On 2004-11-21, Alien Jones wrote:
When someone has a pre-concieved opinion, is it possible to change it?
I think not Will, but for those poor individuals who use "that horrible
piece of coke bottle glass" I have some valuable news.

For you Will, well, you've already made up your mind so you might as well
not read any further.

The 18~55 kit lens which comes with a Digital Rebel and a 20D is not glass
but acrylic plastic. It has the distintion of being one of the lightest zoom
lenses Canon make. It is also a pretty good lens in it's own right and I
offer a few examples of it's resolution capabilities, it's chromatic
suppression and it's ability to shoot directly into the late afternoon sun
without flair. Oh, did I mention image taken with that lens on a 20D enlarge
to 2 feet by 3 feet without loss of detail? Well they do!
http://www.ryadia.com/

AJ.

All the irrelevant stuff which was below has been snipped out

Well, I just had my lunch handed to me here, and I deserved every bite!

Apologies to those folk who have this apparently quite nice lens. It is
*not* the same kit lens that comes with the film bodies, which by all
accounts is coke bottle glass. Guess I should look to see if the brain
is in gear before engaging fingers, eh?

The 18-55 is the lens that cannot be mounted on a film camera, costs
around $100, and is generally considered a no-brainer as a purchase. As
I'm thinking about a 20D, I'll probably get one of those as well.

As far as the lens optics are concerned, Canon says they are made of
lead-free glass. Size and weight reduction are largely due to
downsizing the image circle requirements. Flare reduction caused by
enhanced lens coatings, especially on the rear elements, AIUI.

Also, there appears to be a new USM version of the lens now available.
I'll go for that. I've got only one EF lens that is not USM and that's
the 50mm f1.4. By comparison, it's not only noisy but slow. Given the
20D advertises a shutter lag of 65ms, the USM lens is probably the way
to go.

Will D.