Canon EF-S 18-55mm Zoom Lens

Advantages: Cheap and light
Disadvantages: Grainy photo quality, low zoom

...I recently purchased a sweet Canon 400D/XTi Rebel from Amazon.co.uk (£45 cashback!) and this standard zoom lens (Canon EF-S 18-55mm) came with it. As far as I know, you cannot purchase the Canon EF-S 18-5mm on it's own, as it's designed specifically to be sold with the 400D/XTi Rebel package. I'm sure you can pick up a cheap one on eBay though (probably removed from a kit package, or being sold due to an upgrade from kit package). I've seen the EF-S 18-55mm sell for around £25-£35 at undamaged/rarely used condition on eBay, which is quite cheap! I obviously chose the kit lens package with my 400D/XTi Rebel as it only adds about £40 in the price difference, and I couldn't afford a new lens at that time. Before I start reviewing the actual lens, I'd like to say that is is a kit lens. It doesn't have a great built quality...

ferocity 14.06.2008 · Read review
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Review of Canon EF-S zoom lens - 18 mm - 55 mm F/3.5-5.6

Get the perfect picture every time!

Advantages: great price, easy to use
Disadvantages: low focal length, so not great for shooting from a distance

...: The focal length on this camera is 18 - 55 mm; similar to an ideal 28 - 85 mm lens on a 35 mm film camera. The pictures produced with this lens are always clear and in focus. The lens has auto focus, so there is no need to try and manually focus your camera for the shots you want to take. STYLE: The style of this lens will match with every current Nikon digital SLR. It is black with a small amount of gold writing, and as I said matches perfectly with all SLR's. In some countries/areas this lens is also available in silver & black. DISADVANTAGES: This lens is a great started lens, but to me that is all it is. Once you have got to grips with this, you will need a lens with a longer focal length in order to get close up, zoomed in shots of objects. For the price of this lens however, (can be found for around £180 in England) it is a good one to...

hkwilson 11.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Nikon AF-S DX 18-55mm f3.5-5.6G II

Compact 'standard' lens - a step up from 18-55mm

Advantages: compact; lightweight; sharp
Disadvantages: small zoom range; designed for 35mm film; no image stabilisation

...This lens is widely available from many sources, both new and secondhand. It is compact and light in weight and offers a significantly wider zoom range than the 28-55mm lens supplied as 'standard' on many Canon digital SLR cameras. Used on most Canon digital cameras, the effective focal lengths become 1.6x bigger (as the sensor is APS- sized, not 35mm sized), making it a 45 - 170mm zoom. Hardly wide-angle, but, at the lower end, it is roughly the same as the 50mm lens that all 35mm cameras used to be fitted with as standard. With digital cameras, the argument goes, you can 'stitch' several shots together to create a panorama and so overcome the lack of a wider angle lens. That's only true to a limited extent - but TRUE wide-angle lenses need a second mortgage at present! With focal lengths between 80 to 120mm being regarded as...

happydadtoo 24.10.2006 (25.10.2006) · Read review
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Review of Canon EF zoom lens - 28 mm - 105 mm F/4.0-5.6

Canon Quality

Advantages: Same Canon quality we have come to expect, great ISO capabilities.
Disadvantages: Buttons can get fiddly in the cold.

...times. Pricing There are many packages available with this camera, body only (£529.99), +18-55mm (£579.99), and +18-200 mm (£879.99.) These packages are well priced and the lenses included are amazing. Most people will buy the 18-55mm package, so this is the lens we will discuss. Picture Quality The 18-55mm lens included does the camera justice. With a maximum aperture of 3.5 dropping to 5.6 at the far end of the zoom is industry standard. The IS on the lens stands for image stabilizing, this really does work well and takes a lot of the shake out of handheld shooting at slower shutters. It works much better and is more accurate than Sony?s steady shot, offering unrivalled results. The filter size is 58mm which you may need to bear in mind if you already own a large selection of filters for your D...

aadamm 23.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Canon EOS 500D

Take professional pictures easily

Advantages: Great price, lots of control!
Disadvantages: ---

...Cannon's new digital SLR camera is so simple- a chimp could us it! This is due to the EOS 1000D uses tha same digital image processor as Cannon's top of the range units worth up to 6 times more the £579.99 RRP of the entry level snaper with 18-55mm lens... But you can actually find it online for £394 @ www.warehouseexpress.com :D The cutting edge DIGIC III processor allows fast operation, accurate colour reprodction, fast start up times, and low power consumption... Everything you need really! It also features a 10.1 megapixel sensor, and a 7-point wide are auto focus system to ensure sharpness through out the picture. And the central focus point works in low light. For action shots, it takes up to three frames per second-CONTINUOSLY thats a massive 514 shots on a 2 Gb SD card!!! My favourite bit though is the self clean lens...

jonahea 01.10.2008 · Read review
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Review of Canon EOS 1000D

Nikon D40 - A great bargain for the beginning photographer!

Advantages: Cheap, easy to use, nice clear LCD screen
Disadvantages: No motor for auto focus

...I purchased this camera at a very good price when I was looking to first start photgraphy. I went for the Digital SLR (single lens reflex) so I had more functions and properties that I was able to change myself. For an entry level photographer, I would say it is perfect. With 6.1 megapixels it has a good range for what the beginner will need. The lens that came with it was a Nikon AFS 18-55mm. This has a good range to start with for average portraits or imagery. I have also managed to get some good micro shots with this lens. The screen is a good size to check any images after taking and the camera also has some good built in features such as red eye reduction and several tonal changes for on the spot editing. The main downside about this camera is at its cheap price, there is no motor for the lens built in the camera. This means only...

McBeer 17.05.2009 · Read review
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Review of Nikon D40

Second foray into DSLR territory, its tiny!

Advantages: Lightweight, compact, cheap and simple DSLR ideal for beginners
Disadvantages: Expensive lenses and a little too compact for me.

...I have a Fuji S2 pro DSLR that I purchased from a well known internet auction site, and following in the footsteps of many others I won a second bid as well. For my £90 I got a possible working D40 body and completely flat battery, after a bit more shopping I got a battery charger and tried it with the 18 - 55mm lens off the Fuji (Both Nikon F mounts). It worked, and is happily still working now. I have since bought a 18-55mm AF-S lens for the camera, and I am impressed, both the D40 and the S2 are 6Mp cameras (although the Fuji Super CCD operates differently) they both produce clean, sharp bright images on 'auto' and operate well under most conditions. The main difference between them is the weight, the Fuji is physically much bigger and weight a lot more than the D40 making the D40 an ideal camera to take with you when you...

Regsy 07.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Nikon D40

A capable mid-range zoom with a robust look and feel.

Advantages: Robust, good looking, quick focusing, compact
Disadvantages: There are better alternatives

...I bought this lens for my Nikon D50 as a replacement for the 18-55mm lens that it came with. The difference in quality is immediately noticeable. While the standard lens feels cheap and rattles about when you shake it this one is heavier and made from the same heavy duty plastic as Nikon's entry level DSLR range. With the kit lense manual focusing is achieved by gripping and twisting the end of the lens whereas this more upmarket model features a focusing ring. This moves smoothly and can be altered with precision - just what you need on Nikon's AF-S lenses which focus automatically but enable you to override manually with ease. The optics are as you would expect from Nikkor - fantastic - but not noticeably better than the kit lens. You do get a little extra zoom at the top end but this is not an all encompassing solution, it is a mid...

pclarke0046 13.08.2009 · Read review
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Review of Nikon Zoom-Nikkor zoom lens - 18 mm - 70 mm F/3.5-4.5

An excellent camera for everyone.

Advantages: Great pictures, incredible feature set, good zoom range, the price
Disadvantages: Soft images from the kit lens

...The Sony Alpha 200 is an excellent entry level DSLR available at very attractive prices. It offers a very good set of features that I will go over in more detail, later in the review. This kit includes the 18-70mm lens which gives it a much larger zoom range over it's competitors (both Canon and Nikon give their entry models an 18-55mm, about a 3x zoom), for a much lower price. THE BODY The camera's body is robust and solid- however it does sport a 'plasticy' feel to it. The Sony A200 is also slightly larger than the Nikon and Canon entry level models- whether that's a positive or a negative depends on your needs (i.e. do you like have a lot of space on the camera body? Do you have large hands etc.). The screen is sharp and clear, it also rotates depending on the orientation of the camera, so if you hold the camera sideways...

darKnight92 06.09.2008 · Read review
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Review of Sony a (alpha) DSLR-A200K

Light as the Air, Nikon D60

Advantages: Very small and light, wide range of Nikon lenses
Disadvantages: Slow Autofocus

...compensate the highlighted and shadowed areas. This does not work to any great affect that you will notice over any other camera without. The autofocus with the supplied 18-55mm kit lens is slow, yet precise, this will be discussed later. The metering system works extremely well and is only second to that of the Sony that has had years of development at Minolta. Another small issue I found when using this camera was the continuous shooting mode. It allows 100 Jpeg images to be taken at 3fps. I expected a little bit more for this cost, maybe 5fps would have allowed this camera to be used a bit more professionally and allow much more flexibility. The ISO range goes to 1600 with the ability to stretch it to 3200. Anything above 400 is not recommended as it does not cope as well with these as its Canon rivals of same price. The 2.5 inch screen...

aadamm 23.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Nikon D60