refurb 35mm f/2.0 IS, unsure if its a keeper or not, any pointers?

sleibson wrote:

It's really hard to tell from this photo. A closeup of a parakeet with a 35mm (wide-angle) lens at f2.8 results in an extremely shallow depth of field, on the order of 1mm. Anything closer or further will be increasingly out of focus. Is that what you were expecting? Lens IS isn't going to help you much with a high shutter speed or with a moving parakeet. As a rule of thumb, if your shutter speed is 2x or 3x faster than 1 divided by the focal length, shutter speed is fine (for handheld, not for a moving parakeet) and does not need IS unless your hands are unusually shaky.

Colors look nice to me. Are they accurate? Canon's lenses are usually pretty good for color.

Are you disappointed with the bokeh? What were you expecting?

If you want to see if the lens is sharp, then go outside with a tripod, set up so that you are aimed straight at a brick wall from several feet away, and click. See if the bricks and mortar are sharp at the edges and the corners of the photo.

I am not disappointed with the bokah of this lens, maybe I have too much expectation from this lens, have borrowed my friends L lens before (35m, 50mm or the 135mm) and the sharpness and clarity of lens at f2.8 are just breathtaking.

Colors on this lens are pretty good, just like any other canon lens I have experienced in the past.

Thank you for the advice with the brick wall, will update as soon as weather cooperate!