The retro upgrade: 24-105L to 18-55 IS

[Tannin]

No mistake in the title, yes, you read it right.

I, Tannin, voluntarily and of my own free will, being of (probably) sound mind and no more than usually unsound body, just upgraded my Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS lens to a Canon EF-S 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 IS.

And I love it.

Go on, say it. Poor old Tannin has finally flipped. Gone troppo. Off his units. Lost the plot. Been smoking the funny stuff. He's swapped a $1700 professional-grade lens for a $250 coke bottle. Probably had more scotch than is good for him. Or possibly not enough.

But it's true. I wasn't happy with my 24-105 so I bought an 18-55 IS. Here is why.....

I used to use the unlovely old 18-55 kit lens for normal length stuff, and supplement it with a 60mm macro, a 10-22, and the short end of my 100-400 for longer stuff. For quite a while I said that I'd upgrade it sooner or later, and eventually I did. After a great deal of agonising and procrastination, I bought a 24-105 f/4L, springing for that one rather than any of the several alternatives because I didn't really need f/2.8 (24-70, 17-55), wanted IS (not sure why), and preferred not to lock myself into EF-S format.

As I posted at that time, I took a bit of an instant dislike to the 24-105. It's a lot bigger than the 18-55, way, way heavier, and the darn focus and zoom rings are back-to-front. It has too much barrel distortion at 24mm and, most of all, 24mm at the short end just isn't wide enough. (YMMV, of course.)

So I decided to sell it and get something else, but I couldn't decide what. A 17-55 IS f/2.8 was tempting, but still large and very heavy, and useless with my 1D III (though I have other cameras which I'd mostly use with it). I got very tired of constant lens swapping, as I shoot at around 20-25mm a lot and I was forever needing the 10-22, then the 24-105 again. I think I posted all of this here previously.

But then, for complicated reasons not relevant here, I wound up with a spare camera body for a while, so I turfed all the spare lenses out of my bag and started carrying two cameras, one with the 24-105 and the other with the 10-22 mounted. That meant leaving the 60m macro and the TS/E 24 behind, and filling up my pockets with close-up rings and teleconverters for the 500/4, but I could cover everything between 10mm and 105mm, assuming you don't count the gap between 22 and 24mm.

This worked very well. I soon started using the longer end of the 24-105 quite a bit, and having the 80ish mm range available for the first time opened up some interesting new ground for me, though carrying the two of them in addition to a bird camera gets a bit hard on the back after a while, and I missed having the beautiful little 60mm macro with me.

But (the madness starts to sneak in here, take two of the white pills and read on) despite the luxury of having two such excellent lenses available all the time, I started to regret selling the cheap little plastic 18-55mm kit lens. Well, giving it away actually, I threw it in for nothing when I sold one of my 20Ds.

There were times when I wanted nothing more than something small and light in a normal length, particularly when faced with (for example) a long walk on a hot day up and down the sand dunes of the Mallee, or when I wanted to do wildflowers and other small things as well as landscapes, and thus needed to take the macro lens. I mean, what do you do when you have a 10-22 and a 24-105 and need a 60mm macro? You can leave the 10-22 behind, and then you have no way to do wide angle, not even moderately wide. Or you can leave the 24-105 behind and (60mm aside, which can easily be too long) have nothing else except wide angle. And whichever way you go, you still have to carry two cameras and put up with sinking up to your ankles in soft ground. Or carry one and get the insides knee-deep in sand because you are swapping lenses all the time.

So I took some of the green pills and washed them down with a large orange one, and considered my options afresh.

Getting rid of the 24-105 was not really on the radar anymore. Now that I'd got to know it, I'd miss the long end quite a lot, miss its beautiful sharp, clear pictures even when the light is poor, miss its enormously reassuring milled-from-solid-metal feel. (Does feel matter? Maybe not, but when you pull the 24-105 out of the bag, it just feels right, like a really well-balanced hammer or a top-quality knife.)

Keeping the 24-105 meant that I wasn't going to get anything expensive - there are limits to how much you can sensibly spend on lenses, especially on short(ish) lenses when you really have your eye on a 400/DO to go with the 500/4 and need to save your pennies. Oh, and getting rid of the 10-22 instead didn't even cross my mind as a possibility. Darn it, why did I sell the 18-55?

That left (relatively) cheap stuff: Sigma 17-70, Canon 17-85 IS, Canon 18-55. Cross out the 17-85, it's way too dear for a pretty ordinary lens with even worse barrel distortion than the 24-105 or the 18-55 (non-IS). The Sigma made me wonder for a while, but then I looked at the new 18-55 IS.

What was there not to like? It was very cheap at a little over $200. It was, according to reports, much sharper than the old 18-55 and with less distortion, not to mention IS which can be handy. It weighs nothing, and is almost small enough to go in a pocket. Mostly doing landscapes, you hardly ever go below f/5.6 and mostly stay around f/8 or f/11, where even modest lenses are at their best.

So I bought one.

Very happy with it. OK, it feels like a plastic toy and if you dropped it it would probably shatter into several bits, and the focus is slow and noisy (though apparently reasonably accurate) and the tiny manual focus ring would be regarded as useless if it wasn't at least 300% better than the truly dreadful arrangement on the old non-IS 18-55. But most of the time I can't tell the difference between the pictures it produces and those I do with the 10-22 or the 24-105. I don't use it much - the 24-105 and 10-22 combination is still my standard walking around kit - but now I can go for long walks without feeling like a pack mule, or put the 60mm macro on one body and go hunting wildflowers without missing out on any nice views that come my way.

Anyway, it's time for my evening medication, so I'll stop now.

[Gidders]

Interesting perspective on thing Tannin

[miketoll]

Makes sense if you have enough scotch!

[yelvertoft]

Thanks Tannin for the write up. I guess it just goes to show, the best lens (just as with tripods) is the one you're going to be happy carrying with you. It also shows why the manufacturers all tend to do kit lenses in the 18-55 range.

[Gidders]

Its reviewed at SLR Gear who conclude "The Canon 18-55mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 IS EF-S lens is a remarkable upgrade to the standard kit-style lens."

and Photozone who conclue "....the resolution capabilities of the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS is nothing short of amazing...."

[gmax]

Well well, Tannin I should have known that I should have asked you before for some advice ...

I've posted elsewhere (ehm, on BF ..) my request for advice on choosing a walkabout short zoom/prime lens for indoor stuff .. I've already received some good replies (thank you all), but given that it seems you've gone in depth into this field, I'll ask back here the same question:

- short range zoom (or prime) to replace my EF 28-105 f /3.5-4.5 II USM
- to be used mainly indoor (I was asked to have a go at photographing a friend's wedding, then my little nephew's school recital etc), often no flash ..
- affordable price
- maybe need f/2.8 or better ?!
- maybe need IS ?!

Outside of that I'm not quite sure of what I might really need ...

Looking forward to receiving many many sound and experienced replies

Cheers,

Max