Canon’s EF 24-85mm f3.5-4.5 USM is considered one of Canon’s best “consumer” grade lenses. Released in 1996 during the analog film era and produced until 2007, the lens is plentiful in the used market. Designed for full frame 35mm, it was also sold as a “kit” lens for the APS-C film bodies and early APS-C digital bodies, so it works equally well with DSLR digital cameras as with analog film SLR cameras.
Handling
The lens is constructed from plastic with a metal mount and features an aspherical element. An ultrasonic USM autofocus motor is fast and silent and offers full-time manual override. The lens takes 67mm filters: the front extends with zoom but does not rotate.
Image quality is very good wide open with good central sharpness at all focal lengths, which improves to the edges as the lens is stopped down. Rectilinear distortion is noticeable – from barrel at the wide end to pincushion at the long – and there is some illumination falloff, but these can be corrected easily during digital editing.
Correction data for the EF 24-85mm f3.5-4.5 USM its available in Canon’s Digital Photo Professional raw editing software, so when used on a digital camera corrections can be made for chromatic aberration, distortion and peripheral illumination. This makes the lens even better with digital than film.
Results
The images in the review gallery are a mix of Canon EOS 5D digital and EOS 620 and EOS RT analog film cameras with Ilford HP5 Plus 400 and Ilford XP2 Super 400 film.
Conclusion
What’s not to like with the lens? The wide end is 24mm which is bordering on ultra-wide, and is about the widest for typical street photography (although some people go wider). Sharpness is more than satisfactory for street work even wide open and flare control is very good, but do keep the sun from shining on the front element. The lens handles well and is reasonably light and compact. It’s not a huge lens so won’t attract too much attention on the street.
The fine results from both analog film and digital make this an excellent lens for a dual purpose outfit. Use it with your full frame Canon EOS digital SLR, and switch it to any EOS analog camera for film.