1st post -Hi, get body only or "stock" lens

[nelrod]

:?:Have decided to acquire a canon xti. My first DSLR. Should I just get the camera body without the 18/55? lens, then get another better lens? I want to start with an "all around lens" that I would carry when I didn't want to take a larger bag with different lenses.(When I get moola to get them) Guess this question belongs in beginners forum, but thought I would ask the Gurus. Thanks for any and all replies.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Just get the 18-55 and than see what you need from there. You might not need a different lens.

 

[nelrod]

Thanks, that does sound less complicated.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

At $100 for the lens as a kit as opposed to about $150, it's a good deal.

 

[Sideburns]

it's a decent lens..but don't expect spectacular images...
I would personally recommend a 50mm 1.8...my brother just got that as his first lens instead of the kit...though I guess the kit for his camera wouldn't have been awful.

Anyways...go for the kit if you think you'd want a wide angle...cause that's really the only reason I use it...and it's OK for closeup...

 

[Big Mike]

The kit lens isn't great...as you can tell by the bad reputation it has on the internet. However, it might be the best $100 zoom lens that you can get for your camera. It was made to be cheap, and that's what it is.

In good lighting conditions...it's actually not all that bad. It makes a good lens to start with.

The 50mm F1.8 is great because it gives you what the kit lens can not (wide aperture and a darn good image quality)...and it's cheap.

 

[Shibby!]

All these pictures were taken with the 18-55 kit lens on an XTi. Of course there has been some PS'ing and some are HDR's, but it shows what can be done with the lens.

To be honest, I am looking to replace mine, but when I bring this lens out (and put my $1200 70-200 F2.8 L away) I often wonder as the lens does take some decent pictures for a very reasonable price. The biggest fault is that it's slow. If it were F2.8, I wouldn't want to replace it. It could be sharper, but then again my 70-200 can be too. I was expecting better in comparison to the ultra cheap kit lens.

So you have to ask yourself what you want, what you shoot, and how much your willing to pay.

 

[JerryPH]

All these pictures were taken with the 18-55 kit lens on an XTi. Of course there has been some PS'ing and some are HDR's, but it shows what can be done with the lens.

Hardly representative of what that lens does. It does show off your PS and HDR skills nicely, though (which are quite impressive).

Show a sample of *untouched* pictures... that's representative. I could almost take pics with my mother's 3.1MP kodak and apply the same PPing to make them look as good as that... lol.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but imagine some poor newbie that goes out and spends his last dime on that setup based on your pics... and cannot get anywhere NEAR your results? ... and then finds out that he needs CS3 and Photomatrix ($$!!!) and 6 months of practice? Not very fair to that person, and there is no newbie to dSLRs I know that has that level of PS or HDR skill out of the box... at least none of the few hundred that I've seen here so far, anyways.

 

[Shibby!]

Mark me up as that noobie then. I have only had this DSLR for 2 months. Other then that all my pictures were with a Canon A700 Point and shoot and never post processed or even taking in a very serious manner. Your right though, with most cameras these days great pictures can be had.

These pictures did require Photoshop. Only some were treated as HDR's with Photomatix.

Some of those photo's were shot on the first day I had my camera.

I'll attach the pictures that these were made from. Anybody remotely serious or even interested has to use a post production software to make their pictures all they can be. The camera can not fine tune what you can with post processing. Everybody likes different degrees of this. I prefer to keep my pictures real looking and mostly only make them pop with some sharpening and saturation.

Here are the pics with standard camera settings. No increased saturation, etc. (I don't even know if Xti's can do that)

 

[Shibby!]

Not saying it's a fantastic lens, but for the price like Mike said, it's not too bad. It also has IS (which I don't think mine works, and if it does, it doesn't work like my buddies IS lens)

I find the soft pictures actually turn out decent when PS'd. As you can see the ones I PS weren't all that crisp (because of the lens and my held held shots), but they turned out alright. A zoom lens for slightly more then the raved 50mm 1.8.

Like i said, depends what you like to shoot I guess. Primes to me aren't really worth it as I like to shoot sports. Primes are great for fast speeds, and sharp pictures, but you can't always make a fixed focal length work.

 

[cameramike]

jerry while what you say is true its also true that the guy could go and spend a pretty penny on the camera and lens and still not get the results he is expecting because of the fact he doesn't know enough bout photography and there for showing even the untouched version doesn't help much.

I'd say unless you have another like 500$ to drop on a lens then get the kit (body and lens) otherwise you will be stuck buying a lens that will probably not help much. the 50mm 1.8 is a great ADD ON but i would only suggest it as an add on for some one knew being there are many situation where its tough to move around enough to get a "wide" (18mm) shot from it.

 

[JerryPH]

Lots of red X's?

 

[JerryPH]

jerry while what you say is true its also true that the guy could go and spend a pretty penny on the camera and lens and still not get the results he is expecting because of the fact he doesn't know enough bout photography and there for showing even the untouched version doesn't help much.

Granted, but NO amount of photography experience is going to help get those results, I do not care if they shoot diligently for 50 years. If one wants to compare, its a lot closer in reality to compare to untouched pics and closer to being attainable by a new users... versus ZERO chance of getting those pics that are heavily touched up or HDR'd. A newbie user will not be able to tell you "that pic is a HDR", they would look at it.. go "WOW, that Canon is amazing", run out, buy it and then be VERY unhappy as no one could get those results with the camera alone.

 

[Shibby!]

I'd just like to state that I did say that those pictures were indeed manipulated using PS and some where HDR. I also stated that this is what could be done with that kit lens:

"All these pictures were taken with the 18-55 kit lens on an XTi. Of course there has been some PS'ing and some are HDR's, but it shows what can be done with the lens."


For some reason sometimes my pictures show up for some users and not for others. It's Picasa causing the problems. Try maybe refreshing your browser. Either way, it shows both untouched, PS's and HDR'd images. IMO, I would consider that light to moderate post processing. I didn't change anything in the pictures, modify colours (other then saturation) and basically just sharpened them up. The HDR's are what I consider moderate strength. I wouldn't call that heavily affected.

What other lens would be recommended? I for one would like a little more reach on the 55mm to say something around 70mm, or even 100mm. Canon makes these lenses as well, but they also cost more. Sigma or Tamron replacements?

I'm not very experienced with lenses other then the odd review. I just don't know of many replacements that can do as decent of job for around the same cost.

 

[Sideburns]

Not saying it's a fantastic lens, but for the price like Mike said, it's not too bad. It also has IS (which I don't think mine works, and if it does, it doesn't work like my buddies IS lens)

I find the soft pictures actually turn out decent when PS'd. As you can see the ones I PS weren't all that crisp (because of the lens and my held held shots), but they turned out alright. A zoom lens for slightly more then the raved 50mm 1.8.

Like i said, depends what you like to shoot I guess. Primes to me aren't really worth it as I like to shoot sports. Primes are great for fast speeds, and sharp pictures, but you can't always make a fixed focal length work.

the kit lens does not have IS.