Help with strange color halo-ing

[robEMPire]

I'm shooting with a Canon T2i and the 18-55mm kit lens. I've been noticing that when I'm shooting a stationary object with hard edges (like a building) in high sunlight, I'm often left with thick color outlines or halos around some of the edges.

Someone told me that it's because Canon's 18-55mm kit lens is low quality and that a better lens would correct this. I'd rather find a solution that didn't involve me shelling out hundreds or thousands of dollars. Can anyone explain to me what causes this and/or how to remedy it? Sample pic below, I know it's overexposed but it was part of a bracketed series for an HDR merger and I get this effect sometimes on shots that are not overexposed as well.

 

[enzodm]

Chromatic aberration, and yes, it is a combination of lens + situation. Never tried, but there should be some PP technique for reducing that (but a better lens would do it better).

 

[robEMPire]

Ah so THAT'S chromatic aberration, good to know, thanks for the info. I see that as an option when I'm processing HDR images (and I check the box) but I wasn't sure what it was. If you can't tell, I'm very much a newbie. So a better lens... ok. Does that mean I have to go all the way up to L-lenses? Because I don't have that kind of cash laying around. I'm bidding on a used 55-250mm EF-S at the moment, but I'm far from the point where I can be shelling out $1k+ for a lens.

 

[fokker]

If you're looking for a better quality lens, skip the 55-250 (it's about the same quality as the 18-55, ie rubbish) and keep saving for something a bit better.

Bang for buck you can't beat the canon EF 50mm f1.8 prime, it's about $110 brand new.

 

[dxqcanada]

Canon EF-S 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS Lens Review: 3. Test results: Digital Photography Review

 

[o hey tyler]

Prime lenses are often times have less CA. Low quality glass, or wide focal length lenses (like an 18-200mm) are ones to stick away from. There is a CA correction tool in Adobe Camera RAW I believe (as well as Lightroom). With a small image (I.E. Facebook size), CA will not be very noticeable at all.

 

[enzodm]

Canon EF-S 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS Lens Review: 3. Test results: Digital Photography Review

... and this is the IS version, which is better than non IS. Anyway, in this review is also told is not worst than the more expensive 17-85, from some point of view.

 

[enzodm]

Ah so THAT'S chromatic aberration, good to know, thanks for the info. I see that as an option when I'm processing HDR images (and I check the box) but I wasn't sure what it was. If you can't tell, I'm very much a newbie. So a better lens... ok. Does that mean I have to go all the way up to L-lenses? Because I don't have that kind of cash laying around. I'm bidding on a used 55-250mm EF-S at the moment, but I'm far from the point where I can be shelling out $1k+ for a lens.

I can live without maximum optical quality. I have 55-250IS too, taken after having read good reviews of it (always considering also price, and including this sentence: The level of lateral chromatic aberrations is very low and usually not field relevant at around or less than ~1px on the average at the image borders. ). For example, it is better than the 75-300 you could find for something less.

 

[KmH]

Prime lenses are often times have less CA.

Why?

 

[o hey tyler]

From my experience, I got a lot of CA on the long end of a Tamron zoom lens on my old Sony A200, and I would assume it was because of the moving parts, and the glass changing proximity to other optics. Whereas the prime lenses that I've used suffered from very little CA, a small enough amount that I don't have to fix it in post. I haven't used any real budget prime lenses though.