I don't like using generic brands. Full stop. There is always something wrong with them. 

It is a heavy lens, you can feel it once you take it. After all it's weight is 825g compared to a Canon 24-70 f2.8 II which is 805g. 

So I put it on my camera, look through the lens and snap a picture. And I am so surprised and impressed straight away! Not only it stabilises the image, which I thought isn't so necessary on those focal lengths, but it has a great picture. 

However...

As the image is being stabilised you can see jumps as if the picture is trying to fall back into place. I wasn't used to it so I found it disturbing. It always made me feel like there is something wrong with the lense. 

Sometimes the auto focus wouldn't work as if it was jammed. I tried focusing and I couldn't snap a moment just because there was something wrong. It happened on numerous occasions. 

As I went home and uploaded the photos onto my computer, I looked through them and although happy how the pictures came out, I had a lot of photos that weren't in focus. There is definitely something wrong with the autofocus mechanism in this lense. 

The photos had a nice creamy background with a slight haze to it.. So they weren't 100% clean.

Despite my worst expectations of this lense, I was pleasantly surprised that the pictures turned out to be better than I thought.

This lense costs between €826 and €1250 compared to a Canon lense that costs between €1865 and €2400.