I see many photographers use esoteric lenses, but would a kit lens be good enough for general photography?
Trevor Jones, Crawley
BRIAN SAYS… The humble and often maligned kit lens is not to be disregarded as you can take great pictures with one. Most modern kit lenses, especially on Canon EOS R mirrorless, have great optical performance that is further enhanced by the in-camera lens corrections, such as DLO digital lens optimizer.
The whole point of the kit lens is to provide a lens that offers a range of focal lengths suited to the camera it’s paired with, yet be compact and great value for someone just getting started.
Kit lens limitations influenced by their size and weight are the maximum aperture value and the variation of aperture as the lens is zoomed through the range. Many kit lenses start with an aperture of f/3.5-f/4 and progress to f/5.6-f/7.1 as you zoom in. This means it can be hard to get the very shallowest depth of field with creamy out-of-focus highlights. But not everyone wants to be concerned with being super-precise in placing the AF point correctly that comes with such a look. Most typical scenes and subjects captured by photographers, such as holidays or events with friends or family, are within the kit lens’s capability.
The time to consider adding to your kit lens is when your photography becomes more specialist and you require a suitable niche lens. This is often when a telephoto lens to bring distant subjects closer becomes needed, or if you want to shoot super close-ups, a macro lens is necessary because a kit lens is limited in magnification. However these genres are not what everyone needs or wants to shoot, and as such the kit lens is perfectly suited.