Skip M wrote:

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...

Skip M wrote:


As with many of Canon's consumer level lenses, there seems to be a wide
variation in samples. This was taken with the 18-55 that was bundled
with my wife's 20D:
http://www.shutterspeedway.com/cgi-b...ces&picture=26
Sharp, good color, not much more that you can ask for in a lens that runs
about $100.

I'm guessing the shot was made at f/8 to f/11 ... almost any lens will do
well in bright light and those aperture settings.

The real test is wide open...

Cheers,
Alan.


You're right, f8 at 1/200. But I feel that the lens is in no way as
scabrous as many portray it. Stopped down, or no, there are lenses that
won't perform as well, the Vivitar 17-35 AF lens springs to mind. And it
costs more than the Canon.

I've yet to hear (or maybe remember) anything good about any Vivitar lens.

As I said in another post, some Canon kit lenses are better than their
competitor company counterparts. I'd have little trouble believing the
18-55 is decent too. Having said that, it just occured to me to go to a
source:

.... page 159 of the March 2004 (No. 261) issue of Chasseur D'Images
reports on the Canon EF-S 18-55 f/3.5-5.6:

scores after measurement as being:

Distortion: 4/5
Vignetting: 3/5
Ctr sharp: 3/5
Edge sharp: 3/5
Overal sco 3/5

Comments:

wide angle /wide open vignetting: poor
f/5.6: good (they say "honorable results"
which from the French also describes whores who overcharged Nazi
officers while giving them syphillis... interpret appropriately)

Chromatic abberations: short FL, noticeable, overall not too bad for an
'economical' lens.

Distortion: bad pincushion from 18 to 28mm, though not "catastrophically
so" for a zoom. From 28 up, negligible.

Optical qualities: "Forget wide open!" If used from f/5.6 to f/16 then
the center sharpness is darned satisying for a lens of this price. On
the edges, 'drags' a bit. [They use the word "fichtrement" ...
'darned', and "traine" .. 'drags' some things just don't translate well]

Best used f/8 to f/11 is their conclusion ... and I swear I didn't look
up the report for my prev. reply!

The accompanying graphs do show the best sagital/tangential performance
at 55mm, f/11 - f/16; and very good at 25mm from f/5.6 to f/16.

If you like, I'll scan the report summary (4" x 8" roughly) and e-mail
it to you... your High School French (or Spanish) should suffice.

Cheers,
Alan.

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.