This is a great lens and is probably the best single lens for all around shooting. For shooting landscapes, closeups, action shots, this lens can do it all. Yes, it is expensive, but you get what you pay for. It also comes with case and 83G lens hood - you don't need to buy these as extras.

I love this lens, for some people its either a love it or a hate it. Although there is a long lists of pros, it is not perfect. Yes, there have been complaints about the weight, and there is also a 20% battery life reduction so a battery grip or an extra battery is needed. To be honest though, the pros definately out weigh the cons.

I am an ARMY infantryman and I'm using it here in Iraq and it has been AMAZING. the rugged structure and solid build have truly been battle tested.

If photography is really you're passion then like most passions bear the price you have to pay for those perfect shots accompanied by utmost bliss. I life is all about the perfect memories we take with us.

All I can say is that everything written in the other reviews is true - it is one great performing and versatile lens. But be aware it is one heavy dumb bell, and you need to be just about a pro to put up with it. You'll be tired from carrying the thing after a two or three hour photographic shoot if not before.

However I guess we should have known that beforehand shouldn't we - the lens is (obviously) professionally built made of metal, and has more glass in it than a medium size window pane. You don't get this kind of versatility otherwise.

Purchased this lens after lusting over it for a year and saving my $$$.
First, make no mistake, this is a large lens. At slightly over 3.5 pounds, you will know it's around your neck.
I purchased this lens for the versatility of 28-300mm, with the understanding that there could be a degradation in quality as compared to something like a 70-200 f2.8 lens.
The IS on this lens does an amazing job. I can take shots indoors at 300mm at very slow shutter speeds, with no camera shake. IS is so quiet, I thought it wasn't working, until I turned it off...
There seems to be a learning curve with this lens, during which you learn what not to try to do with this glass. IS will make you over-confident and you will use shutter speeds so slow that subject movement will blur the image.
Overall I think it's a decent bit of glass, perhaps a little soft, especially in low light and wide open.
It's at least as good as my 70-200 L4 non IS lens.
The bigger question is: Is this lens worth 2000+ dollars? Depends upon how seriously you take your photography and whether a bit of softness between 28-70mm bothers you. Not having actually tried the 70-200 2.8 lens, I can't fairly compare the two, but I suspect the 70-200 2.8 IS might provide better quality, but less range. Everything is a trade-off.

I was salivating for this lens for four months and finally bought one a few weeks ago from the Amazon. I was very excited and couldn't wait to put this glass on my 20D.
First impression I got was that this lens is not that heavy as 3.7 pounds may seem, but boy I was wrong about that. It feels solidly built and looks not that huge on the body. So there we go... After filling up my 1GB CF with shots (taken outside, inside with external flash and without, with different f-stops and all range of zooms) and closely examining the results I decided to write this review with which I did not try to downplay the qualities of this piece of art, just to share my humble opinion.

Pros:
All in one solution (well may be except super wide)
Under most light conditions the lens performs as expected which is very good
Great zoom range that converts to 45-460mm on APS-C bodies
Nice color saturation and contrast, gorgeous bokeh
Push pull zoom (for some may not) which allows lightning fast zoom change
Focusing distance only 0.7 meter for any zoom range!
IS is doing a great job on longer exposure times
Quiet and fast focusing, never had a hunting problem
Included lens case is of good quality

Cons:
Painfully heavy (you start to feel it after an hour or so)
Pricy the much more suitable price would be around $1700.00
Softness in pictures at the 28 and 300mm range with fully opened aperture.
Focusing ring is too close to tightening ring so when you trying to loosen the tension inadvertently you may change the focus.
Very inconvenient to loosen tightening ring with one hand almost always had to do it with both hands
Aperture falls fast to f/5.6 somewhere in the 85-100mm range.
200 and 300mm ranges are too close to each other which makes it hard to adjust to precise zoom and it's causing overshoot. At the very end (300mm) lens gets stuck and you have to use force to push it back, and that's prevents you from gradually and smoothly change the zoom in between 180-300mm. I heard it's because it's new and this will go away.
The lens hood is barely sufficient at 28mm and almost completely useless at 300mm.
The shoulder strap is very narrow and will definitely pinch a nerve if you carry the lens case around your neck or shoulder

Overall it's a great solution if you only want to carry one lens and if you want to travel "light" but really don't know what focal lengths are required. But still I decided to return mine back and replace it with EF 24-105 L IS USM f/4 and EF 70-200 L USM f/2.8. as it's performance did not live up to my expectations for such high price and inconvenience to carry such a heavy load on your shoulder all day around.

This is the best One-For-All-lens for your Canon body--as long as it is a 1.3xFOV body like that is 1DMkII, 1DMkIIN or 1DMkIII. For my liking it's too long on the wide end for a 1.6xFOV body. Versatility and quality are as outstanding as color and contrast. You can get pictures that you otherwise would not get without this one lens. The IS makes it perfect for almost all situations. A perfect travel lens and a great walk-around lens even though it is really heavy. It's my preferred lens if I don't know precisely what to expect. See http://www.meview.de

The other reviewers have done a great job outlining the pros and cons of this lens. I've had mine over 1.5 years now, and it is the lens I use the most and the one that gets the best photos. I've used it for sports photography (tennis), hiking, nature, fireworks, etc. The weight is significant, but I don't notice it when I shoot because I am so wrapped up in what I am doing. I did buy a new camera strap made of neoprene and this makes the around-the-neck weight very bearable.

It's a damn heavy one, but it's worth every gram of weight. Nearly noiseless focus. Superb picture quality, and on a camera with a full size sensor it's the single lens, you will take everywere.

i shoot mostly family events, specifically candids, so this lens is ideal for me.

---[ CONS ]---

[1] weight
your arm will probably hurt after shooting for a few hours, especially with its push/pull it gets long so your arm is extended holding all that weight. there hasnt been a person yet I let try the lens that didnt immediately say "wow, thats heavy". i read that in the reviews and thought "na, I can handle it". nope. i have to admit I had to take breaks. not for the timid. (maybe itll toughen me up)

[2] cost
$2k+ for a non "fast" lens? come on canon - make us a 28-300mm f/2.8L! :-)

[3] push/pull
Im not a big fan but am getting used to it. my guess is its not the more popular twist style cuz the range is just too long - itd probably take two twists to go thru the whole range. push/pull does allow you to get the zoom VERY quickly. again, great for candids.

[4] length
fully extended its awkward to hold at times. especially if you attempt to fine tune the range.

[5] slow low-light AF
it hunts in doors, especially at the higher zoom. but to be fair its gotta cover alot of range and its quick enuff in the 28-70 range.

[6] fast range fall off
Id say 50% of the physical range is 28-90 and the last 50% is 90-300. it falls off especially fast from 200-300. I find it hard to get anything in between. it kinda slams to the 300 and its a bit of a trick to pull it back a little. 300 is so much zoom I find myself often in too close and then needing to fiddle to back off a little, loosing a second or so which might loose the shot.

[7] min focal distance is a tad too long
I find myself having to physically back away from people when shooting 28mm. I guess Im spoiled by the 24-70 - i enjoy some of the face-distorting shots it can do so closely and the 28-300 cant.

---[ PROS ]---

[1] image quality
is as good as my 24-70mm f/2.8L. sharpness, color, contrast, etc. its definitely an L-series.

[2] range
IMHO the best feature is Im ready to shoot anything and I dont have to change lenses. its the do anything lens.

[3] fast AF
AF is L-series fast outdoors with sufficent light.

[4] IS
the IS on this lens is absolutely amazing. at 300mm its like someone grabbed the lens to help me stablize it. indoors its actually amazing as well. at 70mm with my f/2.8L i might have had 1/60 shutter and I may only get 1/20 with my 28-300 BUT with the IS the shot isnt blurry (with a steady hand). ironically Im seeing less blurry shots indoors than with my 24-70 which doesnt have IS.

[5] bokeh
the blurred backdrop at 300mm is stunning. its very pro looking.

[6] fun
this lens is just fun to shoot. maybe its just cuz its new but Im finding myself shooting twice as many shots cuz with the range theres just more to shoot now. Im finding I can be much more creative now.

[7] tightening ring
...is a nice touch. very useful.

[8] rugged
the upside of its weight is its built like a tank so I neednt worry about banging this $2k+ tool against something or scratching it.

[9] switch placement
btw, I dont find the placement of the switches to be a problem like some other reviews. I think they have to be close cuz you cant put them on the barrel since it moves - unlike the 70-200.

[10] natural candids
an awesome serendipity is that 300mm is enuff range that Im seeing very natural looking candids cuz Im far enuff away from people that Im not in their space so they relax. with my 24-70 Id have to get close enuff that itd change their expression slightly. even if Im zoomed way in at 300mm and my subject sees me Im still physically far enuff away that they dont feel threatened (but if they only knew!) :-) this creates PRICELESS shots in my opinion. It definitely has that paparazzi quality. its this last quality that makes the cons worth it to me.

bottomline: I can deal with the cons for the pros. you get what you pay for. nice work canon! :-)

.dsj.

All in one lens.
I do not need to change lenses very often. This one is the one I need.
It's a little bit heavy, though!
Excellent Canon product.

Since this is a somewhat slow lens, I was a little dubious about purchasing it, as it didn't seem to provide as much as many other Canon L lenses, yet is priced so high. However, I have found this lens to be extremely sharp, regardless of f/stop, and focal length.

NOTE: I use a certain range of f/stops, from whatever is wide open on a given lens up to MAYBE f/11 on rare occasions, and more rarely f/16, so this is the portion of the range to which I refer. As an additional note, numerous years of experience, and much reading, have made it clear that stopping down beyond that point is not beneficial to image quality. Furthermore, I am partial to subject isolation, especially in working with high end cameras/lenses.

This lens makes a great all-purpose lens, especially when you don't want to have to make a lens change. For example, in a Wedding that I recently shot, the locale was on a beach. I have done A LOT of bikini model photography on beaches in the MD/VA/DC area, South Carolina, Miami, Cabo, Puerto Vallarta and elsewhere, and so I knew from experience that you don't want to take off the lens when there's a lot of sand and wind around. No matter how careful youy might THINK you are being. The 28-300mm fit the bill in every way you could hope for. It was early evening/late afternoon at the end of summer, so the light was perfect. And a very wide aperture would've been tricky anyway - so what this lens provides was definitely good enough. The only question was if it was going to be good enough quality-wise, sharpness, color contrast. I am happy to say that the results were stunning. Having reviewed all of the pictures that were taken at this Wedding, I was pleasantly surprised at HOW sharp and contrasty they were (bear in mind, I have been using a lot of primes - the Canon 50mm f/1.2, 85mm f/1.2 and the 135mm f/2.0). I also own the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, and I believe the results were on par with that particular lens. Which is why I believe it carry's the price tag that it does.

Many people have found the push/pull zoom to be undesirable. I think it is a matter of getting used to, and it really doesn't take long. My earliest film 35mm camera from years ago (when I was about 12 yrs old I got it), a Ricoh camera (re-branded with the Sears name on it) had one lens that was an 80-210mm that was push/pull manual focus. It's funny how you forget over the years because that thing is far more awkward to try to use, and yet I still needed to "re-learn." What is nice about the Canon 28-300mm push/pull is the locking ring. You have to really understand it correctly to use it correctly. Once you do, the benefits are well worthwhile. You will find yourself easily loosening and tightening the tension as needed. This is key because the tighter setting will nearly lock the zoom in place when you don't want it extending, and once loosened all the way, the push/pull zooming is as rapid as you'll get. Combined with Autofocus and good shooting skills, you can get some amazing performance.

Many people will look at the Sigma or Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 and see, based on cursory spec review, little difference in the lenses, and huge price differences. Make no mistake, these are a COMPLETELY different class of lens, and the price difference is totally warranted. To understand this, you may need to go to a camera store and try each one out. This will make the difference obvious. But let me try to enumerate a couple of things here. First, these cheaper lenses are NOT 300mm on the outside length. I have done MANY test shots with the Tamron and Sigma 28-300mm lenses, and in NO case could either of those zoom in as close as the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS. What?? He wrote the wrong lens down right there. No I did not. Yes, I meant what I wrote - the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS. I also own the Canon 200mm f/2.8L prime lens, which is the same focal length at 200mm. The aforementioned 28-300mm Tamron and Sigma lenses are very close at "300mm" to each of those lenses, just a little short. I have done this same comparison with the Tamron 18-200mm, which is proportionately shorter to their 28-300mm. I purchased and then returned a Canon 28-200mm (a very flimsily built lens for a Canon of any kind, although better than those shoddy 18-55's they were putting in the kits - not sure about the latest 18-55's, I refer to the ones from 2-4 years ago). So, the point is, it's not going to be a true 300mm. This Canon L lens IS a true 300mm, and a true 28mm, and everything in between. Also, if you need to, go read up on stops of light. It doesn't SOUND like much, but jumping from f/5.6 to f/6.3, is a huge amount. The numeric representation is very deceptive. What it really comes down to is the fact that you need a big piece of glass to get more light in there, and more glass for longer focal length, there's just no way of getting around that fact. Regardless of what numbers are used to market a lens, look at the length of a lens (extended if need be, as with this lens) and then look at the circumfrence of the glass at the end. This will alert you to a noticeable difference, if there is one, as in the case of the the two non-Canon brands versus this lens. Similarly, Autofocus performance is ALWAYS noticeably better on Canon lenses, ESPECUIALLY L series lenses, than on non-Canon manufacturers lenses with Canon mounts.

Bottom Line, you get what you pay for. And, in the case of this lens, that holds true above other items that might appear to be similar. This is a top notch lens, and the ideal walk around lens if you don't want to change lenses.

Don't make the mistake of buying this from Adorama, unless you can wait n wait for them. I am still waiting for a camera I ordered from them, they haven't responded to emails and the camera is alread 5-7 days later than anticipated arrival date.... they may be cheap but I think I now know the reason.........