|
Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM - APS-C Review / Re-Test |
|
Lens Reviews -
Canon EOS (APS-C)
|
|
Page 1 of 2
Review by Klaus Schroiff, published March 2012
Special thanks to Alexander Dimopoulos for providing the lens for testing!
Introduction
The Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM is one of the few affordable large aperture prime lenses in the Canon lineup. Regarding its release date (1995) it is obviously a full frame lens. On APS-C DSLRs it has a field-of-view equivalent to a classic 45mm lens so it can be considered as a standard lens here. As such it competes with the Sigma AF 30mm f/1.4 EX HSM DC and to a lesser degree with its in-house mate, the newly announced Canon EF 28mm f/2.8 USM IS. Regarding its fast max.aperture of f/1.8 the lens is very competitively priced at just over 400EUR (~500US$).
The lens is quite a beauty with a very solid construction thanks to very good quality plastics. The very broad, rubberized focus ring has a smooth action without any wobbling. The front element does not rotate so using a polarizer is no problem. The physical length of the lens remains constant regardless of the focus setting.
Thanks to USM the focusing speed is pretty fast and focusing is nearly silent. AF accuracy is fine at f/1.8 but the lens suffers from focus shifts upon stopping down. Typical for ring-type USM drives full-time manual focusing is possible on one-shot AF mode.
| Specifications |
|---|
| Equiv. focal length | 45 mm (full format equivalent) |
| Equiv. aperture | f/2.9 (full format equivalent, in terms of depth-of-field) |
| Optical construction | 10 elements in 9 groups inc. 1x aspherical element |
| Number of aperture blades | 7 |
| min. focus distance | 0.25 m (max. magnification ratio 1:5.5) |
| Dimensions | 74 x 56 mm |
| Weight | 310 g |
| Filter size | 58 mm (non-rotating) |
| Hood | petal-shaped (bayonet mount, optional) |
| Other features |
|
