canon efs 18-55 3.5-5.6

[darich]

Cracking image David

Thanks Jim

Looks excellent blown up into a panoramic 30 x 10 inches - even though it was shot using on a 6.3mp Canon Digital Rebel!!

4secs
f5.6
55mm
ISO100

Not bad for a paperweight!!

cheers
David

 

[xfloggingkylex]

Not Canon-specific but I'm sure it applies...

I like my equivalent cheap kit zoom. Sure it might as well be a paperweight when you have better lenses covering the same focal lengths, but it's a lot better than nothing. If nothing else, mine seems a lot better than the comparable cheap slow 28-80mm zooms that used to come as 'kit' lenses with 35mm SLRs. Thanks to not-very-sensibly pursuing two systems I didn't really have much in the way of wide-angles in my dSLR's mount, and until I can afford to replace it my cheap zoom does a nice job. I tend to use it at 24mm and rarely use either extreme. Yes I wouldn't go wider than f/8 if I could avoid it - and that's the main problem for me; not the optical quality but the fact that it can only really live up to its potential in good light. IMO like one of my favourites for 35mm (an equally cheap Tokina 19-35mm) it's really quite good for the money.

One more thing I like about my kit lens is it's actually not that badly constructed. Has the clutch system that lets me focus manually in autofocus mode; filter ring doesn't rotate when focusing. Oh and it comes with lens hood... lens hood even has little removable tab for turning filters (I am easily impressed)... actually cheap lenses always seem to come with lens hoods. The more you spend on a lens, the less stuff they give you...

we are lucky that the pentax kit lens is half decent, I especially love the clutch on the focus ring: lock the focus, tweak then press the shutter the rest of the way