optical quality:
This lens is very sharp and the colors are outstanding, however it does lose a bit of sharpness at 15mm.
Overall this is a great walk around lens and with a solid build quality.
Customer Review: good not great
Summary: 4 Stars
This lens is the perfect walkabout lens covering 23-135 with the 1.6 factor.
Distortion is at a minimum, and although not a fast lens, the IS makes even hand held shots sharp.
The downside of this lens is that both in sunlight, and in studio flash conditions chromatic aberration (purple/green fringe) is evident in all shots. Granted it is less pronounced than with the cheap kit lens (for the 7D) but none the less at 1:1 resolution there is chromatic aberration in every shot where dark and bright come together in high contrast.
The Canon software that comes with DSLRs does a very good job of removing the fringe from photos, however that means unlike Nikon's in-camera processing of the image to remove fringe, an extra manual step of doing that on the Canon is necessary for any images that are more than casual snapshots.
If you want 1 lens for a very wide to slight tele range, this is probably the best thing available for 1.6 crop factor. However even if the price is near L lenses, this is not an L lens and it will be apparent when zooming in 1:1.
Customer Review: Excellent walk-around lens
Summary: 4 Stars
If you have to pick one high-quality walk-around lens for your Canon APS-C (1.6x) dSLR, this is it. I debated between this one and the Canon 17-55m f/2.8 IS; the additional range won over (the extra 2mm on the wide end helps noticeably, and longer telephoto reach is nice too), and being 25% cheaper didn't hurt. The big advantage of the other lens' f2.8 max aperture could be important to some. I shoot a decent bit of video and don't mind the smaller aperture for a little more latitude in focusing errors; even my stills are rarely shot below f5.6, though I do have other lenses to cover other needs (50mm f/1.4 USM and 70-200 f/2.8L IS).
Coupled with the EOS 7D, this lens is perfect as a fairly compact and very capable kit. Images are sharp and colorful, focusing is quick. Build quality feels solid. No issues at all!
Why 4 stars only then? Dunno, found it hard to give 5 stars when I compare it with my faster L lenses, even though those are much more expensive. Guess it's an absolute rating scale for me :)
Customer Review: Good outside lens
Summary: 4 Stars
So I picked up this lens because I wanted something that would give me more range. Overall this is a decent lens. Only issue I had with this lens is that it is slower being a variable f3.5-5, so because of this the indoor shots didn't come out as sharp. You will have to use a higher ISO for low light conditions. If you intend to take a lot of pictures indoors or in low light situations, I would probably recommend the 17-55 f2.8. However for outdoor daylight shooting, I do like the flexibility of this lens. It gives you a very wide angle when you need it and gives you enough reach for most situations. If you are casual outdoor photographer I would recommend this lens. This lens is a step up from the kit lens that comes with the T1i. However the price tag is a bit high for what you get.