Canon EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM Standard Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras

by Canon

• EF mount; standard zoom lens
• Internal focusing; full-time manual focus; aspherical lens
• 24-85mm focal length
• f/3.5-4.5 maximum aperture
• Micro UltraSonic Motor (USM)

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 4.6 x 4.3 inches ; 13.4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000053HHD
• Item model number: 4584A002
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 14, 2000

Product Description

Amazon.com

The Canon EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM lens has multiple moving lens groups that enhance image quality and make the whole system more compact and lightweight. This lens uses an ultrasonic focusing motor (USM) that gives you silent, high-speed autofocusing. Canon eliminated all the mechanical couplings in this lens and added a custom-designed autofocus motor as well as a microprocessor.

Built into the system is a replica aspherical lens element that minimizes optical distortions to give you sharp images. The flare-cutting diaphragm helps the lens produce a high-contrast image, even in tough lighting. Its high zoom ratio of 3.5x allows you to take tighter shots of your subjects. It's fully compatible with all EOS cameras.

Product Description

Compact, powerful and lightweight, the new Canon EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM zoom lens gives you 3.5x magnification for a fraction of what you d expect to pay. Fully compatible with all EOS cameras, the EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM is particularly useful as a standard zoom lens for the EOS IX Advanced Photo System SLR, providing enhanced wide-angle capability for the smaller APS format. Item Specifications: Product Description: Canon zoom lens - 24 mm - 85 mm Lens System: Zoom lens Mounting Type: Canon EF Lens Aperture: F/3.5-4.5 Focal Length: 24 mm - 85 mm Optical Zoom: 3.5 x Min Focus Range: 19.7 in Focus Adjustment: Automatic, manual Lens Construction: 12 group(s) / 15 element(s) Special Functions: Zoom Filter Size: 67 mm Length: 3 in Weight: 13.4 oz Localization: English

See all Product Description

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fabulous Documentary Lens July 11, 2001

By Terrance M. Carroll

I've had this lens for a few years now, and I absolutely love it. It is compact, sharp, and dependable. I'm a wide-angle shooter, so this one is just about perfect. Canon's USM is beautiful. Unlike Nikon, Canon seeks and achieves quiet, fast, and accurate auto focusing. Coupled with a light and quiet EOS camera body, and you've got an excellent documentary kit, great for shooting people in close and personal. At 24 mm, this lens gives excellent range for close work, with lots of depth and sharpness, making focusing and composing a cinch in evolving situations. My only gripe with this lens is its manual focus ring. I grew up with manual focus, and I love excercising that skill, but this lens has nothing more than an obligatory, plastic, and poorly placed focusing ring that discourages manual work. Fortunately, Canon's autofocusing system is phenomenal. Round-out your EOS kit with a Canon SpeedLite (compatible all the way down to 24 mm).

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars middle-class lens January 18, 2002

By Sergiy Beketov

This lens is almost superb for its price! It's a middle-class lens, what appears in the following:

- it has bigger light-factor (3.5-4.0 vs 4.0-5.6 in the low-class lenses). This gives you more possibilities, for instance to use faster shutter speeds or to decrease the depth-of-fild for special effects)

- the first (outer) lens doesn't spin what gives you an opportunity to use square filters; using a poliriser becomes as easy as any other filter.

- the USM (Ultra Sonic Motor) gives you a really super speed of focusing and completely silent engine. You'll catch the fastest actions and nothing will distrub your object!

These are the most important and useful features of the lens. I should also admit, that the focal distance of this lens is almost ideal for everyday photography, because gives you an opportunity to shoot from landscapes (~24-50mm) to portraiture (~50-85mm) with an equal simplicity and quality.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Make that 3.5 stars July 20, 2008

By Coronet Blue VINE™ VOICE

Amazon Verified Purchase

Here's another case where it all depends on how you use it and what you expect. Personally, I like really sharp images. This means, I can photograph something that has a lot of detail and examine the corners of the image at 100 - 200% and "read" what's there. If this sounds like you, then this isn't what you're looking for (unfortunately, neither is the 24-70 L but its much closer).

If you just enjoy taking pictures and want a good, "walk around" lens that's not ridiculously heavy, you'll love this lens--and believe me, I envy you.

Sharpness. Its reasonably sharp at all apertures except wide open. No big deal since few lenses are great, wide open. Nothing is blurry (at least on an SLR with 1.6 crop factor) but nothing will make you break into a smile at the devastating crispness, either. Best f-stop was between 5.6 and 8, just where it should be.

Chromatic aberration. Not great, but there is something about digital cameras that makes even the most well corrected lenses show some "CA". If you can live with good-not-great sharpness, the CA shouldn't be a concern.

Barrel distortion. Gracious. The test at photozone_de should have prepared me for this, but at the 24mm end this lens is almost in semi-fisheye territory. So....flowers, people and landscapes, fine. Walls, windows and anything flat or square, not fine. Correctable in Photoshop but tedious to get just right.

Construction. Space age Polycarbonate (plastic). Seems fine to me. From the comments on "build quality" you'd think every doctor on vacation in Tahiti was embedded in Afghanistan. Its a precision item, made out of plastic but it looks to me like it will be fine, unless dropped. I did notice that dust gets inside but since lenses do not take pictures of themselves this shouldn't affect image quality. Dust sure hasn't hurt my ancient view camera lenses.

Focusing. The ultrasonic motor works flawlessly. Fast and silent.

So that's it. For me, the sharpness and barreling were an issue. But its a perfectly usable lens; just not a great one. Reasonably priced, too. While I wait for a spectacular L wide angle zoom, I'm going to get the 50 macro and probably the 35/2 as well. Not very convenient, I admit, but along with the Tokina 12-24 and my 70-200 L, I should be in good shape.