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

After buying the ef-s 55-250mm IS STM lens to compliment my Canon 70D, i was so impressed that I decided to get the 18-55 IS STM to replace my original non STM LENS.These lenses are superb in every aspect - smooth, sharp, and silent - this last attribute being so important when taking video - no focusing noise or stabilising noise is picked up on the audio. BRILLIANT.They are not built as solidly as the professionally L type lenses, but then they are a tiny fraction of the cost of one of those lenses.Their ability to track a subject and to switch focus silently and almost instantaneously, is second to none.I have no qualms in highly recommending this lens to any one (novice or experienced enthusiast) looking for other than a full blown professional L model ( at a price) which might get get a bit of rough treatment in the professional arena !I have been so impressed that I have now also just purchased the EF-S 10-18mm IS STM.Just to be clear, I'm not affiliated in any way to Canon but, having been an EOS user since the 300 film camera, these lenses take the photo experience to another level.I hope my review is of help.

This is one of Canons kit lenses and therefore the body is mostly made of plastic. The upside is that it is light, the downside is that it is a tad fragile. This purchase is a replacement for my original which broke whilst on hols. The fact that I am replacing it rather than getting a different lens is a testament to the great optical qualities of the lens and the versatility of the 18-55mm range as well as the super price. Just handle with care!

Had this lens for a month or two now and am very happy with my purchase, haven't used it enough to be certain of it's capabilities but have nothing to show that I should be disappointed. Is a great improvement on my previous lense and doing a short test with a few shots of the same image against my old lense without image stabilisation have found it to make a good change. Bought mostly to help me in my indoor shots of my newborn when they arrive and so was needing it to be able to go down to a low f stop and still have a quick shutter speed and so the stabilisation is a real help in allowing me to do this more, particularly as many shots will be handheld. Testing with my wife in the same rooms I'll take pictures has shown I should hopefully get some good pictures of my little one for the future! Thanks Canon! :)

Kit lenses often get a fairly bad press, and tend to be treated as a stopgap until you can afford something better. This particular lens does NOT fall into that category. Through much of its zoom range the sharpness is excellent, even at widest aperture, and only softens very slightly at 55mm, which loses it the fifth star in my rating - it's still extremely sharp though! The STM focus motor is completely silent - wonderful news for videography - as well as being extremely quick in operation. I've used this lens alongside a MUCH more expensive 'L' lens of similar focal range, and the only way to tell which images came from which lens, was to view the exif data. This lens also has very effective image stabilization, which the L lens doesn't. If you own an APS-C format Canon camera, this lens is about as good as it gets at this focal range, and can be thoroughly recommended.

Focus Speed and Good

I bought this to replace an older version as I was trading it and my older 500D for a new 700D body. At the time, this was the cheapest on offer and I really wanted a new lens to complement the new body. It works as expected and I have no complaints. This was a white box purchase, having been separated from a body and lens kit. There was no instructions but this was not a problem for me. I was also able to register this with Canon without difficulty.

At first you might think this lens is too light and has a less than solid feel but the lightness is an advantage with a heavy camera body. I use the Canon 60D. This is the first STM lens I have used. It is silent in auto focus and can be manually tweaked if needed without switching to manual mode which is a big advantage. Also the lens does not rotate when zooming or focusing so as I use a polarising filter this is ideal. A disadvantage is that Canon have designed a narrow focusing ring at the front of the lens which is covered by the lens hood when in the stored position. I suppose this is a minor inconvenience and only applies if you want to manually focus without the hood in its functional position. Overall the image quality is excellent and the Image Stabilising system is an asset for close up work. I am very pleased with the lens.

I have owned many Canon lenses but when the ones I had for my camera became too heavy, I went for this, the basic kit lens. While the word basic is there, it is a lovely little lens, surprisingly sharp and the colours are accurate, the only thing that could be improved is the auto focus, it could be a little faster, other than that the IS works well and the image quality is superb for the price.ProsSharpAccurate colourGood 'travel' zoom rangeISConsAF is quite a bit slower than USM