what do you guys think about the efs 18-55mm

[willg]

i got it with my 300d (actually only $20 more with the lens from b&h..some special) and i havent taken any shots with it until today...i took a few and they seem pretty decent (especially for $20!)...my question is...would it be wise to just hold on to this thing or to sell it and think about another wide angle zoom?

[cfcRebel]

How much are u going to sell it for? For that price, why not keep it? The lens is not as bad as what you heard from other people. I like my kit lens because it gives me wide angle for a low price. Unless I have the $$$ and go all the way to 10-22mm wide angle lens, i'll keep my kit lens for a long time.

[mrclark321]

Hold on to it for the price you payed!! How much can you sell it for, $60 $70 not worth the head ache and its a good little lense.

Dan

[tim]

For that price keep it, it's a cheap wide angle.

[Jon Foster]

I really like mine. It takes great pictures for such a cheap lens. If you sold it, what would you buy that that could go as wide as it does? And at what cost? It'd be a heck of a lot more than the $20.00 you spent for a 18-55mm kit lens! Most of us spent about $100.00 for the kit/lens before the 350D came out and still consider that a deal good enough to hang on to. And the bottom line is, the kit lens actually takes decent pictures.

Keep it. Use it.

Jon.

[Myke]

Apart from what the others have said, I agree, it's a very capable lens, though not as fast as how I'd want it to be. Besides, it's not the equipment that matters in taking photos. You may have the money to spend for the best bodies and lenses but if you don't have the eye for it...

Just my two bits worth.

Cheers!

[tommykjensen]

I was not happy with the quality I got from the kit lens. I got one when I had a 300D and I got another one when I bought 20D. The last kit lens has now been sold for $100 ! ($80 cash + a BP511 clone battery worth about $20)

[Skip Souza]

Unless you are ready to spend the $$$ for a 17-40L minium, keep the kit lens.

[Jopox]

I've kept mine. I don't shoot a lot of wide-angle, but it's handy to have around when wide-angle is needed.

Joe

[lancea]

Yeap. Absoulutely agree that it is a keeper, even ignoring resale value. It's a very utilitarian lens and I love how light it is. When I take my next trip to the US it's most likely that I will take only the 18-55 because it did a good job last time. It might be cheap, but it's by no means rubbish.

[mr.photoguy]

I like the 18-55 ef-s . I think it is a bit underrated..
Anyhow, I am not 100% fond of it as a portrait lens, but it serves me good for landscapes where I am always at f8, and below.

See an example here
http://www.pbase.com/brucescott/image/41553768
http://www.pbase.com/brucescott/image/42262788
http://www.pbase.com/brucescott/image/42262117

I may be looking into the Tokin 11-24 f4 as my newer wide angle.
That way I can go really really wide.

[willg]

good point...i really have no reason to sell it do i unless i get an L replacement which isn't going to happen (my first L piece will be the 70-200 f4)

[ed2day]

I thought my 18-55 was fuzzy. I set it aside. But I began to wonder how some people thought it was pretty good and others (like myself) found it pretty useless. Plus I saw some pretty good photos taken with it. So I took mine out of mothballs and ran some tests. I found that if I manually focussed(a challenge in itself with that lens) the pictures were much sharper than if I autofocussed. I suspect that accounts for many of the contradictory reviews. So I've changed my tune--it's a decent lens, esp. for the money, if you get a good one. I agree it's not worthwhile to upgrade unless you step up to a 17-40L which I still think is noticeably better, though the 18-55 compares surprisingly well.

[Steve Parr]

My 300D came with that lens, and it worked alright for me. Then I bought a USM, and I was hooked. With the exception of the Nifty Fifty, I don't know that I'd want another non-L lens that's not USM.

I sold mine for $65.00, so I'd say you got a deal!

Steve

[quadphoto]

Keep your EFS 18-55 lens, the optical quality is very good for the price. I recently purchased a 17-40L and was disappointed when i did some comparison tests with my EFS 18-55 to find it did not
perform a great deal better. (Quadphoto)

[Simon Spiers]

I must say it's not as bad as I first thought.
Stop it down a bit and it gives quite sharp images.
It is crappy build wise though.
All in all a good knock around lens.

[Tomsk]

Keep it.
You'll need something to keep on the 300D when you upgrade. ;)

[ron chappel]

I keep mine *ONLY* for it's inexpensive wide angle abilities-which i rarely do.

Other than that i must VERY much go against the tide here and say it's an absolute shocker of a lens.
The really irritating thing about it is that it simply takes 'ok' pics-never anything better than that and certainly nothing outstanding or to be really pleased with.
It's no good saying that it allmost compares to (insert expensive lens model of choice) , because in the feild it just sucks.

A few weeks ago i tried to use mine again.Out of about 100 pics i took, maybe **3** are ok.
Sure i was doing action photography so many were understandably out of focus but even those that were perfectly focused were horrible.Dull looking,blury and with 'muddy' colours.

[Jackal]

The lens does ok indoors when you have a flash. Those pictures come out rather good.

Outside though it's another story. Even at F8 the leaves on trees gives away how soft the lens is. It's not sharp at all and you can notice the difference between it and say.....the 50mm 1.8. I've stuck both on my camera and the 50mm 1.8 just takes alot sharper pictures.

It's an "ok" lens that's a cheap wide angle. It takes some good post processing for the outside shots to be good at times.

[rg-tom]

i know they are not great photos, nor are they big enough to truely see lens quality, but i'm just pointing out that if i didnt have the kit lens with my today i wouldnt have got these shots, and i think the quality isnt bad:

http://twilight-photography.co.uk/gallery/Canon_EOS-20D/Cars/1.jpg

http://twilight-photography.co.uk/gallery/Canon_EOS-20D/Cars/3.jpg

http://twilight-photography.co.uk/gallery/Canon_EOS-20D/Cars/2.jpg

I am still waiting on the 2 wider angle lenses in my sig, so it had to do :)

I say keep it until u can replace it with L :)

Cheers

Tom

[willg]

im taking it out tonight to see if i can get some wide(er) angle shots of the city...i am also bringing my 50 1.8

[Hava]

Even at F8 the leaves on trees gives away how soft the lens is.

Jackal, your remark reminded me of this image I took recently.

I was just playing around with this lens, and was actually pleasantly surprised. The images are boring by subject (just testing), but I found the amount of detail surprising, especially after having read the common opions on this lens. The detailed image is a actual pixel crop, and shows the little hairy bits and the internal structure of the leaf with quite some detail. Oh, and this is not even taken at the sweet f8 spot.

(20D, 18-55 @ 39 mm, 5.6, iso 400, shutter 1/200s)

Lastly, I have no experience on any of the L competion this lens has (16-35 or 17-40), so maybe I don't have the reference set correct. But thus far I'm not negative on the optical performance (other than purple haze). Of course I think the build is just rubbish and flimsy, and it is rather slow. But, hey, it's definitaly not 100% rubbish.

[Jackal]

I meant if you take a picture of a tree from 50-60ft. (Not that I like taking pictures of trees....Just to test.)

I've tested both the 50 1.8 at F8 and the 18-55mm at F8 and the 1.8 destroys it in sharpness. The kit lense works wonders when objects are super upclose (you can take some nice macros with this). But when things get far it gets a little bad.

I wasn't happy with my outdoor shots with the kit lense too much and other pictures in general so I ordered the Tamron 28-75 from B&H a few days ago. I get it tomorrow afternoon. I'll do comparison shots with it and post em ASAP.

[Jon]

Keep it. Aside from the aforementioned reasons that it's a cheap wide-angle and it'll give you something to leave on your DR when you upgrade to something else, it's a much smaller "walk-around" than any of the L glass if you need to take a small package somewhere.

[lordjim]

There is a great review of this lens here:

http://www.photo.net/equipment/canon/efs18-55/
It is a pretty good lens for the price and allows you to wait until you can afford a great wide angle.