While this Canon Kit Lens (or any Canon Consumer/Prosumer Lens) is not a direct replacement for an  L Lens, this very well designed, "8 oz featherweight" (including caps and UV), EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Canon Kit Lens is perfectly capable of taking excellent photos (even outstanding) with only the tiniest  bit of coaxing. If you're like most, you will be surprised at what you are about to see and for those that already have this lens, you will learn an easy way to produce better images without spending one extra penny on another lens until you are ready to do so.


I remain steadfastly passionate about proper and accurate testing of any lens that I personally use, sell or write about. For critical testing, I use a highly modified light testing chamber shown below that employs a series of  task specific lens targets which were painstakingly designed over a three year period to compare color, saturation and sharpness (among many other more tedious and less interesting criteria). A dozen or so selected targets are being prepared for submission to Canon at their Lake Success HQ for their comments and suggestions. This lens testing chamber duplicates the complete range of dawn to dusk light. It can, in a side by side lens comparison test, pick out the best performing lens for both sharpness and color in less than 3 minutes.



Currently included in the permanent Canon bench mark lens testing rack are 5 Canon Ls, 8 Canon mid priced prosumers and 6 Canon specialty lenses. For photography outside of testing, I use only 3 of these lenses, usually on a Canon 30D Body.

Remember that the newer Canon Kit Lenses are always an easy target for criticism by the "herd sellers" and "pretend experts". The kits are "inexpensive" (when referring to these lenses, the herd often uses their arsenal of highly technical terms like "cheap" and "inferior") when in fact, these lenses perform quite well which you will see. If you have one, you should feel confident that you have an excellent lens from which to later build upon if you choose. These Canon Kit Lenses are also quite plentiful, which of course the "herd sellers" really  don't  like either. Why? Because they can't easily inflate the bidding by calling it "rare", one of the most overused and misused  words in ad descriptions.

Those that unfairly criticize the performance of the kit lens may experience discomfort hearing the following: The saying goes (modified a bit)  "A lousy carpenter always blames his tools". (The correct saying is "a good carpenter never blames his tools"). Modern Canon Kit Lenses like the EF-S 18-35 f/3.5-5.6 have been glibly characterized by these "lousy carpenters" as "cheap"," inferior", "soft, unless stopped down", etc.

 In this guide we will show our enlightened readers quite the opposite with  side by side image comparisons taken with the EF-S 18-55 Kit lens wide open vs. the favorite of many pros; a perfectly tuned Canon EF-16-35mm f/2.8 USM L Lens. These test results will give the owners of this kit lens a renewed sense of justifiable pride and the casual reader and or a  potential owner of a kit lens a new perspective in lens cost vs image performance.

Now, let's get on with what I promised you. Here are a series of side by side photographs of the identical subject; one side taken with Canon's EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Kit Lens, the other with Canon's EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L USM Lens; both with identical light, taken between 5:18 and 5:23PM on 08-05-08.

All images were taken using a 30D with aperture priority selected at f/3.5 (wide open for the kit), 1/30th of a second for the kit and f/3.5, 1/100th of a second* for the L, at a focal length of 18mm and the ISO set at 100 for both. *Note: right off the bat with the shutter speed difference, you see the tremendous advantage the L has in its phenomenal light gathering ability.

 The image comparison subject in this guide is a giant white Mallow with its characteristic velvety white outer petal, deep wine red throat and protruding light yellow pistil and stamen, difficult to take with any lens without some blurring, though quite minimal in these test photos. In the images below, look carefully. Can you tell which one was taken with the Canon $1300.00 f/2.8 L Lens and which was taken with the f/3.5-5.6 $150.00 Kit Lens? Look for color, contrast and sharpness.

[Lens A Left] [Lens B Right].............................


[Lens A Left] [Lens B Right]...........................

OK, the moment of truth. Which did you choose? If you chose the left images (the As) because of seemingly more detail especially revealing the veins in the white petal and the impeccable image sharpness, you are in good company as about 50% of those comparing  chose the left images. If you chose the right images (the Bs) because of their very bright and vibrant appearance along with commensurate sharpness, congratulations, you chose the images taken with the $1300 L lens. Now, here's the best part. Take a look directly below at the final comparison between these A & B images.  In this comparison, using only ONE MOUSE CLICK, in a simple and  FREE photo rendering program, we transformed an already decent image taken by the $100.00 kit lens (the A Images) into the vaunted reaches of a $1300 L lens (the B Images). See the last two examples below.

Example 1: The left image A  was taken with the kit and enhanced using the one mouse click program, Image B with the L Lens (as is), not enhanced.

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Example 2 Same: The left image A  was taken with the kit and enhanced using the one mouse click program, Image B with the L Lens (as is), not enhanced.

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Example 2: Extreme magnification of the same 2 images showing the center of the mallow flower. Impressive? You bet. The free program used?... It is Google's elegantly written free Picassa 2. The one mouse click was the click of the "auto contrast button", nothing more.

Here's the link to paste in your browser's URL box to obtain this free program.  http://picasa.google.com/download/

                                                                         http://i24.ebayimg.com/03/i/001/04/22/4634_10.JPG  

                                                                         http://i15.ebayimg.com/08/i/001/04/22/4574_10.JPG
                                                              
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                                                                         http://i21.ebayimg.com/06/i/001/04/22/44f1_10.JPG

A quick  word of modest caution.  It is possible that unethical sellers &, some posing as "experts", after reading this guide, will consider using"rigged" side by image comparisons in their ad descriptions, guides and reviews designed to exaggerate the performance of the exact lenses they also sell on eBay. This is already being done now with words used to "create" ambiguous and distorted performance claims in  a number of ad descriptions, reviews and guides.

One way to spot such bogus "side by side comparisons" in the future, if they should occur ?...

would be to see if these sellers use the same exact images comparisons week after week for different lenses of the the same model lens they are selling. This can be checked looking at their previous completed auctions. There should always be a different image comparison made  for each uniquely serial numbered lens within the same model series for the comparison to be truthful and meaningful. But even that wouldn't be absolutely foolproof!  Foolproof  would be if the the side by side image tests could be 100% verifiable by the winner of the lens. Fortunately, they can be by using a simple forensic technique that cannot be manipulated or removed like EXIF (thanks to Langley).  But we'll save that subject for our customers, perhaps another guide and keep the bad guys guessing. It was using this technique, I happened to spot one lens vendor using reprints of old colored slides claiming they were pictures just taken that afternoon using one of the lenses being sold in his auction. It's amazing what some will do to fool others for profit.

Well  now you have pretty much the entire kit lens story. Kind of amazing isn't it to  take a well designed, but inexpensive lens selling for around $100 new and produce an image almost equal to one produced by a lens costing over 10 times more.

 What was shown here was not that a basic consumer lens is better or even "as good" as an L Lens based solely on its specification pedigree. What you just saw is that the kit lens undeniably  held its own in producing a decent image without enhancement and a near perfect equivalent to the L (some thought it even looked better) with just one simple click of a free image enhancement program.

And now, if you haven't already, go and thoroughly enjoy that great kit lens you have on your Canon Body. And one more thought. The next time you read or hear some self proclaimed expert telling you to "get rid of that fuzzy kit lens" in favor of one of his, you can smile and say to yourself, "no thanks, I already have a great lens and the pictures to prove it!." If you have any questions you would like to ask, by all means give me a shout using eBay's contact method.


Steve ...Canon_Treasures

Copyright Canon Treasures 2008 All Rights Reserved