The most underrated lens

[devilsjaw]

Yeah... The Kit Lens Are Good... Just Need A Little Touching Up Here And There... Sharpness Is Quite Good... Plus It's Good For Street Photography... Light And Fast.... Take A Look At My Gallery...Most Of My Photos Are Taken With The Kit lens.... Works Well With My 300D...

Cheers!

 

[solin]

now can i please sell my kit lens for more than $100? any takers? it's a good bargain ;p

 

[Venom81]

Don't have $ to buy 17-40L so use 18-55 as sub. So far so gd.

 

[devilsjaw]

now can i please sell my kit lens for more than $100? any takers? it's a good bargain ;p

LoL... Nice Marketing Opportunity...

 

[JediForce4ever]

The kit lens is sharp, but it can't resolve fine details well.
Besides the resolution, I also find the min f8-for sharpness limiting, as I cant get any bokeh if there is a need.

But the lens is a pleasure to use, due to the weight and compactness.
AF is not slow, but the small apperture sometimes cause hunting indoors.

 

[Lim72]

Indeed, the kit lens is good for street and landscape photography. For portrait, sure it is not going to give you the bokeh that you want (the same can be said for many other lenses). The kit lens can produce nice picture - within its technical limitations. The high end few thousands lens have less constraints, due to its wider aperture, faster/accurate focusing, higher tolerance etc.

If you are into action and sports photography, you do need good lenses for such demanding conditions for sure. But most hobbyist are probably not doing much fast action photography here in Singapore.

Some hobbyists maybe a little disillusioned, they strive only for the best sharpness, best contrast etc ... but put less weightage on learning the art of photography.

Spend some time looking at the photo galleries of enthusiasts from other parts of the world. You will marvel at many of the great pictures ... and damn...many of those great pictures were only taken by the humble compact digicams, or just humble SLR lenses.

Now if someone show you his nice collection of pictures from Egypt, are you able to determine if he has used an "L" or a kit lens?

 

[jsbn]

I sure bet half can't differentiate.

U can actually tell when the first words out would be, "Nice photos! What camera u used?"

 

[+evenstar]

some shots with 300D+18-55 which i took a few years ago...

100% crop, no PP

with some fill flash

quite a good lens for its price

 

[carbon14]

now can i please sell my kit lens for more than $100? any takers? it's a good bargain ;p

haha! I know that's coming...
Why sell it? it has one of the best price to performance ratio. Worth keeping for rainy days. Very good for landscaping if you mostly viewing it through your monitor. Slight PSing improve the colour and contrast though hard to replicate the exact effects from the Ls.

 

[teckkang]

I have used two of these before. The image produced by one of them had the entire left side smudgy and easily detectable when the images are displayed on screen. The other was better and so I thought until I put on a R72 filter to shoot IR. The left side of the picture has a demarcation zone where the brightness levels are significantly different. Thought it was the fault of the filter at first until I fitted it onto another 18-55mm and the problem didn't show. Well... so much for the kit lens but it did serve me well until I grew out of it.

 

[rinaldi86]

If you get a better copy of the kit lens, it can be very sharp.

I would say I've got an average copy myself.
Sharp at F7.1, slightly to the tele end. Wide end not as promising.

Whereas I've seen sharp images at wide end on other kit lens

CS B&S definitely underrated this lens.

Used to be going for around $100~$110. But now going for even as low as $60 :think:

 

[solin]

haha! I know that's coming...
Why sell it? it has one of the best price to performance ratio. Worth keeping for rainy days. Very good for landscaping if you mostly viewing it through your monitor. Slight PSing improve the colour and contrast though hard to replicate the exact effects from the Ls.

haha actually i got rid of the kit lens long ago, was just joking :bsmilie: 17-40L more than occupies the void of the kit lens in my heart :lovegrin:

 

[carbon14]

yeah, canon QC getting bad to worst! It plague almost all types of lense regardless the price you pay.

 

[+evenstar]

yeah, canon QC getting bad to worst! It plague almost all types of lense regardless the price you pay.

always test before you buy!

 

[sriram]

The kit lens is ok optically, but the build quality is absolutely terrible. It feels like it will break into pieces if you breathe too hard on it. I have to treat mine gently, like a melting ice cream bar.

 

[jasonpgc]

No doubt the kit lens is very sharp.

I compare it with my 28mm prime lens on a 300dpi A4 print.

Cannot really tell the difference in quality.

But the aperture of the kit lens get stuck during one of the national day parade.
Send back to service, and it get stuck again during my friend's wedding.

twice bitten... many shy..

So it stays put as dead load in my dry box since then.

 

[sharif890]

although i dont like the kit lense, but you should reconsider when getting rid of it, becase the going lower than 18mm lower end will be heavy on your wallet, especially if you buy canon stuff. if you are into potraits, and never think about wide angle, then yeah definately invest in something better than this.

 

[spartacus.ret]

so this thread has turned from a most underrated lens to a ef-s 18-55mm lens thread. not bad.

 

[Horsba85]

of course, except when you're talking about shooting in low light and speed.

but thinking it another way, this could also be thread comforting people who cant afford to buy L :bsmilie:

 

[thw]

A good copy of the EFS 18-55 USM lens is probably very good, going by what I have been told.

My copy of the 17-85 IS is pretty incredible, matching the center sharpness of the 35 f/2 and 85 f/1.8 at f/2.8.

And no, I am not comforting myself. :bsmilie: I have the ultrasharp 17-55 f/2.8 IS too.