hobbit's reviews

  • Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

    9 out of 10 points and recommended
    Extremely,cheap and light, wide apperture, good image quality
    Built is a bit cheap. Quality may suffer in some copies. AF sometimes hunting in low light

    Hello everybody,

    I like the lens. It is cheap and light, you can take it anywhere and use for porterts and low light.

    I use it mostly for indoor portrets - for instance this one
    http://www.treklens.com/workshops/193007/photo28515.htm

    Usually I don't open it fully wide using appreture from 2.2 and up. The sharpness at this point is very good. I made a number of shots at 1.8 and they were not bad at all.
    I use it on XT/350D body and thus the real focus range is around 80mm. Therefore the DOF is also decreased comparatively to full frame body.

    The sound of autofocus does not bother me much, however I can't say that the AF speed is lightning fast. It is average. In the low light it may start hunting, and u need to switch to MF.

    The build quality does not bother me much, I prefer functionality over build quality. Also it is definitely better than such of many point-and-shot cameras.

    Would I recommend it? Yes - it is a bargain. Just check for quality of the lens - there were some rumors on quality assurance problems.

    reviewed November 16th, 2006

  • Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM

    8 out of 10 points and recommended
    Light, cheap, not bad images if you use it correctly, fairly fast autofocus.
    Build quality, soft corners when at 18-25 range

    I bought this in a kit with 350D/XT.
    I don't anyhow regret about this, majority of my pictures were made with this lens for instance these:

    http://www.treklens.com/gallery/North_America/Canada/photo183269.htm

    http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/North_America/Canada/photo479820.htm


    http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/North_America/Canada/photo478211.htm

    http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/North_America/Canada/photo482610.htm

    http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/North_America/Canada/photo310156.htm

    you can see more here

    http://www.trekearth.com/members/hobbitenok2005/photos/page1.htm

    First of all it is not stellar lens. It is cheap and it is for novices who need to learn how to with DSLR on my opinion. But this does not mean you can not make good pictures with it. Bob Atkins reviews some of the features this lens and I think his review shows how it can be used most effectively.

    On my opinion it is best at 28-55 range. Wider it is exhibiting softness in the corners and significant barrel distortion. Nevertheless I use it wide open as well and sometimes get nice shots (depends more on photographer than on lens I guess).

    It allows shooting from pretty close distance , so macro is possible with this lens.

    The autofocus is fast and accurate. Comparing to my 50/1.8 it is way better. I almost never have to switch to manual focusing.

    The apperture limit , prevents this lens from specific portret use (well not so but , 50/1.8 is better) but it is nice walkaround for beginner.

    I do recommend this lens for beginners, those who just start with DSLR and who are on budget.

    reviewed November 16th, 2006

  • Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM

    9 out of 10 points and not recommended
    Sharp, fast focusing, good image quality
    Got a yellow limon and returned it

    Well I got yellow lemon.
    I was expecting to use this lens in moutains but it started giving me error 99 every second shot, so I had to switch to my old 18-55. This was very disappointing.

    I returned it later to retailer. They checked it on a different body (30D) as they could not believe that such a lens can do such as thing. But it did same stuff on 30D. I was disappointed ( I lost quite a few shots) and decided not to exchange but just to return it.

    When it worked it was giving excellent images. I liked everthing about it except QUALITY ASSURANCE!!!

    I will not buy it again but possible will go with the IS version of it. It does make sense to spend some more money (if budget allows) on IS version as I find it very usefull on the telephoto range.

    reviewed November 16th, 2006 (purchased for $800)

  • Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD Aspherical IF SP AF

    9 out of 10 points and recommended
    Small, Fast, Well built...
    None - so far

    I recently bought this lens to replace kit lens for Rebel XT. The image quality is higher than with 18-55 even when you do it on 17 f/2.8. The noise amount at high ISO 800 - 1600 seems to be reduced comparatively to 18-55.
    Build seems to be better as well.
    Light falloff is present at 17 f/2.8 but generally you have to look for it to see it.
    So far I had no problems with the lens.
    Note that the price mentioned is in Canadian $ and it was bought in Calgary. The lens was made in China, which disappointed me at first but...It looks like it is working well and I have 6 years warranty :)

    reviewed January 15th, 2007 (purchased for $508)