Great all-purpose lens

canuck dave wrote:

technic wrote:

ardeswit wrote:

If you know what you are shooting the lens will never miss focus.

This lens it known to have frontfocus on many Rebel bodies in the WA range; quite annoying. And this is not 'operator error' and also occurs with center point focus. If you only do people shots (and not infinity subjects like landscape/architecture) and f/8 or so you probably won't notice, but it is problem to be aware of if you use a Rebel and want sharp images.

Finally, it is big and looks sexy, especially with the native hood.

I get it, that's what we buy cameras and lenses for; I won't go into details about people who are afraid of using 'inadequate' small and light lenses ...

There may be 'some' issues re focusing on some cameras, but that is not unlike many camera/lens sets. With my T2i and in any shooting situation at any aperture my 15-85mm performs perfectly. I regularly print at 16x20in for exhibitions.

Of course I can't judge how your equipment performs, but I know from testing and discussions years ago that the problem is widespread. Many forum contributors simply don't know how to test and will deny any problem with their gear.

The other issue with the 15-85 is copy variation; a majority of them are visibly decentered (worst performance of any Canon lens I know, the cheap 18-55IS is many times better when it comes to copy variation). Even several official reviews have noticed ... But fortunately for Canon, most posters on the DPR forums don't know how to check that either or claim that 'corners don't matter'.

If you have a perfect copy, enjoy