Canon have a winner with this lens (Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens)

Member Name: markos9

Product:	Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens
Date:	21/03/09 (234 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High quality, low price

Disadvantages: Barrel distortion at wide angle

I bought this lens with my new Canon 450D, the difference between buying the camera as a body only, and with the lens was only £50 so I effective paid only this much for this lens. The price for the lens on its own is £145, so buying it with the camera was an incredible bargain.

This is a new lens, designed to be the 'kit' lens for Canon's current range of entry level cameras (e.g. 450D). It is an update of the old 'kit' lens supplied with the cheaper Canons since the 300D but has several significant improvements.

The lens covers the range 18-55mm which, when fitted to the Canon 450D, which has a 'crop factor' of 1.6, gives a 35mm equivalent focal length range of 29-88mm. This is wide angle to medium telephoto so covers lengths suitable from landscape to portrait.

Build quality is significantly improved on the older model. It's extremely compact and lightweight, but does not feel flimsy at all. It's constructed of plastic, but has a nice textured finish that definitely does not look cheap.

The headline update for the 18-55mm is the addition of image stabilisation. This effectively compensates for shake when not on a tripod and ensures that sharp photos can be achieved even when hand holding. Technically, this is reported to give 'four stops' advantage to a none IS lens.

In use, I find this to work brilliantly. With a non-IS lens, the photographer has to carefully consider the lighting and aperture chosen to get an exposure of greater than 1/focal length to ensure a sharp photo. With this lens, this is not something I have to worry about too much. Exposures of up to 1/3 of a second still result in acceptable photos most of the time.

Auto focus works extremely well, too. Most of my other lenses are Tamron, Tokina, or cheap Canon's so I cannot compare this to the latest ring USM models, but the auto focus is fast and accurate in good lighting. There's little noise when it's operating, so the lens appears to focus quickly with no fuss whatsoever.

In low light conditions, it does appear to hunt slightly and take longer to achieve focus, but this is not a problem.

The biggest improvement over the old 'kit' lens is in image quality. The old one was a bit poor, to be honest. This new lens is extremely sharp. I've taken pictures with this lens that, in the centre of the images at least, are as sharp as lenses costing three times as much.

Contrast is also extremely good, but here comparisons with much more expensive lenses shows that, as expected, the kit lens loses out a bit. Chromatic aberration is well controlled in the centre of the image, but is noticeable at the corners. This mainly shows up with high contrast edges (such as tree branches against the sky, showing 'purple fringes'). This can be reduced significantly using software such as Photoshop, however.

The lens' weak point is distortion at the wide angle end. This is the Achilles heel of many wide angle zooms, and shows up as barrel distortion, which, as the name suggests makes straight lines look curved. With a landscape photograph, it's unlikely that it will be noticeable, but take a photo with buildings in and it may look a little strange. Again this can be corrected in software to a large extent.

Overall, the image quality is extremely good, and when the price is taken into consideration, it's excellent. Many people who buy this lens may never buy another one, unless they need longer focal lengths.

In summary then, this is an inexpensive, but high quality lens, with built in image stabilisation. If you're in the market for a lens of this zoom range, you should seriously consider this. Price wise, it's very good value for money. If you're looking to buy a camera body too, get the two together for a real bargain.

Summary: A must if you're looking for a cheap lens of this focal length range.

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