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I just bought a Canon 300D and I figured that I would post my
experience with the kit lens in comparison to some fine glass. Not
that there is a shortage of opinions, but still... here it is:

First of all I should say which lenses I bought an why:

-I bought the kit lens, because it is the cheapest 18mm available and
I was curious.

-I bought the 50mm f/1.8 because it is cheap, good and fast. Simple.

-I needed a small telephoto (lucky me: I am not very found of
wide-angles) and thought for days about the one I would get. Would a
"designed for small sensor" zoom lens like the 55-200 (Sigma or Canon)
be sharp enough? Should it rather be an heavy and expensive 70-200
f/2.8? Isn't the Canon 135 f/2.0 tempting? What about a 100mm macro?
Different lenses, lots of choice.

I chose the 105mm macro from Sigma. This may seem strange, because I
like to take landscape pictures a lot, so maybe I should explain why:
-it's still small and light enough to take around
-it's not too expensive (I have lots of Minolta gear, I am not sure
whether my move to Canon is definitive or not, so I do not want to
invest a lot of money in that system) (Canon has a 100mm macro that is
50% more expensive and of no better optical quality, it focuses much,
much faster, but that's not important for landscapes)
-it is reasonably fast at f/2.8
-macro is an added bonus. Even if I won't use 1:1 very often, it's
interesting to photograph small plants and details.
-last but not least, optical performance is (according to various
sources) "exceptional" especialy around f/5.6. I was curious to see
what difference this made on an electronic camera.

Next day I took some pictures. No fancy test on resolution targets,
simply a few pictures of my street, a low-tech "photographic test".
Compared the pictures on the computer screen (which is the equivalent
of watching the details on a very big poster...) and this is my
conclusion:

-the kit lens is not that bad, except at wide-angle in the edge where
color fringing is very noticeable. Still: I could enlarge most of its
pictures to A3 posters (30cm x 40cm) and most people would still find
those sharp.For the price: get it.
-the 50mm is noticeably better, as expected. It is a very good lens.
-the 105mm macro is even better. Combined with the grainless nature of
the sensor, it simply gives truely amazing pictures. I guess that they
could even be enlarged to A2 (40cm x 60cm), which is a really
impressive size (unless you shoot medium or large format).

Interestingly, the zoom pictures shows almost the same amount of fine
detail than the 105mm pictures. What the better picture has is
essentialy better detail contrast. Thinking about it: a resolution
picture alone is meaningless without an associated contrast figure.
And probably the lenses do not look as much different when shooting
resolution targets (which are high contrast). Do I make you think?



So what is the conclusion of this long post?

The first conclusion is that the zoom lens is worth having for the
price.

The second conclusion is that there is more to life than a
transtandard zoom lens. I am not advising that YOU buy the Sigma 105mm
(you may not like the resulting 170mm focal length and it focuses
really slowly). But be creative! Have a look at various lenses
catalogues and choose the one for the picture YOU make. Why is
everybody choosing a "universal" 15-800mm zoom, slow, heavy, expensive
and unable to focus closer than 10 meters away is beyond me.

The third conclusion is that the lens, not the CCD, starts to be the
limiting factor for these cameras. No use for a camera packing more
pixels on the same detector surface. No use for low-quality lenses on
these detectors. Actually, if all you have is older, low priced zooms
and you are looking for a camera to reuse them, it may be worth
considering buying an old 3 Mpix SLR. Should not be too expensive on
the second hand market and is still good for, maybe, 24cm x 36cm
prints, which matches what this kind of lens is capable of.



I hope I have entertained you enough to pay for the long download
time. Bye.

http://home.att.net/~jriegle/ltest.htm
Is my test of some Canon lenses I got with the Rebel. The EF 80-200 cheapie
apprears to be a well behaved lens.
John

"jerry_tig2003" <> wrote in message
news: om...
> I just bought a Canon 300D and I figured that I would post my
> experience with the kit lens in comparison to some fine glass. Not
> that there is a shortage of opinions, but still... here it is:
>
> First of all I should say which lenses I bought an why:
>
> -I bought the kit lens, because it is the cheapest 18mm available and
> I was curious.
>
> -I bought the 50mm f/1.8 because it is cheap, good and fast. Simple.
>
> -I needed a small telephoto (lucky me: I am not very found of
> wide-angles) and thought for days about the one I would get. Would a
> "designed for small sensor" zoom lens like the 55-200 (Sigma or Canon)
> be sharp enough? Should it rather be an heavy and expensive 70-200
> f/2.8? Isn't the Canon 135 f/2.0 tempting? What about a 100mm macro?
> Different lenses, lots of choice.
>
> I chose the 105mm macro from Sigma. This may seem strange, because I
> like to take landscape pictures a lot, so maybe I should explain why:
> -it's still small and light enough to take around
> -it's not too expensive (I have lots of Minolta gear, I am not sure
> whether my move to Canon is definitive or not, so I do not want to
> invest a lot of money in that system) (Canon has a 100mm macro that is
> 50% more expensive and of no better optical quality, it focuses much,
> much faster, but that's not important for landscapes)
> -it is reasonably fast at f/2.8
> -macro is an added bonus. Even if I won't use 1:1 very often, it's
> interesting to photograph small plants and details.
> -last but not least, optical performance is (according to various
> sources) "exceptional" especialy around f/5.6. I was curious to see
> what difference this made on an electronic camera.
>
> Next day I took some pictures. No fancy test on resolution targets,
> simply a few pictures of my street, a low-tech "photographic test".
> Compared the pictures on the computer screen (which is the equivalent
> of watching the details on a very big poster...) and this is my
> conclusion:
>
> -the kit lens is not that bad, except at wide-angle in the edge where
> color fringing is very noticeable. Still: I could enlarge most of its
> pictures to A3 posters (30cm x 40cm) and most people would still find
> those sharp.For the price: get it.
> -the 50mm is noticeably better, as expected. It is a very good lens.
> -the 105mm macro is even better. Combined with the grainless nature of
> the sensor, it simply gives truely amazing pictures. I guess that they
> could even be enlarged to A2 (40cm x 60cm), which is a really
> impressive size (unless you shoot medium or large format).
>
> Interestingly, the zoom pictures shows almost the same amount of fine
> detail than the 105mm pictures. What the better picture has is
> essentialy better detail contrast. Thinking about it: a resolution
> picture alone is meaningless without an associated contrast figure.
> And probably the lenses do not look as much different when shooting
> resolution targets (which are high contrast). Do I make you think?
>
>
>
> So what is the conclusion of this long post?
>
> The first conclusion is that the zoom lens is worth having for the
> price.
>
> The second conclusion is that there is more to life than a
> transtandard zoom lens. I am not advising that YOU buy the Sigma 105mm
> (you may not like the resulting 170mm focal length and it focuses
> really slowly). But be creative! Have a look at various lenses
> catalogues and choose the one for the picture YOU make. Why is
> everybody choosing a "universal" 15-800mm zoom, slow, heavy, expensive
> and unable to focus closer than 10 meters away is beyond me.
>
> The third conclusion is that the lens, not the CCD, starts to be the
> limiting factor for these cameras. No use for a camera packing more
> pixels on the same detector surface. No use for low-quality lenses on
> these detectors. Actually, if all you have is older, low priced zooms
> and you are looking for a camera to reuse them, it may be worth
> considering buying an old 3 Mpix SLR. Should not be too expensive on
> the second hand market and is still good for, maybe, 24cm x 36cm
> prints, which matches what this kind of lens is capable of.
>
>
>
> I hope I have entertained you enough to pay for the long download
> time. Bye.

Great test! Thanks for doing some tests on this. I have the Digital
Rebel on order now, with the kit lens. I was looking at either the
80-200, or the 75-300.

I would have went for the 75-300 from the start just because it is
giving the fantastic range of 120mm to 480mm on the Rebel. I saw
someone else had done tests on the 75-300 at different focal lengths
and f-stops. It was acceptable at only f11 for much of the range.

It looks like the 80-200 is better at a more open f-stop from your
tests. I'd be interested to see what it looks like at f11, just as a
comparison to the other test.

The other person also said the same of the 50mm lens, it's a must-have
for portraiture on the Rebel.

You've changed my mind, it's the 80-200 AND 50 lens now! A zoom lens
of 128mm to 320mm is NOT bad at all, especially if it's small and
lightweight.

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 23:54:50 GMT, "jriegle" <> wrote:

>http://home.att.net/~jriegle/ltest.htm
>Is my test of some Canon lenses I got with the Rebel. The EF 80-200 cheapie
>apprears to be a well behaved lens.
>John

My neighbors bought their rebel after me so they used mine seen what they
wanted more of and bought it. They ended up buying a Sigma 70-300 Super
Macro instead of the Canon 80-200 like i chose and after a few outings with
it i kinda wish that i would have done the same. Just something for you to
think about.