18-55 for £29 - worth a punt?

One way to think about the vignetting being worse when the lens is stopped down is because it has greater DOF and therefore the edges are not as blurred.

As far as the 18-35 is concerned, it is much better than the 18-55 especially on digital bodies but it is full frame on film. Having said that, the 20-35 is better still but at about twice the price. £100 for the 18-35 is not a bad price at all. Ffordes have 2 but both are more.

Kim

I just assumed that the light path would be through a more central part of the glass. Which looks like being a fairly poor assumption!

If that were the case, the diapraghm would not have the effect it does on exposure.

Kim

Just to put all of this into some kind of perspective, the lens that I use mostly at work costs approximately £6000 and suffers from terrible barrel distortion at the wide end and pincushion distortion at the tight end, it isn't brilliantly sharp. It is a Canon (only Fuji and Canon make lenses for the camera). At £29, and bear in mind that the included hood is £35 if bought separately, the Pentax 18-55 is an absolute gem.

Well, it would cut down the intensity/'amount' of light as it would blank out that coming from the edges, although I've no idea what it would do to DOF - in my case the 'circle of confusion' is particularly apt!

i just got rid of my 18-55 for $50US. in further words, i didn't hesitate to sell it to a friend who needed it. even further words, it's not one of those lenses that you acquire and never let go of. all tech-talk aside, you're getting a pedestrian+ lens at a cool price.

I guess it all boils down to everybody's standard of quality.

I too, have a 18-55 and, again, I must defend it somewhat. To my view, it is a very capable and very decent lens. For the price, it is quite excelent and, from what I've seen, a step (or two) above all other kit lenses out there.

To me, a lens is not only about center and corner sharpness, it's about rendition of the image, and I think this little zoom delivers very good results. It has great bokeh, no nervous blur, great colors and contrast. I just rarely use it wide open at 18mm. At the longest end, it behaves great in portrait.

Here are some examples of my 18-55 (all converted to DNG, imported to Aperture, aplied Edge Sharpen and Exposure correction):



18mm, F8, ISO 200: very sharp, the girl is in what I consider an extreme corner and is aceptably sharp for me.



18mm, F8, ISO 800: Sharp, very little CA (although I'm guessing Aperture has a hand at that. I saw more CA on CaptureONE).



43mm, F4.5, ISO 200: Great rendition, smooth (not nervous) bokeh, no purple fringing on highlights.

All in all, for me, a good enough lens to be part of my kit. Maybe I'm not being too hard on my lenses?
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Flink

The ePhotozine shop must think it's good.

They seem to think they can get away with selling it for £179.

http://www.ephotozineshop.com/?/photo/lenses/Pentax.html#1855f3556

I forgot about the 100% pics (there's no way someone will see sharpness on those small samples I posted). Here are the links for download:

http://formula9.net/files2/IMGP3424.jpg

http://formula9.net/files2/IMGP1915.jpg

http://formula9.net/files2/IMGP3427.jpg

I'd love to hear feedback. Maybe I have one the the good 18-55s?
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Flink