kayaker72's reviews

  • Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

    9 out of 10 points and recommended
    Focal length range, sharpness, image quality, fast AF, legit 4 stop image stabilization, and solid construction. Overall a great general purpose zoom
    variable aperture, wish it was weather sealed.

    I've used this lens for about 6 months now and about 4,000 pictures. It is an amazing general purpose lens. I highly recommend it. It focuses very fast and accurately. If you pixel peep, I zoom in on eyebrows at 100% and have good resolution. I've compared images with this lens with most other general purpose zooms and the IQ of this lens is as good or better. Only images that I've seen that I'd consider better come from the 70-200 f2.8 II L IS, 70-200 f/4 IS or a "L" prime lens.

    A recent "real world" test. I was at my sisters wedding and took a lot of photos with this lens. She is using photos taken with this lens (on a Canon 7D) for her wedding album instead of the "professionally" taken pictures.

    The primary disadvantages of this lens are it's relatively slow and variable aperture and the fact that it isn't weather sealed. But you can't have everything and I'll take the focal length range as I mostly shoot outdoors where I love being able to go from 15 mm to 85 mm or indoors with a flash.

    reviewed January 5th, 2011 (purchased for $630)