Largely a waste of money

quadrox wrote:

J A C S wrote:

quadrox wrote:

So I cannot recommend this lens to anyone unless you really really need the f 2.8.

… which is the whole point...

Duh...?!

Of course one buys a faster lens to get a faster lens. What I am saying is, that in this case a faster lens doesn't get you what you would usually expect from a faster lens.

I'm an extreme pixel peeper, and I shot with both this lens and the 18-55 in various conditions, and I could not for the life of me detect a difference in the image quality. And I never felt limited by the kit zoom in any way. I even once forgot to put the 17-55 in my bag, but still had the kit zoom. I was quite anxious about it actually, but at the end of the day I hadn't missed the 17-55 one bit and the images were fine.

So yes, that f 2.8 is going to allow you to keep shooting in slightly darker conditions if you are going to shoot wide open, that is undeniable, but it's not much of a difference really. And at the long end you get a (tiny) bit of background separation wide open. But if you expect really improved image quality, handling, build quality, or anything else for that money, your'e going to be extremely disappointed.

What your analysis may indicate is that the latest kit lens is actually a decent lens for what it is. In full-frame equivalence, it offers a reasonable 28-88mm focal range as well as image stabilization. Unless one NEEDS that wider aperture, the optical quality is plenty good to serve one well. Plus it's considerably smaller, lighter and cheaper.

I once went on a cruise and carried a 5DIII with a 28-70/2.8 L. Beautiful images. The camera was stolen on the cruise, however, and in addition to replacing it with a Mark IV I also picked up a super cheap SL1 with the 18-55 kit lens. (Both were the white models, specifically for discouraging any thieves who might otherwise have thought it expensive enough to steal.) Used the heck out of it on our next cruise. All daytime photos shot at f5.6 or smaller. Again, beautiful images. Maybe that says something about how far digital photo tech and lenses have come.