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Canon EF 24-85mm 1:3.5-4.5 USM
A very good and versatile standard - zoom for "fullframe" and 35mm film and a nice portrait-zoom for APS-C.
It is sometimes called "the small 24-105 L".
I have bought two samples of these, each one together with other stuff as part of film-equipment and both were not the reason to buy the specific lot - so I never really wanted one, but I have kept one, because it really is a great lens, is a joy to use and handle and is extremely small and light.
The 24mm wide end one thing I really appreciate on a standard-zoom, even if it's not a must-have for me, because as a wide-angle-lover, I mostly have an ultrawide with me anyway.
It has Canons fantastic, ultrafast and silent ring-USM with fulltime manual override, it's relatively fast with f/4.5 at 85mm, so it's a useful portrait - lens and above all, it's high quality and still extremely small and light. In fact it is nearly half as long as my 28-135mm IS and half the weight of a 24-105L.
It has very good optics and mechanics, but there's some sample-variations.
The one only quality-related issue with this lens is a little play in the moving parts, that isn't great when new and worsens over time.
COMPATIBILITY
As a classic, genuine Canon EF - lens, it works perfectly with every Canon EOS camera, film or digital, ever made. There are no known issues in any combination.
PRICE
Good samples sell for about € 100,- on ebay.
Sometimes you are lucky and get one cheap together with an EOS film-body, because these were the better KIT-lenses back in the days of film, like the 24-105 L is today for the 6D and 5D.
ACCESSORIES
As usual, this original non-L Canon is shipped without the shade, I wouldn't use anyway. They charge obscene prices for this cheap plastic-barrel, so I'd always by third-party if you insist in having a fixed shade, or use my favourite, a collapsible rubber hood instead.
It uses 67mm filters, which aren't very common for Canon, but are for other manufacturers, so filters are OK to get used for this size. It looks and feels OK with a 77mm step-up-ring, and while the front moves when zooming, the filter - thread doesn't rotate, making the use of grads and polarizers easy.
GREAT.
MECHANICS
Made in Japan.
Metal lens mount.
The build-quality is typical for Canons non-L USM - lenses, like the 20-35, 28-105, 28-135 and yes, even the 28-80 USM (first version): Not L-standard, with less metal and cheaper feeling plastic-body, smooth but not-as-silky-as-L zoom- and focus-rings, lighter and with more play: It really is a joy to use, carry and handle, everything is exactly in the right place, everything feels and turns solid but easy, it feels solid but lightweight - great! But if you gave someone who has never held or seen a photographic lens in his life the 24-105 in one hand and the 24-85 in the other in complete darkness and asked him, what the difference between the too might be, he'd probably answer: "one is more expensive".
Plastic filter thread, two-cam extending front, internal focussing, filters do not turn, so using polarizers and grads is easy..
"USM" is Canons fantastic ring-USM, which literallly focusses in supersonic-speed and nearly completely silent. Fulltime manual override is possible.
AF accuracy is fine with just a tiny little bit of front focus (+1 MFA on my 5D Mark II), nearly identical on my Rebel XT, 40D, 5D Mark II and 50E. This is, how most of my genuine EF - lenses behave.
Overall, mechanics are good in absolute terms and great in common use.
The extending front wobbles and has more play than you want, sometimes even in new condition. This worsens by use and over time and even up to a millimeter play in some positions (sometimes even the 24mm-, the not-extended position, strangely) is normal with this lens.
ERGONOMICS
Great! I covered most of this in "Mechanics": It feels and handles great.
This is a really short lens and especially a lot lighter than any L-zoom and especially so for it's focal length range. Size DOES matter, also see Lenses: What's important? so this is a real plus.
Fulltime manual focus override is possible, the filter-ring doesn't move, it looks, works and feels still OK with a 77mm step-up-ring, you can turn the zoom-ring with one finger and the focus-ring is never in the way but easily rechable without loosing stability. It's really great with the smalles digital Rebels or 3-digit-EOS, too, because it's so short. Ken Rockwell massively criticizes the crammed wider end of the zoom-ring of the 24-105 L for the 24mm to 35mm - settings being way to close together and a) he's right with this and b) this is exactly the same with this lens Between 24mm and 28mm, the zoom-ring only turns about 1mm or so, but at least a lot less stiff than on the 24-105L. While I don't rate this as a show-stopper like Ken, I still greatly prefer the 28-135 in this regard.
The used materials, a combination of metal and high quality plastics, are fine.
The lens extends a lot with zooming, but because it is so light, it doesn't make it too front-heavy, not even on the smallest bodies.
There is a focus-scale with infrared-focus-indices but no depth-of-field-scale.
Overall: GREAT! One of my favourite lenses off all in actual use.
OPTICS
Optics are very good for a standard-zoom, but there is a bit of sample variation.This still is a relative statement: Even my worse sample is still not significantly worse than not so good 24-105L-samples.
Here are two 100% crops from 21MP JPGs from my 5D Mark II, both top-left corner, 24mm @ f/3.5, my two samples, both with identical camera- and sharpening-settings:
This is not ground-shaking, but still a visible difference.
As you can see above, CAs are clearly visible, even at f/3.5. Lateral CAs (purple/green fringes along high-contrast edges), when not corrected by newer EOS cameras (or nearly all Nikons), are visible with this lens at every focal length in the corners. It's worst at the wide end, maybe about 2 pixels wide, maybe even a bit more. I'd always correct this in postprocessing, otherwise it annoys me.
"Just shoot" is a very nice thing to say about any lens and this is the case here. This lens doesn't have a bad setting.
The minimum focus distance is 0.5m, so at 85mm, the maximum magnification is aprox. 1:6 and as such isn't as good as the newest constructions and may not replace a seperate real macro-lens as good as the best do, but in many cases this is still good enough.
Distortion is quite massive at 24mm and minimal on the long end, changing from barrel to pincushion, as expected. This is a bit better than the 24-105 L.
Vignetting is visible, but not bad for a "fullframe" lens. It diminishes when zoomed in or stopped down.
The aperture is made of 6 blades, giving you not very smooth out-of-focus highlights with very boring 6-ray-light-stars. This bothers me.
This lens is very good for infrared-photography, with no hotspot under any conditions.
Flare, again, is nothing to worry about with this lens. While I think, that a lens less prone to flare and especially ghosting is not always better, as at least ghosts can be a very nice tool to show the lighting conditions in your pictures, this 28-85mm flares slightly and produces some ghosts with a bright source of light in or just outside the frame, but not at all on an annoying level. You can shoot directly into the sun and if you don't get blind doing so, the pictures look great all the time, with just some ghosts in the opposite corner of the photo. If you really manage to "glow-out" your picture due to flare, it is easily shielded by one hand or avoided by changing the angle a bit.
It's color reproduction seems to match my other Canon EF - lenses and is maybe a bit cooler than some of my older Sigmas.
Sharpness is one of the most overrated qualities of lenses. That being said, this lens is great. As mentioned above, there seem to be sample variations, but it's always good. The worst thing about it's sharpness is a bit of field-curvature at 24mm, you have to focus closer to get the corners in focus.
The samples above from the corners at 24mm and f/3.5, show the worst possible setting, it's better at all other settings. Here's the above sample at 24mm f/3.5, extreme top left corner, with contrast raised and brightness decreased a bit, to show it at more "normal" settings than my testshots, where I do always do set everything to 0, sharpness, contrast and saturation):
This is a 100% crop from a 21MP JPG from my 5D Mark II, 85mm f/4.5:
The short version of the sharpness-test - again - would be: "Nothing to worry about, just shoot". If a lens' worst setting is as shown on top and this is at maximum zoom wide open, there's nothing else to say. It's at least as good as any 24-105 L.
Alternatives
Of course, there are lots of alternatives, mostly not starting at 24mm, namely the 28-105, 24-70, 28-70, 28-80, all by different manufacturers, too. But none of these are 24mm, the only one that is, is the 24-105 L, which is at least five times the price and double the size and weight.
This lens is simply great: It's a portrait-tele, it's a real wide-angle, it's always good optically without having to care about anything and it's extremely small and light.
Und Samsung ist ja doch eher ne recht coole Marke, da lohnt es sich ja zumindest mal zu fragen…
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