I have owned this lens for almost three years and have used it on a 40d, 60d and a 7d. I love the speed and accuracy of the USM focus system and appreciate the solid build quality and feel of this lens in hand.

I never wrote a product review before but this lens causes so much confusion across the internet that I couldn't resist offering my opinion. I only use it as a standard prime on a cropped sensor so I'm not referring to it's use as a wide angle lens on a full-frame sensor.

The only problem was the box was beat up and the lenses was very dirty on both sides, there were no visible scratches but I got the feeling that the lens was used. No damage but if you spend $500. On a lens I would expect to get it in better condition.

I've had the lens for almost a year using it on a crop camera. Sharpness/Softness: For this review soft means you can just start to see lack of sharpness in an A4 print. Center is sharp at all apertures, the borders are a touch soft at f1.8, corners are noticably soft at F1.8.

The optical construction is made of 10 elements in 9 groups with one aspherical element. Its minimum focus distance is 0.25m resulting in a max. object magnification of 1:5.5. The aperture mechanism has 7 aperture blades. The filter size is 58mm.