Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 USM Mark 1.5 review

The lens I mentioned in the earlier Tamron 28-105mm review came, and I've been playing with it for the past couple days. It's a Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 USM (the same focal length as the Tamron, hence the seller's understandable mistake), an inexpensive lens with a rather confusing history.

There are three versions of this lens. They're mostly identical: the same focal range and optics, with a ring-type ultrasonic motor (the best kind Canon offers), a metal mount, and a focus distance window.

The aperture of the Mark 1 has five blades, giving a pentagonal shape to out-of-focus highlights. At some point, Canon upgrade it to a seven-blade aperture, but didn't consider this important enough to call it a Mark 2. I think of it as a Mark 1.5. You can tell the difference between the two by looking at the lens barrel: the Mark 1 has a flower, Canon's macro symbol, printed on it next to the focus ring, while the 1.5 has the word 'macro' written out.

The Mark 2 is basically identical to the Mark 1.5, except for some slight cosmetic redesigns. Internally, nothing was changed. This version is still on the market; the first two are only available used.

All three have the same optics, so except for the shape of the bokeh, there's no major difference in image quality between them. I personally think this is important enough to spring for the Mark 1.5 (as I did) or 2; i.e., the cheapest one you can find that doesn't have the flower symbol.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that Canon also makes a 28-105mm f/4-5.6 lens. Besides being slower, this lens does not have a reputation for being worth the money. Be sure to look at the maximum aperture if you're shopping for this lens.

Build quality is quite good. The lens is pretty light, weighing in at under a pound, and it feels quite natural and balanced on my Rebel XT. The metal mount and focus distance window are both nice touches, though neither one would be a deal-breaker or maker for me. The focus window has infrared markings for 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 105mm.

I'm impressed with the autofocus, which is whisper quiet (I love ring USM), fast, and accurate. I find myself trusting it more than I do with the EF 50mm f/1.8 II or my EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM.

The manual focus and zoom rings are majorly improved over the two kit lenses I have, which feel like scraping plastic and grinding gears to use. The manual focus ring is not as wide or as smooth to use as the 100mm macro, but that's not surprising -- a macro lens lives or dies by its ability to manual focus.

Speaking of macro, this lens technically has 'macro' in its features, but only in the sense that its minimum focus distance is 1.6 feet. It's not a true 1:1 or even 1:2 macro lens.

This lens lens, like the Tamron, isn't the sharpest around, but it's not nearly as soft, either. At wide angles, you do see some barrel distortion. Contrast, and bokeh are good (those seven aperture blades are worth it), and as far as I can tell color is good, though it's hard to really put that to the test in February. I've seen some mild chromatic aberration but it's not terrible.

100% crop of 105mm at f/9.0

100% crop of 105mm at f/4.5

Definitely go back and compare those with the Tamron sample crops (105mm at f/9.0 and f/2.8). To my eyes, the Canon is soft but usable wide open, even if it's not as crystal-sharp stopped down.

I've really enjoyed playing with this lens so far. It's not a lens you'd confuse for professional L glass, but for $150-$250 you wouldn't expect to, and the light weight, decently fast aperture, quality build, and respectable image quality make it a fantastic walkaround lens. If you're planning to buy a new Mark 2 version of this lens and found this review useful, please consider supporting this site by purchasing it at Amazon through the link here.