17-55 vs 18-55 IS Color, pop, saturation, whatever it is

I hope you know MTF numbers is not the same is image quality. IQ encompasses a lot of different factors that aren't measured by MTF.

That is the biggest thing that sucks about the 18-55 IS. Most of the upgrades only end up being minor upgrades in one area and/or cost exponentially more. It is a difficult lens to replace.

when i had the 18-55 IS, i took it to a festival at a park. outside it was great. under a tent, in the shade, it was pretty bad. i couldn't take pictures of family members that were sitting across the table just 4 feet away. i took out the 50/1.8 and i was too close. that was one of the deciding factors to sell it and keep the 17-55.

Nice thread - deals with many of the issues I'm thinking about atm. I want to upgrade my kit lens (18-55) to either 15-85 or 17-55. It's been discussed to death - the range vs speed decision - and I'm torn right between the two.

What I am wondering though is the image quality - the general feeling is that the kit lens quality is highly underrated. I don't want to spend 5 times the value of the kit lens on the 15-85 for only 30mm extra focal length. The IQ needs to be substantially better as well. Same goes for the 17-55.

Does that make sense?

SiriS wrote in post #10423913
Nice thread - deals with many of the issues I'm thinking about atm. I want to upgrade my kit lens (18-55) to either 15-85 or 17-55. It's been discussed to death - the range vs speed decision - and I'm torn right between the two.

What I am wondering though is the image quality - the general feeling is that the kit lens quality is highly underrated. I don't want to spend 5 times the value of the kit lens on the 15-85 for only 30mm extra focal length. The IQ needs to be substantially better as well. Same goes for the 17-55.

Does that make sense?

Not quite, cause IQ is not gonna get much better for a normal-zoom than 17-55 (and 15-85 isnt far behind from what I've seen), so if thats not a big enough improvement for you in relation to the price, then you're not gonna get much further.. As I tried to explain earlier, the price of the expensive alternatives is not because of the (slightly) increased performance in good conditions -where the cheap lenses perform well enough to begin with.. what you pay for is the ability to still have good performance under more difficult conditions, which the cheaper lenses will not give you.. the basis is cheap, while the extra features are expensive (also because they probably make the basic stuff a bit more complicated)..

Joaaso wrote in post #10405707
18-55 neither offers f2.8, constant aperture or USM. thats what you pay for in a 17-55, the improved optics not so much -although the corner sharpness is a big plus...

same goes for 15-85, except it's about range and USM instead..

you have to make a compromise somewhere, either in features, performance or price..

SiriS wrote in post #10423913
What I am wondering though is the image quality - the general feeling is that the kit lens quality is highly underrated. I don't want to spend 5 times the value of the kit lens on the 15-85 for only 30mm extra focal length. The IQ needs to be substantially better as well. Same goes for the 17-55.

Does that make sense?

yes, go to some lens review sites and you will find that spending five times the value of the kit lens will not get you five times the "IQ" ! ultimately it cost a disproportionate premium for f2.8 or "USM" or "build", etc.

I have been debating on these two lenses for a while also. The 24-70 is not wide enough for me to shoot a basketball game up court side, so I need one of these. The 15-85 gives that nice extra distance, but I feel that the f/2.8 in the 17-55 would be much better in crappy gym lighting... Definitely the one to choose for sports?

CH_Devin wrote in post #10424223
I have been debating on these two lenses for a while also. The 24-70 is not wide enough for me to shoot a basketball game up court side, so I need one of these. The 15-85 gives that nice extra distance, but I feel that the f/2.8 in the 17-55 would be much better in crappy gym lighting... Definitely the one to choose for sports?

I just want from a Tamron 17-50 to the 17-55 specifically because I shoot action at close range (Karate). The Tamron did an ok job of keeping up with the action but the time it takes to lock focus in the first place was a lot longer than the USM canons. Personally, I don't think f2.8 that much help when you want a whole person in focus but if you only want say their face yes it works well.

Was just looking at dxomark's new lens test tools:

http://www.dxomark.com …(brand2)/Canon#​div1anchor

F2.8 and USM and CA appear to be the difference, mainly. Not sharpness, distortion or Vignetting.

tkbslc wrote in post #10424853
Was just looking at dxomark's new lens test tools:

http://www.dxomark.com​/index.php/en/Lens-with-Camera/Compare-lenses/(lens1)/169/(le​ns2)/158/(onglet)/0/(b​rand)/Canon/(brand2)/C​anon#div1anchor

F2.8 and USM and CA appear to be the difference, mainly. Not sharpness, distortion or Vignetting.

Right. Those thigns are easy to test for, but when it comes to color, pop, etc... I dunno. Those are like the intangibles when you compare two professional sports teams.... You can compare the coaching, the front court, back court, bench players of two NBA teams, but then there's intangibles that somehow give teams a swing here and there. I want to say the 18-55 and 17-55 are almost evenly matched except for the featureset. Image quality should be nearly identical under ideal conditions... dunno.

Someone mentioned Rebel vs 7D. But the thing is image quality-wise, they're not too far apart. The 7D shines with its features like FPS, AF, etc... Just like the 17-55 shines with f/2.8, USM. But if you shot lowlight with a tripod on both, I wouldn't expect too much difference.....

dmo580 wrote in post #10403032
I own both lenses and I have to say I love the f/2.8 + IS part of my 17-55mm, but in terms of the images making me go WOW, my kit lens is a piece of crap... nah it hasn't happened yet.

I took a few test samples (hard for me to dig out right now) and for the most part both images from both cameras looked pretty consistent even in terms of sharpness. I might give a slight nod to the 17-55.

I'm a numbers guy so when it comes to sharpness, I love looking at Photozone charts or maybe even The-Digital-Picture's crop comparisons...

Here's Photozone's MTF charts:
17-55:

18-55:

Quite honestly BOTH lenses excel in sharpness and the 18-55 is surely surprising for the price you pay....

So there's a lot of threads going on where people are like omg the 15-85 is awesome or the 17-55 is so awesome and you'll be so impressed with it when upgrading from your kit lenses. I sometimes feel thats an overstatement. Sure with the 17-55 you get constant aperture and that f/2.8 niceness, but does that mean your pictures are gonna go from ugly to gorgeous? The MTF charts say no, but there are people who argue pop, contrast, etc just turns out way better. I don't have evidence to talk about this as this is very subjective... What does POTN say? Or perhaps someone has done some tests?

sharpness is a very small part of what makes a lens good over others. For me and the 15-85, it was the IS and the colors/contrast. I first went out with my 15-85 and the first few shots were so good in terms of colors and focus accuracy that It made it worth every dollar I paid for it over the 18-55 IS, however I have gotten some great pictures with that as well, Its kinda like the DSLR vs compact... Yes you can get a great shot on a P&S, the dSLR makes it more constant and easier for you to obtain. This is what better lenses do.

Why not shoot some photos instead of just taking a bunch of measurements???

Some people...

tongsy wrote in post #10428337
Why not shoot some photos instead of just taking a bunch of measurements???

Some people...

+1, this is true!

What you're really asking for is bang for the buck. Since most people here invariably recommend the most expensive lens when you ask which is the best out of a list, use my handy "POTN bang for the buck correction factor" to evaluate the choices. Post a poll, collect the votes, the divide the total number of votes for each lens by its price. Use the resulting normalized values to give you a better idea of bang for the buck.

tkbslc wrote in post #10407298
That is the biggest thing that sucks about the 18-55 IS. Most of the upgrades only end up being minor upgrades in one area and/or cost exponentially more. It is a difficult lens to replace.

The biggest upgrade you get from the 18-55 IS is *correct color*. The 18-55 IS is a nice lens, but it has a horrible purple/brown color cast which gives you the wrong colors. Scroll down to the last picture here:

http://camerablognetwo​rk.com …comparison-test/#more-392