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Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 USM - Review / Test Report |
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Lens Reviews -
Canon EOS (APS-C)
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Page 1 of 3
Review by Klaus Schroiff, published August 2005
Special thanks to Jaroslaw Komasinski for providing this lens!
Introduction
The Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 was a quite popular standard zoom during the film era and possibly it
will regain its former significance once full frame sensors will eventually enter the mainstream market
but on the current APS-C DSLRs it is a quite exotic lens with a field of view similar to a ~45-168mm full-format
equivalent. Nonetheless the lens is surely still present in many camera bags and after reviewing many high performance
lenses lately it should be interesting to look a little towards the lower third of the quality range.
The lens used in this review is the initial version. A few years ago Canon
has introduced a mk II variant of the lens but apart from a few cosmetic changes the two generations
remain fairly identical so the findings in this report should be valid for this latest variant as well.
The lens extends during zooming being shortest at 28mm and reaching its max. length at 105mm. As you
may notice below the lens features a so-called duo-cam zoom system with two inner lens tubes.
The lens construction is made of 15 elements in 12 groups without any special elements. Its aperture mechanism
features 5 aperture blades (the mk II has 7 blades). With a size of 72x75mm and 375g it is compact as
well as light weight. The build quality is decent though not great. There's a little play in the duo-cam system
and the focus and zoom control rings aren't damped.
The lens has a very fast and near silent USM (ultrasonic) AF drive with allows full-time
manual focusing in one-shot AF mode. The minimal focus distance is 0.5m resulting with a max. magnification
of 1:5 at 105mm. The front element does not rotate so using a polarizer is no problem.
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