Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS SLR Lens: Customer Reviews & Product Details

It's a good lens for the price and a nice way to get started with dslr photography. If you're like me, you'll quickly find that you want a faster lens, but this is great place to begin since it comes with most kits.

This seems like an excellent lens. Easy to focus and great pictures. Have not used outside yet, but great for indoors shots.

This is a wonderful lens that produces stunning photos without having to use a tripod.

I just wanted to share this tip - be careful not to move the focus ring while it is in autofocus mode, it could break. One day I discovered that the lens would not focus anymore. It was binding half way through the rotation.

So I took the lens apart. The little gear cog from the motor had a broken tooth.

What I learned: the motor can drive the gears forward, but don't override the focus ring with your hand as it can't take the stress of being driven in reverse.

But at the low price, and excellent image stabilization, it's still a great buy.

After months of research and wondering if I should make the move from a nice Canon PowerShot to a DSLR, I took the plunge and am absolutely delighted that I did so.

I purchased a Canon T1i in August, in hopes of learning to use it by mid-November in time for a trip to Istanbul. I found the Amazon and the dpreview.com reviews extremely valuable. Amazon reviews because these are real people with their personal experiences, and dpreview because of what seemed to me excellent technical information and comparisons. Since these reviews have covered a lot of technical material I will talk mostly about the softer side describing my decisions and experience.

My work takes me to interesting places in the world with potential for great people, culture, and architecture photography. The first big question for me was whether or not a DSLR would make a substantial quality difference over the Power Shot I've enjoyed using for several years. The answer, after 9 days shooting in Istanbul, is that this upgrade was absolutely worth it.

The relative smallish and light physical characteristics of the T1i are perfect for a guy who travels with carry-on only luggage for weeks at a time (example me). I chose the Canon EFS 17-85 over the kit lens, intending it to be my day-to-day walk around lens. In reading reviews I saw a recurring theme that a Canon 50mm 1.8, for around $100 was a must buy. So I purchased the 50mm.

I took around 500 images over the nine days in Istanbul. I took many excellent images at night and in a conference room of a hotel. Here was the big surprise on the Istanbul trip - I used the 50mm almost exclusively and I never used a flash. This was not intentional or predetermined. In side the hotel the 1.8 lens made since because of limited light. At night walking the streets of Istanbul I made that same choice for the same reason. In the morning when I was not working I'd strike out early...not much light, usually overcast... so for better or worse, this camera, and the Canon 50mm 1.8 lens, did an outstanding job for me. While I can't apply technical quantification to the images I took, let me just say many of the images from the T1i were tack sharp and simply beautiful. Some were duds but that speaks more about the photographer, in this case anyway, than the T1i.

Again after considerable reading and some experience I've chosen the following accessories so far. I have two 16 Gig Transcendent SDHC cards that have served me well. I purchased the Opteka Professional Battery Grip but found the extra weight and size, for my purposes, to be excessive. The two batteries that came with it make great back ups for me. I put lens shades on all lens and use them all the time. I purchased the book "CANON EOS REBGEL T1i/500D" by David Busch. This book was an excellent investment and I highly recommend it to help get the most from this camera.

Perhaps of interest to some readers, if not to the very fine company of Canon, Inc., are certain measures I have taken to increase security. I purchased this very fine camera in the hope of taking excellent images, not to impress people by carrying around a flashy camera or to promote this outstanding company. I neatly put black electric tape over the name Canon on the front, top of the camera. I removed the bright Canon neck strap, replacing it with a generic black Targus strap, and removed the lens caps with the Canon name in bold print, replacing them with generic black lens caps. My "camera bag" is a generic canvas messenger bag with custom foam inserts (cost $5 and 35 minutes to cut the foam). While not iron clad, many potential thieves will presumably pass me by while looking for the Nikon or Canon logos on cameras carried by "rich westerners."

There are a number of good reviews already for this lens, but I would like to write this review from the perspective of someone who got this lens as part of a camera kit. Last year I bought the Canon EOS Rebel T1i which came with this lens in the package. I have also read a couple photography books (David Busch's T1i Guide and Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure, both which I highly recommend), and I have done a lot of research on lenses.

The main two rivals of this lens are:
1) Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
2) Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

Both of those lenses are considerably more expensive than this one. The obvious advantage of the 18-200mm is range. If you don't ever want to switch lenses, you could probably buy this one and leave it on your camera. The 18-55mm IS and the 18-200mm IS have similar properties in terms of image quality, and they come with similar features. Basically, the 18-200mm is more convenient at a higher price, but you should expect similar performance.

The 17-55mm, however, is simply a better lens with better glass and near L performance at the price of an L lens. The 17-55mm has USM, which focuses faster, quieter, and more accurately, and the lens doesn't spin around when focusing. The 17-55mm has full-time manual focusing (you don't have to switch the AF off in order to adjust the focus manually), and it has a focal distance scale. These are very useful features for taking storytelling photos and other times when you need to set the focus manually. The 17-55mm is faster, having a constant f/2.8, and is much better at taking portraits and other type of photos that isolate the subject. Also, the 17-55mm has better IS. More than one reviewer of the 17-55mm has said, "throw out your kit lens, and buy the 17-55mm."

Well, I didn't throw out my kit lens (the 18-55mm IS), but I did think about selling it on eBay and buying the 17-55mm. Why, then, did I keep this lens? Well, the 18-55mm IS has three advantages over the 17-55mm, 1) it's much cheaper, 2) it's much lighter, making it more pleasant to carry around, 3) it came with my camera, so I had it already. Really, the 18-55 IS is not a bad lens. It can take some excellent pictures. In many situations it can take pictures that are just as good as those taken with the 17-55mm. Just keep in mind that you will never be able to get much bokeh with this lens, and it doesn't have USM. This lens is very sharp and doesn't have many image/color distortion problems. My main gripe with it is the auto focus, which is slow and sometimes jumps around trying to find the focus.

Just to let you know, instead of replacing this lens with the 17-55mm, I took that money and instead bought two less expensive but very good lenses:

1) EF-S 10-22mm USM (really the only lens to buy if you want to take any wide angle shots)
2) EF 50mm f/1.4 USM (a great portrait and indoor lens, which, in my opinion, can actually take better portrait photos than the 17-55mm; you might also consider the 50mm f/1.8)

I like my 18-55mm IS lens, and I think that I will never buy the 17-55mm. The next time I have $1000 to spend on a lens, I will probably buy the 100mm f/2.8L IS USM 1:1 macro lens. One last reason not to replace your kit 18-55mm IS lens with the 17-55mm is that if you ever replace your crop dSLR with a full frame dSLR, you won't be able to use your $1000 lens on it. If I spend that much on a lens, I would rather buy an L lens, which will last a lifetime.

The EF-S 18-55mm IS is not the best lens, but it is an excellent lens for the money. DON'T THROW AWAY YOUR KIT LENS! Keep it, and compliment it with other focal length lenses. I suggest:

1) EF 50mm f/1.4 USM or EF 50mm f/1.8
2) EF-S 10-22mm USM
3) a telephoto zoom
4) EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM 1:1 macro