18-55mm kit lens

[fWord]

Use the kit lens at f8 and it is very good. Not so good wide open.

Yes, it's great at f/8. But if stopped down to the extremes, like f/22, it results in really soft images, possibly due to diffraction. It's not often that I'd stop down to such an extent, but when I'm going for long-exposure motion blur, it's sometimes desireable.

 

[donkuok]

contrast and color saturation is lousy...very dull

 

[RookieShooter]

going to try test with my own 18-55

 

[fWord]

going to try test with my own 18-55

Heheh...no point testing really. It's just going to give you '$100 lens results'. :bsmilie: That's not to rubbish the kit lens, because I still use it myself. And funny as it might sound, I actually love it a lot because I have nothing else to fall back on as far as wide-angle shooting is concerned. Just yesterday I thought my kit lens had died when I could hear and feel it 'clunk' whenever I zoomed it past the 35mm mark, but thankfully it seemed to 'warm up' and after a while that disappeared entirely.

 

[Isaiahfortythirtyone]

contrast and color saturation is lousy...very dull

agree. i have no issue with sharpness. its real sharp. but contrast, color and resolving power is not good.

 

[An drew]

did you do a newspaper test for the kit lense? I find mine adequate but I've never tested the sharpness yet

Yes, except that I use higher quality print material (about 1.3m by 0.9m) as newsprint are not as sharply printed and they are not perfectly flat with visible fibres. I use self-printed test charts as well, but they do not cover as big an area as newspaper, etc. I was actually not interested in testing this lens but was using it as comparison, so it was a pleasant surprise.

 

[yanyewkay]

im not saying that lousy lens cannot take good photo, im saying that the 18-55mm kit lens disadvantges after i have used it for my work. And was shock that the focus at infinity resulted in such blur images, therefore i have to go to another department to loan a better Canon lens. If your lens have such disadvantages and you dont mind, then is up to you, but to me it have created a problem when shooting... so do i continue to be stupid to use this lens for project that require focusing @ infinity???

i have shoot good photos with the 18-55mm kit lens too, but not at infinity focusing range.

pls rmb, i'm not Criticizing Canon, but the lens itself only.


i dunno what have gonna into pple around here?? a few words can get them all worked up...

did you manually focus to infinity by the marking on the lens?

:think: I think that you might have either gotten a defective lens or you were using the lens incorrectly.

 

[Steplim]

It is not a great lens or an L lens. It definitely has its flaws as described above. And it is in my dry box most of the time. Perhaps its main weakness is sharpness at infinity.

Recently I took it out for a lens test (MLU, cable release, tripod, etc) against my 16-35 and I was really shocked that it produces incredibly sharp images at short distances. While the 16-35 won the contest, I began to question my sanity since the 16-35 cost more than 20x the 18-55. The 18-55 of course thrashed all my third party lenses at that short test distance.

There are not many lenses that can give you 18mm focal length and that level of sharpness at closer distances (1m-5m, can't comment beyond that). I had several of my pictures blown to poster size and quess what, the picture taken by my 18-55 beat the one by my 100mm macro, (both handheld). While this is not a fair comparison as the 100mm is liable to handshake etc, both were taken under similar real outdoor conditions.



So the 18-55 has earned a permanent place for itself in my drybox, since there is little loss in keeping it and selling it would only yield me a few dollars. Hope those of you who still have this kit lens will cherish it. It is not a good paper weight as it is rather light, like my 50 f1.8.

Perhaps I was lucky to get a good copy as I have heard that the quality vary widely for this lens.

I second what you had said. Yes, the kit lens isn't very impressive though from its built to its feel and capability. But, it does serve up to its perceived value. It is rather sharp on the wide side from ie. 18mm, unfortunately, at zoom end, it is quite disappointing, but that is what very thing are designed and built for. (at its value and perceived value)

Zhang3feng,
It is not that ppl get (worked up) offended by what you said but it is you who got (worked up) offended by what ppl commented by what you said:embrass: .
So, move on men , get a better lens for a better job if you need. If I have to buy 20D/350D next time, I will only buy body only as I don't think I want to keep the kit lens. Now, I owned the kit lens, I better put this to what the lens can do for me.

 

[zhang3feng]

did you manually focus to infinity by the marking on the lens?

:think: I think that you might have either gotten a defective lens or you were using the lens incorrectly.

it was set to auto focus & hv tried to shoot on manual too, same problem happen.. so i think is more of a defective lens then~

using the lens incorrectly very unlikely... :thumbsd:

 

[zhang3feng]

Zhang3feng,
It is not that ppl get (worked up) offended by what you said but it is you who got (worked up) offended by what ppl commented by what you said:embrass: .

i'm not offended, but i felt that the person who commented over exaggerated his points thus misleading pple to think that i had made such a comment which is not what i meant in the 1st place.