Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II Zoom Lens

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II Zoom Lens is the ideal tool to get started with. Exciting and versatile, its general performance make it the perfect beginner’s tool. The affordability means you can learn your craft without the extra cost. It is the perfect beginner’s lens.

This Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II Zoom Lens is slightly soft (not sharp) wide open, especially at the longer half of the focal length range. The 18mm corners are extra soft while corners at 55mm are unique to this lens’ performance they are quite sharp wide open. For the most part, if you can shoot at f/5.6 (or f/8 at the long end), this lens doesn’t reasonable with image sharpness. The image begins getting softer at f/11 – this is not unusual as diffraction begins to affect image quality at this point.

Shooting at or narrower than f/5.6 with no image stabilization means that this lens is going to need some help in lower light levels a flash to stop action or a tripod to stop camera motion. Higher (noisier) ISO settings will be called upon more frequently when using this lens. Image sharpness aperture considerations aside, this is still not a fast aperture lens. An f/3.5 18mm lens is not bad, f/4 at 25mm and f/4.5 at 31mm are OK, but an f/5.0 35mm or f/5.6 55mm lens is among the slowest lenses made. Blurred backgrounds will not be easy to create with these available aperture and focal lengths. A six-bladed aperture is not going to give the 18-55 any background blur quality advantages when shooting stopped down.

The 18-55mm lens pictures in this review are of 18-55 II version “I”. The test images provided with this review were shot with the version “II” lens. According to Canon, only very slight improving changes were made for the “II” designation. “The major changes are the shape of the zoom ring rubber grip and the tapered area at the front of the lens.

Item specifics – Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II Zoom Lens