Kit lenses

[neonlamp]

Interesting article on kit lenses. My first DSLR was the 600D and I chose an 18-135 rather than the 18-55 because I often thought the longer reach would be better for things I like to photograph. Upgrading to the 7DII I bought an EF24-105f/4L. In part, my early photography using an AE1P with an FD35-70 meant that the 24-105 gave me a similar wide angle to what I was used to with longer reach at the telephoto end. I also imagined upgrading to FF at some point. For wider angles I bought the 10-22. It now seems unlikely I will be able to afford to upgrade anytime soon so I added the 17-55 which for walk-around tends to be used more than the 24-105, altough if "on a mission" I would tend to go for the 24-105, with the 10-22 in the kit bag. Sometimes, even the 17 is not wide enough on APS-C.
I agree that the quality of the 18-135 is generally good. It is hard, sometimes, to spot the differences but the 24-105 has better contrast, so presumably more or better antireflective coatings on the lens elements, and sharper optics. You can of course boost the contrast and saturation in post. Another comment about the kit lens I have (the older 18-135) is that after a few years of use, it developed a (slight) wobble,in the telescopic extending part, so you have to be aware of that when taking a photograph, (it only affects the extremeties of the image if noticed at all) whereas the 24-105 build is better.
I note that the 17-55 was in your lens line up, but I'm not sure if that was offered as a kit lens?
I would say that while you recommend kit lenses, a point I would make is that the 17-55 is very good, it has full time manual focus over-ride, with larger controls which are easier to get hold of as the 18-55 control rings are a little small and fiddly. I would recommend the 17-55 to anyone wanting to upgrade from an 18-55,- the f/2.8 is also useful, but it all depends on the type of photography you want. Some may of course want to spend on a longer telephoto, wider angle lens or macro instead of replacing the focal lengths you aready have.
As with my film experience, Canon have now made the 7DII obsolete, but the 17-55 seems to be still available in the stores. It is reported to suffer from flare but the images I take with it tend not to include the sun.

[NathCarr91]

The kit lens article in this months issue certainly was an interesting read for myself. Ive never had the benefit of choosing a kit lens because I purchased my Canon 40d second hand body only from Camera World. And when looking for a lens I didn't really know what to get. But I had purchased a 50mm F1.8 USM for my eos 3 and 50e film cameras as it was £99 brand new. So I just used that on my 40d. After about a year I bought a 17-55mm sigma F3.5 which I use more on my 50e than the 40d that I intended it for. I just really love the ultra wide angle I get from it when fitted to a 35mm camera than APS-C.

If I was to go back and choose a lens from scratch again knowing what I know now, I think I'd still just buy the 50mm prime. Don't get me wrong, I've had occasions where I wish I had more reach or a wider angle, but these are rare, what I always want more is that wider aperture. That's why my sigma lens rarely gets used on my 40d anymore.

[El Sid]

To the best of my knowledge the 17-55/f2.8 was never offered as a kit lens. It was the closest thing to an L lens Canon ever made in the EF-s mount and image quality seemed to be well thought of.

Early kit lenses for digital were a bit of a mixed bag and very much built to a price... Good ones could be surprisingly good but mostly they were middling to poor. I suspect they were a digital follow on from their film predecessors when most casual users rarely bothered with prints larger than 6x4 or 7x5 - sizes which hid most quality issues. The ability to look at digital images on screen at larger magnifications or at actual pixel level meant that any image quality issues became far more apparent. Later kit lenses tend to be generally far better quality wise even at pixel level - a result, I suspect, of computer aided design and manufacture being used to produce better image quality without overly increasing costs.

My first 'kit' lens was a Sigma 18-50 f3.5-5.6 which I used with my original D30. On the D30 it was OK but when I bought a 20D, with 8Mp instead of 3, it started to show it's limitations and got replaced with Sigma's 17-70 f2.8-4.5 zoom - a far superior lens which remains my primary APS format lens to this day (though I also have the EF-s 17-85 which I sometimes use if I want bit more reach).