Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 35
 Wow! Impressive EF-S lens considering variable aperture! August 27, 2010
MAGIC KOALA (Los Angeles)
For my amateur hobby shooting I prefer zooms with constant aperture along with a few portrait primes. So I might carry a 28-75mm f2.8 or a 70-200 f4 IS, and maybe a 35mm f2 or 50mm f1.4 for low light and portraits. I've read up on some reviews and wanted to give the 15-85mm a try after many positive recommendations. I found a great seller on Amazon who sent a mint 15-85mm with hood+b&w uv filter for an outrageously low price of $700! Still, it cost almost double than my Canon 18-135mm IS and I doubted if it's optical quality was really worth the price. IT IS! The image quality is simply superb! Granted, its variable aperture suggests optimum performance outdoors and a little more consideration to depth of field effects, but it is vastly superior to the 18-135mm (and the 28-135mmm) in terms of clarity and color. It is incredibly sharp for a non-L lens, and the auto-focus is quick and accurate. I could not give it 5 stars due to the zoom creep (which happens between 24-50mm). All lenses have some degree of zoom creep but for some reason (perhaps due to its weight), the zoom creep on this one happens rather fast between 24mm and 50mm. Don't be alarmed, there is no zoom creep at 15mm or 85mm, so unless there is traction to either push in or pull out the lens, the lens will stay pretty much in place at its extreme. It's really no big deal, your hand is usually on the barrel countering any zoom creep. My other option was to go with the even more expensive 17-55mm f2.8 but I like a little more reach and some opportunity to go wide. The 15-85mm is just the perfect walkaround zoom for my needs. If they made a 15-85mm f2.8, I'd be the first to get it but it would probably be a monster of a lens with a matching monster price tag. I haven't done much testing on the IS, but I've handheld the 15-85mm in the low tenths and have gotten some pretty good results. I'd like to say that the 18-135mm IS is comparable but I will say that the 28-135mm IS is not as good and a little lacking (it is a much older model, so IS must have improved over the years). The retail price could be a little cheaper but until the competition can come up with a lens with the same range and IQ, this Canon 15-85mm is the one beat (come on Tamron, I know you can do it!).
 Another great Canon lens! August 21, 2010
D. A. Newsam (Barbados, W.I.)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am an enthusiastic, reasonably experienced amateur. I wanted to upgrade the kit 18-55mm lens that came with my Canon T1i. I researched many options, price, features, convenience etc. Finally I found the Canon 15-85mm lens! I quickly realised that this met my requirements and neatly complemented my Canon L 70-200mm f4. I am thrilled with the results, sharp images, easy to use, excellent auto focus, the IS really helps those hand held shots and everything that was promised in the reviews. Some downsides: the price is a little steep; there is no lens hood (shame on Canon!) and no case, shame again! But the quality of the results makes up for this. If you want to upgrade from your kit lens, this should be your first option.
Top quality lens. August 19, 2010
TheAnd
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I purchased this lens after carefully checking reviews, and I made no mistake. It truly is an outstanding piece of kit. Autofocus is near-instant, IS works a charm, and operation is silent. It is built like a tank too. The 15 mm width pushes it enough for cramped indoor parties and dinner groups, and the 85 takes it far enough for anything that doesn't need real tele capability. The sharpness of the images it can deliver is absolutely breathtaking.
While there is a teeny bit of CA at some lengths, it's a Canon lens, so there's a profile in DPP that deals with it very capably.
The only negatives would be the weight (although it helps with sturdiness and shake), the fact that is is rather slow, a little stiffness of the zoom in the middle (and a little to much movement needed at the long end), and of course the price.
Not perfect. Just great and very useful. August 6, 2010
Kirk Tuck (Austin, Texas)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I bought the 7D as a back up for a 5Dmk2. I am a professional photographer and I write books about photography. I always use a back up. When I bought the 5D2 I found that the 24-105 nicely covered most of the focal lengths I routinely use. And I like that lens very much. So I wanted to outfit my back up body (7D) with an equivalent lens. I checked out the well reviewed 17-55mm f2.8 and I liked the constant aperture but I didn't like giving up focal length at either end. I did a bunch of research and what I found, and later confirmed, is that the 15/85 is very sharp wide open, in the center at all apertures and I decided that the speed vs. range compromise worked better for me when range was the prime consideration. So I went ahead and bought it. Most of my work consists of shooting portraits in the studio and in nice, air conditioned buildings. So for a while the 15/85 languished in my studio. Two weeks ago I won a contract to do an annual report for a major construction concern. We'd be shooting outside, in very hot and very dusty conditions the last week of July and the first week of August. It alternated between high temperatures with high humidity and very high temperatures with medium humidity. Most of the time on road construction sites in between major swaths of black top the temps ranged from 108 to 112. I chose to use the Canon 7D because of it's environmental seals and it's higher sync speed. It also focuses better than most competitive camera. I chose the 15/85 because it was able to handle very wide shots for scenics and overviews as well as tight portraits and even tight, almost macro shots. I didn't want to have to keep changing lenses in the middle of what amounted to a dust storm. Was I happy with the images. Yes. The lens is very sharp as long as you don't stop down past f8 or f11 (diffraction limiting, a law of physics...) The lens vignettes strongly at wider focal lengths and there is a lot of geometric distortion at the two extremes of focal length. A few years ago these would have been "deal killers" for me. But now all the programs I use have lens corrections that are optimized for the body and lens combination. With the checking of one box the two lens faults are corrected. And they look very good.
Over the course of the two week project I shot nearly 6,000 images with the combo. We shot in more heat than the camera's owner's manual suggests is safe. We shot in the rain and we shot in areas where dust constantly settled on the camera and lens. The lens is gasketed to a certain extent. As long as we kept dirt and water off the front element the lens gave me the images I needed to make the client very happy. And to put money in the bank. I'll keep it and I like it. So often these days we just look at stuff on our monitors but I did take ten of my favorite files and have 12 by 18 inch C-prints made. Just to see. The results were very, very good.
I'd buy this lens again but I sure wish the folks at Canon would package it with a lens hood........Range is good if it means fewer lens changes.Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography
Great lens to replace stock July 19, 2010
Ytzhaak
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Pros: great zoom range, fast silent auto-focus, great IS, incredible build quality
Cons: high price, average variable aperture
I recently purchased this lens as an upgrade to the stock lens on my Rebel t2i. I played around with it for a week and the test shots came out beautifully. The lens is HUGE compared to the 18-55mm stock lens, and the build quality is incredible. It feels very solid with excellent dampening in the focus and zoom rings. The zoom is super fluid, and I was very impressed with the range. It has the heft and feel of more expensive L lenses. The USM autofocus is dead quiet and lightening fast.
The only drawbacks are the price and the average exposure levels (f/3.5-5.6). I was able to get some decent bokeh outdoors, and at it's widest it's great for tight spaces indoors. I think if you want a walk around lens for travel with a great range, nothing could beat this lens. However, for low-light indoor photos I would want something a bit faster.
I ended up returning the lens and going with the Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 USM. I wanted the wider aperture and figured I wouldn't need the zoom range. I must say that in terms of build quality, the 15-85mm blows the doors off the 17-55mm f2.8. My new lens is heavier but much less sturdy feeling than the 15-85mm, and the zoom and focus rings are not nearly as smooth. Granted the 17-55mm is older (by 3 years), I think Canon has greatly improved their manufacturing. I'm still keeping the 17-55mm (I'm loving how much brighter it is in low-light indoor settings), but I would certainly recommend the 15-85mm. It's an incredibly solid lens.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 35
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