Canon EF 28-80mm f/2.8-4 L USM Reviews

FIRST the GOOD NEWS.
Beautiful color. Nice and bright with maybe a tiny magenta shift. Almost no chromatic aberration, vastly superior to "consumer" lenses. Acceptable focus speed.


However after buying this lens last month I shot a few assignments and came away puzzled. Group photos had sharp centers but soft edges. A models shoes were sharp while her face was soft.

I subjected the 28-80 lens to a series of sharpness tests shooting newsprint on a flat field with strobe light, shot on 20D body and examining results at individual pixel level, and have come up with the following results:


at 28mm - closest focus (Macro) - Very sharp corner to corner at f.8.

at 80mm - closest focus (Macro) - Best corner to corner sharpness at f.16


28mm - medium distance 10' - Best overall sharpness at f/8. Overall sharp center and noticably soft corners.

80mm - medium distance 10' - corner to corner to sharpness at f/16. All other apertures have noticeable weak overall sharpness.


Conclusion. Great at macro distances, although it is not really a lens you would normally think to buy for macro work (too close to subject matter). Manageable for portrait work if you use only the optimal apertures. Impossible for event work since the optimal apertures are small and not constant over the entire range of the lens. For those who like to shoot with aperture wide open, the sharpness is especially poor.