Cosmin Corbea wrote in message <01bcfe7e$b3ba59c0$5f0067d1@golem>...

>I have recently bought a Canon Elan IIe with a Canon 28-105 USM lens. I
>noticed a significant "pillow" distortion of vertical lines when using the
>105 focal length (actually it begins to be visible at 50, but it gets much
>worse at 105). A vertical line (the side of a building for example) will be
>visible as a curve. Of course, the effect becomes more marked as the
>vertical line is closer to the edges of the image.
>My question is: is this "normal" with this lens, or should I go and
>complain to the store? Weren't those effects supposed to be corrected? I
>also have an old East German Pentacon 200 mm fixed focal lens and this one
>causes no distortion whatsoever...

Two things are probably occuring: normal "pincushion" distortion,
which generally appears toward the long end of a zoom's range;
and viewfinder distortion, which is also generally of the
"pincushion" type... (the older cameras had little or no
VF distortion, and most long prime lenses have very low
linear distortion). I suspect that all is normal, if a
bit unpleasant...
Hope This Helps
David Ruether - http://www.fcinet.com/ruether