It's... okay

A bit of back story, this lens came as a kit lens for the 60D which my father bought it in 2010. So yes, this review is incredibly late but I just gonna write it anyway.

I can only think of one (very) good reason why you should buy this lens for your Canon APS-C camera, the zoom range is perfect for travelling, and is a lot with only 4/3rd of a stop aperture decrease as you zoom in.

That's about it I guess. For the cons.. well it is pretty heavy, unless you don't mind the weight, then it's not the perfect lens for travel lol. The IS is definitely useful but I find it a bit jarring in operation when you half-press the shutter button and try to focus, it judders, somewhat. The focus motor is noisy, the focus ring only turns 45 degrees, and not having a full time MF is a minus for me.

As this lens is no longer in production with no successor and you read this review to think about buying one secondhand, here's what I have after 12 years of use: I find that the extending zoom barrel wobbles. I've brought it to a service shop, fixing it myself, and it's still here. There are some screws you can tighten to make the wobble goes, but I find it then it would be too difficult to turn, some parts have definitely wore off in there. My unit also has a dead IS unit since 2016, not sure is it the cables or something else, can't be bothered to check. There's a tiny lock switch to prevent it creeping down from 18mm (which it does), it's so tiny you can brute force your way out of it to zoom in when you forgot you've locked it. Certainly has happened to me and my friends.

Some people states that the auto focus is slow. I will not disagree but that also depend on the camera. The thing is, I use it on my Canon RP and lo and behold, faster than my 60D could ever done. Not as fast as modern STM motor but you gotta give it to the 14 years old lens design. What I understand after I opened it up is that yes, quite a lot of large elements needed to be moved inside for focusing, I guess they're too heavy for the motor, despite the short focus throw.