It's a great lens, but like most superzooms it suffers from softness at the extremes. From about 40 to 220 FL it's decent enough though. It's not as good as having the 18-55 IS and 55-250 IS pairing as the IQ of the pair is better overall. I went from an 18-250 to an 18-125 when I got my 100-400 L which was a bit sharper throughout, but the 18-250 is good enough for a day out at the beach etc. Wouldn't want to have it as my only lens if I was shooting something really important though.