Lens

Back when I got my first motorcycle, I used to go through every cycling magazine I could get
my hands on. Oddly, for a kid with a dirt bike, my favorite magazine was all about touring.
Of course they don't make touring bikes for twelve year olds, so I took what I could get. As
a twelve year old I didn't have much money and became frustrated with most of the reviews
the magazines had to offer. It was all high-end stuff. It mattered little to me which pair of
expensive boots were the best, I needed to know if the Sears boots were better than the
Wards boots. I never did get rich and the magazines still often disappoint. It's fun to read
about expensive gear, and there's obviously a market for premium items, but what about the
rest of us?
Well, there's good news, at least in cameras (my latest bike has been poorly mothballed on
my carport for the past few years), technology has thrown us some bones. A lot of bones.
One of these is Canon's EF 28-135 IS lens. Canon says it's a "Standard zoom lens with an
Image Stabilizer and high zoom ratio. With the Image Stabilizer turned on, you can obtain
sharp, natural-looking pictures in dim lighting without using flash or a tripod. Very handy for
places where flash is prohibited." And it retails for around $400.00, something most of us
can save up for. With the exception of one other, the rest of the Canon IS line starts around
$800.00 and works its way up (way up), from there .
The idea of an image stabilized lens that wasn't fast seemed absurd to me at first. After all,
isn't IS for low light? What I didn't realize was just how low the shutter speed could be set
while still producing a great hand held image. 1/13 second? It never occurred to me. With a
range of f/3.5-5.6 it won't go a long way towards capturing that speeding night train, but when
the train is stopped, and there's a little ambient light to be had, it really performs. It also
shines when used indoors. Our first trip back to the newly reopened B&O Museum in
Baltimore was also the first day I used the lens and I wallowed in both. I also find it to be
great at parties as I rarely have to annoy anyone with the flash. Is it as good as an L series
lens? Nope. Is it close? Yup. Good enough to be the lens that lives on my camera, replacing
my Tamron AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di, which is also a very good lens for those of us with
limited means.
-MDRails