Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM Wide Angle Lens for Canon SLR Cameras by Canon
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Digital camera reviews of Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM Wide Angle Lens for Canon SLR Cameras
Digital camera Review: Good prime for daily/indoor use
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a good prime lens for daily indoor use.
Pros:
- Fast at f/1.8 although soft
- Reasonably sharp from f/2.0, gets better from f/2.2
- Rugged
- Good 'normal' lens for APS-C sensor with 1.6 multiplier (mine is the 450d)
Cons:
- Very soft at f/1.8
- My copy has a front-focus problem at times
Overall, happy with the lens since I can take available light pictures indoors where my 50mm f/1.4 prime (must have!) is too narrow. I can see the front-focus issue on some shots when compared to my 24-105mm f/4L in a reasonably contolled test. Also, from shot to shot taken indoors, the focus is slightly off at times. On a second test indoors, the focus was spot on.
Digital camera Review: Great Lens!
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently purchased this lens and it is a fantastic lens. I currently own the Canon Rebel XTi and with this lens it makes a great 'normal' lens. The focus is fast and very quiet as a USM lens. I love the f/1.8 for low light situations or for a different look with portraits. I love prime lenses and recommend it to anyone!
Cons:
None that I found so far.
Digital camera Review: Great lens for taking portraits and capturing natural light
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great portrait lens. I bought a Canon T1i and the 28mm wide angle lens primarily to take pictures of my kids. I was looking for a lens that created creamy, blurred backgrounds for cool portraits, and also functioned well indoors without a harsh, blinding flash.
The 28mm lens has been great. We're taking wonderful pictures that would have been impossible with most point-and-shoot cameras. The autofocus is fast and quiet. The photos are sharp and vibrant.
The biggest problem is where to store all these awesome pictures -- I've easily taken a few thousand photos in a few short months.
I only recently got into the DSLR game. But so far, with this lens, the results have been amazing.
Digital camera Review: Great little lens, bad CA issues
Summary: 4 Stars
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this little lens. There are many things I really love about it, but there's one big fat negative. Let's start with the good:
+ Small, light, and fast enough for indoor work. This is the reason I love little primes for travel, family events, and portrait work. They are smaller, lighter, easier to carry, and offer great creative options
+ Reasonably sharp wide open. Stopped down to f/2.8, it's very sharp and contrasty
+ Build quality is excellent. This lens is very nicely built, has great smooth quiet autofocusing, and the focusing ring is nice and wide enough to comfortably use. I like that it's heavier than my nifty fifty and has a solid metal mount.
+ Great focal length for a 1.6 crop body. On my 7D, this lens is fabulous. The field of view on a 1.6 crop body is near the classic 50mm on 35mm film length. It's a great focal length for shooting family events and get-togethers. Very little distortion from this lens make it a good fit for portraiture also.
+ Color saturation and contrast are excellent. This little lens renders color wonderfully especially under great lighting conditions. It's a substantial change from the nifty fifty in this department.
+ Beautiful OOF (out of focus) areas. The bokeh is wonderful on this lens. It's creamy and very smooth.
Now, for the big fat con.
- The CA (chromatic aberration) is horrible on this lens wide open and even stopped all the way down to f/4. On the 7D, this is much less noticeable, but on my 1D2 (1.3 crop sensor), the CA in the corners is absolutely horrendous at f/1.8. I'm talking about huge blatant purple and green fringing in all four corners that distract from the subject in areas where white meets darker colors in the corners and along the edges of the frame. This is very unfortunate, as this lens is really great in all other departments. I was sorely disappointed when I first saw this, and I can't imagine how bad it is on a full frame body in the corners. Although CA can be removed in post processing, CA to this degree should not be present for a lens this expensive. It's really no excuse for it. When I first saw it, I thought my lens was faulty, but after taking it to a local service center, turns out, it isn't.
If you avoid high contrast areas in the corners of your images, you'll be perfectly delighted with this little lens. I am keeping mine simply because there are no other affordable options in this focal length and speed from Canon currently, and the image quality (aside from the CA) is very good. It's light, easily portable, and a decent value for the money. I just avoid high contrast areas in the edges of my frame when it is mounted to my 1D2.
If you are looking to buy this lens, be very aware of the CA issues, and think about whether this will be a substantial problem for you. If so, I'd recommend saving for the 24L, 35L, or 17-40 L instead (if you don't need f/1.8) if you can. The 17-40 controls CA much better than this lens does at the cost of speed and size. If not, this little lens is a good choice.
Unfortunately, Canon doesn't currently offer many fast prime lenses under 35mm that are affordable for most people, and of the lot of them, this is the best one with regards to build quality, speed, and image quality. I hope to see an update to this lens very soon as it could be a great lens.
Digital camera Review: Hard to take a bad picture
Summary: 5 Stars
This lens is *beautiful*. The quality of shots taken vs the lens that shipped with my camera (even though its a totally different lens) is huge.
Very impressed.