wt21
Hall of Famer
I got my new 18-55 kit lens.
Very compact. Nice size. Anodized aluminum outside, but that's made it a little hard and cold these last couple of days. Nice perception of build quality. internal/rear focusing, so the front lens does not rotate. Absolutely silent AF.
I bought it because I was interested in getting something with a higher max magnification, but I wasn't ready to go MF macro or a larger EF or EF-S adapted macro. I wanted to stay compact and AF. The 18-55 approaches .24X. That might work! But in researching the lens, I found out it's one of the best 3.5-5.6 kit lenses across all systems. I didn't know that. For just a little more than $100, it was worth trying.
A couple of notes -- there are no switches on the lens. No MF/AF switch and no IS switch. I don't really care about MF/AF, because you can grab and turn the focus ring anytime you want. For IS -- I don't generally keep IS on, but this is a slow aperture lens, so it came in handy with these shots, some of which were down around 1/8-1/30 when, shooting at 55mm, they should have been more like 1/100, but I was bumping my upper ISO3200 limit.
The thing I'm really happy with is the bokeh. The close focus is sweet, and it's fast enough to focus, it's sharp, and not a lot of vignetting for what it is (i.e. compact kit). It will be a nice complement to the 22mm.
Some pics. The first two were intentionally shot to see the bokeh.
20131126-20131126-18-55 Bokeh Test 1 by wt2100, on Flickr
20131126-20131126-18-55 Bokeh Test 2 by wt2100, on Flickr
20131126-20131126-IMG_6955 by wt2100, on Flickr
20131126-20131126-IMG_6957 by wt2100, on Flickr
20131126-20131126-IMG_6961 by wt2100, on Flickr
20131126-20131126-IMG_6963 by wt2100, on Flickr
Very compact. Nice size. Anodized aluminum outside, but that's made it a little hard and cold these last couple of days. Nice perception of build quality. internal/rear focusing, so the front lens does not rotate. Absolutely silent AF.
I bought it because I was interested in getting something with a higher max magnification, but I wasn't ready to go MF macro or a larger EF or EF-S adapted macro. I wanted to stay compact and AF. The 18-55 approaches .24X. That might work! But in researching the lens, I found out it's one of the best 3.5-5.6 kit lenses across all systems. I didn't know that. For just a little more than $100, it was worth trying.
A couple of notes -- there are no switches on the lens. No MF/AF switch and no IS switch. I don't really care about MF/AF, because you can grab and turn the focus ring anytime you want. For IS -- I don't generally keep IS on, but this is a slow aperture lens, so it came in handy with these shots, some of which were down around 1/8-1/30 when, shooting at 55mm, they should have been more like 1/100, but I was bumping my upper ISO3200 limit.
The thing I'm really happy with is the bokeh. The close focus is sweet, and it's fast enough to focus, it's sharp, and not a lot of vignetting for what it is (i.e. compact kit). It will be a nice complement to the 22mm.
Some pics. The first two were intentionally shot to see the bokeh.
20131126-20131126-18-55 Bokeh Test 1 by wt2100, on Flickr
20131126-20131126-18-55 Bokeh Test 2 by wt2100, on Flickr
20131126-20131126-IMG_6955 by wt2100, on Flickr
20131126-20131126-IMG_6957 by wt2100, on Flickr
20131126-20131126-IMG_6961 by wt2100, on Flickr
20131126-20131126-IMG_6963 by wt2100, on Flickr