New Canon 18-55mm IS Kit lens no longer a whipping boy. Blows competition out of the water. Look out 17-55!

Read on

 

http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/lenses/canon_1855_3556is/index.htm

Yeah except for the "lookout 17-55" part.

Look out 17-55?

 

I honestly do not think this lens even with IS will be able to touch the 17-55.

 

Where should one start? f/2.8 vs f3.5-5.6

 

The 18-55mm front element rotates which is bad news for those using a polarizer. 17-55 does not!

 

17-55 has USM, and guess which lens does not?

 

The 18-55 still looks very cheap and its optical construction = 11 elements in 9 groups including 1x aspherical element.

 

17-55 has 19 elements in 12 groups including three aspherical elements plus two UD (ultra-low dispersion) elements.

 

I am not knocking the 18-55mm lens with the new IS ... but I am not worried about it blowing the 17-55mm f/2.8IS away.

 

Would be nice to see the lens on my 40D just to see if it performed as good as they say it has oh PZ.

Hey Wayne,

Not familier with the 18-55mm. Do you mean the Canon 17-55mm EFS IS 2.8?

-- "Do you mean the Canon 17-55mm EFS IS 2.8?"

 

No ... they mean the EFS 18-55/3.5-5.6 IS USM.

I`d probably say look out original 18 55, with IS @ 18mm gives more stops? so does 17 55, I think I`ll stick to my f2.8 zooms tho at f8 doubt many would see difference in a 6x4, they have their limits

Very interesting. Could be the next plastic fantastic, challenging the 50/1.8II for that title. Wonder what the 55~250 will be like?

 

It's very encouraging to see Canon cleaning up its act in the area of low-end lenses, since it not only gives better value for those using such lenses, but also provides a better incentive for new users to choose Canon and then move on to higher-end kit as their needs and skills develop - and, who knows, perhaps even contribute to this forum! However, I think Canon should not let the build quality get too far out of line with the optical quality - the 70~300IS is apparently an example of a lens whose optics deserve something a bit better in that respect.

 

The performance of the new 18~55IS as reported by PhotoZone bears out my theory that Canon now target a different balance in controlling the various lens defects, and I regard the new correction capabilities in DPP 3.2 as the strongest evidence of this. Although in post-processing you can recover sharpness from the effects of the AA filter to a large extent, you can't do much to improve the image from an inherently unsharp lens. Whereas you can very easily compensate for vignetting, at the cost of a small loss of DR. And with some suitably ingenious algorithms applied during RAW conversion, you can do a very good job of compensating for distortion (at the cost of a slight loss of angular coverage) and a pretty good job of compensating for lateral CA (although of course really bad CA can produce significant blur within each of the R, G, B images as well as separating them from one another). So the priority is to optimise sharpness and bokeh, and probably also colour quality and contrast, and allow DPP to fix the rest.

 

This is a very different design philosophy from that applied in the past to lenses for use with film. As aberration correction in post-processing increasingly becomes the norm, surely it will be necessary for lens tests to take this into account. After all, what matters is what can be achieved in the final image; how you get there is just technology.

SLRGear.com has also done a 18-55/IS review http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/1114/cat/11

 

--

Agreed those are great resolution figures, but there is far more to a good lens than just this aspect. Personally I wouldnt be happy with that amount of barrel distortion and vignetting. Still encouraging to see an improvement to the original kit lens though.

I think it was a smart marketing move on Canon's part. Those customers that are still kind of new but not totally new to photography will latch onto "sharpness" early on as an end all be all critera for lenses. They forget about other important attributes like fast apertures, constant aperture for metering accuracy, AF speed, AF accuracy and ovrall all build quality. So, Canon made this one real sharp with better elements and IS.

It's actually depressing to see such an incredible IS kit lens at $200... and Canon can't make a usable $1500 50mm prime lens.

James

 

"Canon can't make a usable $1500 50mm prime lens"

 

I'd love to hear your rationalization for this statement. Or are you just a lurking under your bridge waiting for the three billy goats gruff to come along?

"It's very encouraging to see Canon cleaning up its act in the area of low-end lenses"

 

Amen, Bro! Looks like Canon got tired of invidious comparisons to the Nikon equivalent, which is a very decent lens.

 

While it won't replace or challenge the 17-55 IS, it might reduce its sales potential a bit to the extent buyers decide that "good enough" is more reasonably priced than "great". OTOH, not that many kit lens upgraders are genuine candidates for the 17-55 anyway, so the impact won't be significant -- a factor Canon probably already computed.

 

What's really funny are those with panties so firmly wedged in a tight place that they actually argue the OP's rhetorical point! Anyone with an adult appreciation of his/her 17-55 IS wouldn't deign to enter this discourse, and I'm the exception that would be the pudding to prove this ad hoc rule :-)

I don't see it impacting the sales of the 17-55 at all. I do see it cutting massively into the sales of the Tamron 17-50/2.8 and the Sigma 18-50/2.8. I used to recommend the Tamron (spinning MF ring and all) as the best value standard zoom out there but that recommendation just changed. Though they are both faster I suspect that most of these sales were not to people who wanted a constant f2.8 lens but just to people who wanted a decent standard zoom.

A lot of people have perhaps missed the point altogether. An "L-like" lens that has questionable dust-sealing and anti-flare properties just cannot be attractive to people who are looking for quality and are willing to compromise features such as build (What is build anyway? My Sigma 10-20/4-5.6 EX DC HSM has better build than its Canon counterpart, but cannot take sharp pictures : of course, not all Sigma 10-20's are bad, it's more a conformance issue than a performance one),bigger and constant aperture and better contrast/color for the $800 less that they have to pay.

 

If one can manage with the 50/1.8 II, this lens should be OK. The 50/1.8 II, which I use, doesn't look likely to break apart anytime soon.

 

What is PTlens (a $15 software)for, if not barrel distortion and vignetting correction?

 

If the 18-55/3.5-4.5 IS is as good as the resolution numbers at PZ show, it may well eat into the sales (a point made above by Alistair) of Tamron's incumbent blockbuster, the 17-50/2.8, another great value-for-money lens, if not into that of Canon's "L-like" option (for which the hood is an optional accessory).

 

Regards, Nilangsu

"I'd love to hear your rationalization for this statement. Or are you just a lurking under your bridge waiting for the three billy goats gruff to come along?"

 

 

lol, what? Well.. that was weird.

 

Anyway: the 50mm f/1.2L suffers from an inherent defect. Focus shift to be exact. Look it up. It's well documented and discussed on many forums and websites. I don't just throw opinions around. It's true. If you haven't heard of this problem with the 50L, you probably haven't heard much about the lens.

 

Someone on the FM forums was actually talking about filing a small claims lawsuit against Canon for selling an inherently defective product and not acknowledging it.

A similar thread at FM:

 

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/591255

James, in case your memory of childhood is fading, it was a troll waiting under the bridge for the three billy goats Gruff.

 

You do know what a troll is on a forum?

James, in case your memory of childhood is fading, it was a troll waiting under the bridge for the three billy goats Gruff.

 

You do know what a troll is on a forum?

 

OK, so it was weird... but LOL was my hope in any case.

I think it's a tremendously impressive daylight lens. The original 18-55 had a lot of things going for it; size, weight, durability, quick AF, and some fantastic front coatings. This new one finally corrects the nasty optics. It's now my default recommendation, along with a fast 50mm or 85mm prime.

 

DI

Since the new kitlens is so gogogogood, Should we expect a revision for the efs 17-85 IS? Not that the 17-85 is bad though, Its just that the new 18-55 is so good, Well, at least in the test.

I am glad Canon is showing they can still make a decent lens (optically speaking) for around $200. Call me cycnical but I find it incredulous that Canon suddenly discovered how to do a 4 stop IS with built-in panning detection seemingly for an extra $60, when adding IS to their other lenses often adds a minimum of $200.

 

Unfortunately IMO Canon has gone over the last few years from leading the pack by introducing new and comeptitve products to following the pack. I guess that is what being market leader involves - responding rather than setting the pace.

70-200 f/2.8L IS = $600 more than the non-IS... that's ridiculous.

 

You can buy a 70-200 f/2.8 and a 70-200 f/4 for that.

 

This new lens is a great example of how companies like Canon make all their money. They can obviously add IS to a lens for an incredibly low cost. They just never did until recently.

>> 70-200 f/2.8L IS = $600 more than the non-IS... that's ridiculous.

 

You can buy a 70-200 f/2.8 and a 70-200 f/4 for that.

 

 

 

Yes, but none of them can take sharp pictures at 1/30. I had all four variants and the 2.8 IS was the one I kept.

 

 

Happy shooting,

Yakim.

It's the same for everything, I'm buying a new car and the want GBP 1900 for sat nav!

 

How can it possibly cost that much for integrated sat nav when a TOM TOM is GBP 150!

 

They charge what the market can bare!