Kit or Prime?

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Horse

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Kevin
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I read with interest that the prime lenses are better that the kit lenses that manufacturers provide with cameras. Why is this so and can someone please tell me why.

Surely the makers aren't going to produce a substandard lens as a kit one.

I'm considering getting a Canon 50mm to see the difference it makes as oppose to the kit 18-55mm that came with my Canon 350D a few years back.

Thanks.
 
Optically a 50mm prime is much simpler than any zoom (or just about any other lens as I understand it). So it can be produced relatively cheaply and be less prone to problems that so called "kit" lenses suffer from - e.g. softness wide open, chromatic abberation (such as purple fringing on edges), distortion, flare etc.

At least that's how I understand it.
 
Well.... a prime lens only has to work at one length, eg. 50mm, whereas a zoom has to work between lengths, eg 17-50mm. It must be easier to design a really good prime than a really good zoom. Also primes often have a wider aperture, eg f1.4, and so can be used for greater artistic effect and in lower available light.

Kit lenses are built to a price and at least to an extent you get what you pay for.

Personally I wouldn't bother with a prime unless it had a wide aperture or was macro as zoom lenses are good and you can get a great 17-50mm f2.8 so who'd be interested in a non macro prime in that range with an aperture of f2.8 or slower?
 
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Horse said:
...Surely the makers aren't going to produce a substandard lens as a kit one....
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Oh yes they do. Sometimes. Sometimes the kit lenses are merely variable in quality : lucky=good one, unlucky=get a dog.

Primes are usually superior optically because a high standard is more achievable as the focal length is fixed and can't zoom. They also, usually have a larger max aperture than zooms ... for the money.

Personally I only have the one autofocus prime : Minolta 50mm and it seems to be substantially better (in some ways) than the Sony kit zoom that came with the Sony DSLR, but that kit lens was also worse than five other kit zooms I own.
 
Since I got a 50mm f/1.8 I've never used my kit lens, that should tell you everything!

Thinking of swapping for an f/1.4 at some point, the focusing ring on the 1.8 is cr@p!
 
woof woof said:
Personally I wouldn't bother with a prime unless it had a wide aperture or was macro as zoom lenses are good and you can get a great 17-50mm f2.8 so who'd be interested in a non macro prime in that range with an aperture of f2.8 or slower?
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Show me a zoom that can match the sharpness and 3D of the Carl Zeiss Distagon 28/2.8 and I'll agree ;)
 
Well, possibly, but I personally would pass on something like that as my Sigma 30mm f1.4 is sharp enough for me, the HSM is fast enough to hit a running dog at f1.4 and it has that lovely f1.4 for creative effect.... and my Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 is sharp enough to shave with.

These days and perhaps for a very long time (as someone very famous once said) lenses have been sharp enough... maybe with the caveat if you don't pixel peep.
 
Horse said:
I'm considering getting a Canon 50mm to see the difference it makes as oppose to the kit 18-55mm that came with my Canon 350D a few years back.
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Hi Kevin,

My personal experience as an owner of both those lenses (assuming you mean the "nifty fifty") is that it depends entirely on what you want to shoot. I certainly wouldn't say that I use one of the lenses more than the other, or that one is better than the other.

The first 2 shots below are taken with the 18-55mm kit lens.
At around F8-F12 I find the sharpness comparable to the 50mm and I would never have got these 2 shots with the 50.
Firstly the 18-55mm has a far closer focusing distance. To put this into perspective the plant here is heather and each individual flower head is about 2-3mm in length (the hoverfly is around 1cm long). The 50mm would not have got close enough.
Secondly I wanted the flexibility of a zoom lens so that I could frame each insect shot without moving about too much and disturbing the hoverflies.

The third shot was taken with the 50mm.
This one I couldn't have managed with the 18-55mm. I needed the wider aperture in order to get a high enough shutter speed to catch the fast moving fish in a dark environment.
Even if I'd sacrificed some sharpness to use the 18-55mm wide open it wouldn't have been enough.

1. 18-55mm kit lens


Hoverfly in flight with white Heather3 by SarahLee1001, on Flickr

2. 18-55mm kit lens


Hoverfly in flight with white Heather2 by SarahLee1001, on Flickr

3. 50mm 1.8


Tiger Barb by SarahLee1001, on Flickr
 
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Mm. The debate continues!
But many thanks to all, especially Sarah.
 
the thing with kit lenses is they are phenominally cheaply made paticuarly on entry level bodies, over and above the optical comprimises inherent in a zoom they add another cost factor

the 50/1.8 is also stupidly cheap which explains why it has horrible aperture (5 blades means pentagonal bokeh) and has a tendency to break. But it behaves very nicely optically and goes down to f1.8, that means where you have the kit wide open its been stopped down like 3 stops which will make any lens sharp

those are bloody good shots from the kit sarah, an awful lot comes down to skill more than kit. Oh and the 50mm shot was shot through the glass of a fish tank and the water so isnt really a fair evaluation :p
 
If its a case of one or the other, then really you should choose the kit, the 50 on a crop body is going to give a field of view of 80mm, this will be quite limiting if its your only lens.
 
I have both the 18-55 and the 50 1.8, while i prefer the results of the 50 they are used for completely diffrent purposes. The 18-55 suits me for generally walking around but if im taking potrait type photos the 50 is straight out.
 
This is like comparing a car and a motorbike....both essentially do the same thing but not really.

A prime lens is designed without compromise. It has one focal length and tend to be bought and used by more serious photographers as it means buying more lenses to cover ranges of focal lengths rather than one or two zooms.

If you want to check out the Minolta/Sony site (google for Dyxum) then search lenses section - you'll see users rate prime lenses much higher than most zooms.

Carefully used zooms can produce quality results but in most situations a prime will outdo a zoom (with the exception of G lens etc.)

The downside is of course that 2 zoom lenses, say 18-70 & 70-300 will cover most if not all situations. Going with prime lenses only would result in maybe having at least 5 lenses (an 18 through 24, a 35 or 50, an 85 or 100, a 200 and a 300) a lot of kit to lug about and expense and if you start to add in filters etc with different thread sizes it can all add up.

Basically the best thing is to build up a collection slowly that fits your needs - I have 18-70 and 70-300 but also 50mm, 100mm macro and 400mm sigma.

Think if you want to specialize in one type of photography - a really pricey macro or ultra wide for landscapes would be well worth the cost rather than buying 3 or 4 average lenses.

Enjoy!!
 
david1701 said:
those are bloody good shots from the kit sarah, an awful lot comes down to skill more than kit. Oh and the 50mm shot was shot through the glass of a fish tank and the water so isnt really a fair evaluation :p
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:razz: Fair point on the 50mm - but it was the best example I had of a shot that I couldn't have even got close to with the 18-55mm. That was more my intention rather than showing a straight like for like comparison of the two.
But since it was shot through 10mm glass plus water I suppose it does show quite nicely what that lens is capable of despite being cheap. (Best looked at full size for that purpose, the re-sizing on here makes it look a bit mushy)

p.s. Thanks for the comment on the kit lens shots. Nice to know that somebody thinks I've got some sort of ability at this!

Horse said:
Mm. The debate continues!
But many thanks to all, especially Sarah.
Click to expand...

I'm just glad that it was helpful.
Are you any closer to making your mind up?
 
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Many thanks again to all.

Sarah.
Yes, I have now made my mind up in a sense that I am now utterly more bloody confused than I was in the first place! I think I will stick with my 18-55 for awhile. I do like the variety of the focal length when out and about and although I do a lot of portrait work, I think the 'nifty' would restrict me somewhat. Could be wrong, could be right. If money was no object then I would go for it, but I feel that paying £70-£85 on something I'm not sure of would probably be better directed at another piece of kit somewhere!
Bless you.
 
I have the 400D, I have the 18-55 kit lens, and I have the 50 1.8 mk 2.

Sharpness: The 18-55 can be extremely sharp. Mine, contrary to most peoples apparent experience, is sharpest wide open. That said, the nifty stepped down to around F6 is consistently razor.

Regarding price, consider that when buying a first DSLR (which your 350D and my 400D generally will be), most people have no idea which direction their photography will head. Canon (and Nikon etc...) are well aware of this, so they reach a compromise. Provide glass that will get people started, with enough adaptability to try out different approaches, and do so as cheaply as possible. The 18-55 fits that description. Cheap construction, decent focal range etc.

The glass is good enough, but thats about where it stops.

The nifty is a first step towards more serious glass. It's still cheap construction (plastic, lightweight, looks crap), but it F1.8 and sharp from just above that, with all the money going into producing the glass itself. You won't find anything much sharper regardless of where you look in the Canon range.

As a rule, no moving parts = simpler, therefore for the same price you get sharper glass. Ish.
 
Fair comment Squawk.

I should point out that although the 350 was my first DSLR and still in my posession, I upgraded to the 50D back in January.

The thing is, I'm not so sure the 18-55 performs as well on the 50D regarding sharpness.

I could just be me but I'm not sure.
 
the sensor on the 50d is out resolving the lens quite significantly hence the apparent loss of sharpness

I would recomend either adding the 50/1.8 and keeping the kit not swapping

or swapping for something like the tamron 17-50 f2.8 its sharp, fairly fast and still a zoom
 
Interesting comment David.

I may have to go for a Tamrom or whatever!

Thanks.
 
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