EF 28-135 mm <URGENT PLEASE>

<p>Hi All, I have purchased a used 28-135mm from ebay.co.uk which is delivered today. It costs me £180 including delivery. Overall the lens look fine except one problem. When I face the lens downwards it expands to its maximum zoom. It looks like the wide focus ring is loose. Is it normal behaviour or the lens should not expand when I face it downward. Please suggest</p>

<p>Many zoom lenses do this even when new. It is not in itself an indication that the lens is faulty. Provided that the movement is reasonably smooth and the front of the lens does not have too much play, you should be fine. The 28~135 is a double-tube design, and this makes it rather more vulnerable to wobble than is typical for single-tube lenses.</p>

<p>Many Thanks Robin</p>

<p>I had this lens and I also had some play in the focus ring. I found the photos taken with this photo very nice.<br />Low light it struggled to get focus.<br />Great walk about lens even on a crop body, I must say sometimes the wide end is a a little long.<br />Enjoy your purchase. It is afine piece of glass. Only reason I sold mine was I moved in the L glass and got 24-105L.</p>

<p>I should add I mine also started to extend when facing down. I bought mine new. So I think it is the basic design of the lens that causes this to happen.</p>

<p>Okay . The picture I am getting are nice. Yes it is vulnerable to wobble. There is a slight wobble at the front</p>

<p>My 24-105L and the 17-85mm Kit lens that came with my 30D both do this also.</p>

<p>The 28-135 is a wobbly lens even when it's new. Much to my surprise, this doesn't seem to affect image quality.</p>

<p>The problem you describe is called "zoom creep." I seem to recall someone posting instructions and pics somewhere on the Internet with regard to fixing this problem in the 28-135. You might try a bit of googling with these terms. As I recall, the rubber zoom grip could be slipped off, and then there were some screw posts below that fit into helical tracks in the barrel. The person shimmed these posts somehow to create more friction.</p>

<p>sadly, they all do this :(</p>

<p>I've owned my 28-135 for about 10 years, and have used it on film and crop DSLRs. What you describe is normal for this lens, but annoying. The zoom creep in mine is not too bad. Yet, it is capable of producing fine images - one of Canon's best non-L lenses. And the price isn't bad, either. Don't worry about the creep, just shoot and enjoy the lens.</p>

<p>I agree with Phil. I've had mine for about 11 years and currently use it a lot on my 7D. It can produce outstanding images when used properly (by using good, basic photography techniques) but they all have the zoom-creep. It doesn't affect performance at all. It's really a nice lens, so enjoy it!</p>

<p>I hate the 28-135. It is by far the worst zoom Canon has made. I went through 2 copies before I declared it dead to me. Sure you can crank down on the lens to get ok pictures while it's on the tripod but who shoots that way ALL the time. Good luck. v/r Buffdr<br>

BTW, your problem is normal don't sweat it.</p>

I love my 28-135. It is by far the best consumer zoom Canon has made. My first one has been golden to me for about 8 years

now.

 

I love the IS - it means you don't have to have a tripod to crank the aperture down.

<p>I've since sold mine (a couple of years ago), but I quite enjoyed it while I had it. It had some of the best color/contrast of any of canon's non-L zooms (of the time, though I've heard good things about the 15-85mm). On the full frame, It was a great range, and on a 1.6x crop it had a long enough zoom (~216mm) for most uses (though the wide end was not exactly... wide)</p>

<p>Of course the downside (other than speed of course, that goes w/o saying) is that the flare can be very bad, especially if you're to cheap to spring for a hood, or you put a UV filter on it. The lens was designed and built for film long before digital was a practical reality, so any flare gets compounded by a lack of internal anti-reflective coatings. If you keep these shortcomings in mind when shooting, you'll love the pictures this lens is capable of...</p>

<p>As far as the creep, never heard of a 28-135 that didn't, but there is a simple, easy fix. I had a black band (virtually identical to the yellow 'livestrong' wrist bands in material, size, & width) That I put on the rubber twist zoom grip, and overlapped (slightly) the zoom indicator. It added enouhg resistance to prevent the lens (even w/ a hood on it) from zooming, but not enough to prevent me from zooming easily. I sold the lens w/ the rubber band, but now that I think about it, it was also almost identical to the "Fong" rubber band that came w/ my lightsphere 2 (to fit around my 580)... <br>

Hope that helps, and happy shooting!</p>