LocalNavy433 Photography

Hello and how the hell are you? If this is your first time here thanks for stopping by.  In this blog we are going to go over how good is the kit lens that came with your camera.  That is something that is always touted online as a trash lens and you should replace it as fast as you can.  I am in the camp that says you should really get to know the lens before you replace it.  I mean that with all my heart because if I would have listened to them at the start of my photographic career I would have ended up spending money on gear that at the time I could not afford.  

The reason that the kit lens has a bad wrap is really because it is made of plastic and the build quality is very cheap so the online community says that you cannot get good images with it.  I am here to say that they are wrong because I have taken some of my favorite images with a kit lens.  The lens is just a tool and you will get images that are crap if you don’t take the time to use the tool to its fullest potential.  The way to get the most out of your kit lens you need to take the time to learn new techniques on how to use it.  

The first thing that you need to do is go out and shoot some test images throughout the whole aperture range of the lens to see where it is the sharpest at.  This will allow you to see what F-stop you need to be shooting at to get the most out of the kit lens.  I found that with the Canon 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens it was sharpest at f11.  This gave me the best sharpness for my images and I was happier with my images after testing it out to see where it was the sharpest.  At this point I started to pixel peep to see where my images were falling apart and I noticed that while the image looked sharp when viewing it on my computer screen it fell apart when zooming in.  This taught me that I needed to learn a new technique on how to get my image sharp from front to back of the image.  

This is the point that I learned how to focus stack my images.  You see this little technique helped me achieve some of the best images that I have ever taken with that lens.  I was able to get them so sharp throughout the whole image and now I had no need to get a better lens right.  Well that is where I realized that by getting a better lens would actually show more detail in my images.  This is the point that I found that even with focus stacking my images were still not as good as they could have been.  You see I bought a Canon 24mm f2.8 for shooting the night sky and it was so much sharper and gave me more details throughout the images I was taking with it.  

The last nail in the coffin for the trusted old kit lens of mine was the fact that it only went down to f3.5 and I was not getting the images that I knew that I could get with a fast lens.  I mean I could still shoot the night sky with the kit lens but it was a darker image than what I was wanting to get so after two years of shooting with the kit lens it was time to move on from it because it was holding my images back.  The whole point of this story is to help you notice that using the gear that you have is going to help you become a better photographer.  Getting that new lens will not help you if you don’t know how to take the image in the first place.  This taught me the lesson of only upgrading your gear if you are not able to get the shot that you are after.  

The kit lens has a place in everyones camera bag when they start out and that truly is something that I will tell people that ask me what lens they should get.  I ask them what is the kit lens not getting done for you?  If they cannot answer the question with a clear reason I then ask them what types of techniques have they tried with it? If they cannot answer that I will then give them tips on how to get the most out of the lens to achieve the results they are after.  

The one thing that you need to remember is learning how to get the most out of the kit lens will really help you when you decide that you need to upgrade.  I mean my images looked so much better when I made the move to get a new standard zoom.  I upgraded to the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 which was only 150 bucks but that was the best 150 bucks I spent because my images were sharper.  The overall experience was so much better once I got that lens and I still miss going out to shoot with my trusty kit lens.  The one thing that I learned throughout this process is learning what your gear can do before you upgrade is a lesson that is worth its weight in gold if you ask me.  The one thing that I also learned was I don’t mind shooting with a kit lens as they are good enough to get the images that you are after you just have to actually learn how to shoot to get the most out of that lens.  The quick fix of buying a newer and better lens is not going to help you get better images if you don’t know how to truly take a photo.  

The point of using the kit lens for so long is to teach you how to get the most out of your camera.  Now days when people ask me what gear they should get I will say what do you plan on doing with your camera.  I will try and recommend them getting a Canon 60d or something along those lines and the Sigma 17-50 f2.8 lens.  That combo is way better than getting a brand new rebel t8i and the kit lens.  You will get better images with the better glass on the older body then a newer body and a kit lens.  Then you have the cost of buying that t8i is way more than the combo of the 60d and sigma lens.