canon kit lens?

sineadw

Ok so I've been wrecking my head over what and where to buy this DLSR. Pretty much decided I'm gonna buy from an actual shop in Ireland (If not from you Mark..) and I've spent the morning ringing round getting prices. Its either the 400D or the 350D. One thing I just realised - I've pretty much written the Canon kit lens off. I've heard here and elsewhere that its not up to much. I have no idea why though, or if that's necessarily true.

Do any of you still use yours? Why exactly is it not great? Am I better off just buying the body and getting a sigma or something separately or is it really not that bad?

Fajitas!

I mean, it works...I wouldn't expect anything spectacular from it though. PErsonally, I'd be going with the Canon 17-85 IS if you don't mind spending an extra few bob, a Sigma 1.4 or a Canon 1.8... Depending on what you want really...

Calina

Sinead,

I still use mine occasionally depending on what I am shooting. I actually don't think it's that bad but I don't use its range sufficiently often to consider replacing it with anything else.

Most of what's here was shot with it. Worth noting that I had a polarising filter in situ for a lot of those shots. The exif data is available - anything shorter than 70mm was shot with the kit lens.

I think a lot of people would recommend a 50mm lens if you're in that range but I don't really have call for that range very often at the moment.

sineadw

That's what I'm thinking - maybe the kit and then the Canon 1.8 50m...

I'm on Ebay at the moment looking at prices. Gah! Confusing myself again

Roen

You can have mine if you want it, I haven't used it in ages, that's not to say it's as bad as people make it out to be. It's just I have that FL covered.
Check This Flickr Group out, there's some brilliant pics there!
I'll be up on the 7th if you want to take the offer up.

elven

I have one on long term loan because the Sigma 28-80 from my old camera doesn't really work with the 350D... it's difficult to quantify why it just doesn't seem great, but the pictures I get with that never seem to be particularly sharp, and have a lot of that fringing going on, and the brown/green of trees seems to turn to mush. BUT - I've nothing to compare it to really, except the odd time I do use my Sigma (it works when it's at max aperture) and I do perceive an improvement. However, it could all be in my head, like those tests they do when they give people fake pills and they think they work...

At the end of the day, usually you can buy the 350/400D for about a hundred quid extra with the kit lens (or get one from a generous person as above), so you might be just as well starting off with that until you see what you want in the long term.

440Hz

Ive never used mine... just sat in the bag, never even put it on cos ordered the 17-85 at the same time as my first body.

Recently upgraded my body though and gave my 350D to my Dad with the kit and he finds it 'ok'. He has a nice SLR collection and this was his first D-SLR. He is getting by ok with the kit but after a few days had already starting researching an alternative purchase.

hmboards

It's not as bad as it is sometimes made out to be. It's cheap and light to carry around. That said I haven't used mine since I got a 17-40L, and I haven't tried a comparison between the two yet. I must do when I get a chance.

Elven - are you getting an Error99 message at anything other than wide open ? I had that on a Sigma 70-300 from my film camera when I tried it on the 300D. I sent it to the Sigma service agents in Cork and had it re-chipped for free. All I had to cover was the shipping fee if memory serves me right (it was about 3yrs ago). It would be worth contacting them to see if they would re-chip your lens. These are the guys I sent it to:

Imperial Industries Ltd.
Parnell Street
Bandon
Co.Cork
Tel:353-23-41606
Fax:353-23-44963
hahimp@iol.ie

PaulieC

I found it fine when I first got my 300D a few years ago, but all I had to compare it to was a P&S. It was a useful tool for learning on an SLR, but you wouldn't need that, so I would advise getting something better. The difference between the kit lens and a 50mm 1.8 is enormous, but you would need to research well what you would get as a replacement. A lot of the zooms in the same focal range are not much better than the kit lens in my opinion. I've been through three lenses since I got rid of the kit - Canon 28-105 USM : Optically better, but not wide enough
- Canon 28-135 IS USM : Again, not wide enough. Only bought that because I sold my 300D and the buyer wanted a lens with it, so I included the 28-105
- Sigma 24-70 F2.8. Just got that this week and haven't had much of a chance to try it out for real, but it seems to be sharp enough and has f2.8 throughout the range.

Again, I would research thoroughly any kit lens replacement. The Canon EFS 17-55 IS f2.8 is supposed to be a cracker, but it's about 1200 quid :eek:

Rojo

Not the best lense but it's handy because it's fairly wide angled!

mathias

When I got my 20D and this was the only lens I had it was OK , its soft pretty much all across its zoom range and this is very noticeable , to the extent that some of the pictures from my point and shoot were better.

As soon as I got the 50mm 1.8 it was obvious that the kit lens was the issue and not the camera ( big worry at the time ) , and since then that lens has been in the bag doing nothing. And in all probability will never be on the camera again unless some kind of disaster happens and I lose all the others.

At the time I bought it , there was no other lens to completely cover the range so I ended up getting a 10 -22 for wide , and a 28 -135 for the rest.

Now though , there are plenty of options , they all start at 17 or 18mm for wide angle ( roughly equiv to 28mm for 35mm film ) and go up so 17 85 is pretty good and so on.

The kit lens will do if you have nothing else but only if you have nothing else.

Its worth it to look at some of the deals from Technik direkt , they have body lens combos at some very good prices.

http://www.technikdirekt.de/main/en/foto/fotodigital/digitale-slr/page.html?page=2&eurorate=1

Fionn

Sinead.
give the kit lens a miss.. i had them and was not at all happy with the results, at least with mine the photograph was always soft - even from a tripod because i though it was my holding,
but I think, because you use a camera a lot - you'd become tired fairly quickly from the poor output from these lens!
good luck any way!!

the nifty fifty go for that!!!!

Roen

The variance from lens to lens must be huge, none of these are award winners, but I do like some of the ones I took with it. Where I like to walk portability is a huge plus so it's a godsend compared to some of the more 'capable' lenses out there.
Again, check out Kit Lens Losers if you think that good piccies can't be taken

mikeanywhere

Fajitas! wrote:

I mean, it works...I wouldn't expect anything spectacular from it though. PErsonally, I'd be going with the Canon 17-85 IS if you don't mind spending an extra few bob, a Sigma 1.4 or a Canon 1.8... Depending on what you want really...

I agree with Al but only cause I can

Fajitas!

That's a good boy

ladgie353

I think it depends on the price difference between the body only and the kit.
If the difference is under 50 euros, I think it isn't worth buying the body only, unless you already have a wide lens (<20mm) or you aren't interested in landscapes.
It may be an average lens (as are all basic kit lenses, btw) but it can deliver nice images. You need to be aware of the limitations of the lens when shooting.

JMcL

Pros: It's light, it's very cheap, it goes fairly wide, otherwise useful focal range, and it's very cheap in case I didn't mention that!

Cons: It feels as cheap as it costs, bad barrel distortion at 18mm

It's an OK lens all in all, but as Al said, don't expect miracles. For what it's worth, I've barely used mine since getting a Sigma 10-20 at Christmas, as I've used a combo of that, with my 50mm it I want something a bit longer

Valentia

Something for you to browse Sinead: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=185522

Biro

I have the 17-85 IS and the 50mm 1.4
The 50mm 1.4 is a good bit better than the 1.8, you can notice the difference if you take a snap with both of them using the same settings, but I don't think the price difference is worth it to be honest.
The 17-85 is fairly good. The 17mm does make a bigger than expected difference over the 18mm on kit lens, and the IS is great, but on it's own in this country is about €600 or more, which isn't worth it, but as an upgrade from the kit lens for maybe €200 or €300 more it is.