How useful is the kit lens?

ATL Media Group

ATL Media Group

Veteran
Been looking to buy soon... I can get the kit w/lens for $1186 w/free shipping from Amazon.
Or..... I can get a used one for around $900 with two primes.. a Canon FD 50mm 1.4, and a Vivitar FD 28mm, 2.5 plus an extra battery and a Canon EF adapter and Canon FD adapter but no kit lens.

Now, I will get a shoulder rig w/matte box, rails and FF anyway so would I need the kit lens?
Would it be better to grab a new kit and then add the adapter/primes and the rig or just get the cam with primes and forget about the kit lens?

Autofocus might be nice for quick run and gun work which I will need to do about 30% of the time for events.

I love manual controls and hardly ever use autofocus with my HMC's.

So many choices... hehe
 
ATL Media Group said:
Been looking to buy soon... I can get the kit w/lens for $1186 w/free shipping from Amazon.
Or..... I can get a used one for around $900 with two primes.. a Canon FD 50mm 1.4, and a Vivitar FD 28mm, 2.5 plus an extra battery and a Canon EF adapter and Canon FD adapter but no kit lens.

Now, I will get a shoulder rig w/matte box, rails and FF anyway so would I need the kit lens?
Would it be better to grab a new kit and then add the adapter/primes and the rig or just get the cam with primes and forget about the kit lens?

Autofocus might be nice for quick run and gun work which I will need to do about 30% of the time for events.

I love manual controls and hardly ever use autofocus with my HMC's.

So many choices... hehe
Click to expand...


The kit lens is pretty great. Yeah it's a little slow but it's a 14-140mm lens. What is your wide angle in this this situation? Your 50mm crops to 100mm and your 28mm crops to 56mm. I use primarily as a wide angle lens, a versatile lens for event shooting, and a telephoto for shallow DOF. F/5.8 doesn't add much DOF when you're at 280mm :D

Some of my favorite work I've done has been done with this lens.

Although I've been linking this everywhere so you've probably already seen it, here it is again, a shoot with a few of the different cameras in it, all cameras and lenses are labeled, and it has some nice shots from the GH1 kit lens in it. Feel free to let it buffer and scrub through, you won't upset me if you don't watch the whole thing :P Just find the shots that you need.



I have a mess of prime lenses available to me but in outdoor day situations I find myself using the kit lens quite a bit, and in indoor situations you need the wide angle.

Based on your equipment list you're going to be doing digital cinema I assume, and if you're doing digital cinema and can't light for f/4 then you're in trouble already.
 
okay, good info. I wil go with retail kit then add primes as needed. That's the way I was leaning anyway. Adding primes is easier than adding the $800 kit lens later if I needed it.
 
ATL Media Group said:
Been looking to buy soon... I can get the kit w/lens for $1186 w/free shipping from Amazon.
Or..... I can get a used one for around $900 with two primes.. a Canon FD 50mm 1.4, and a Vivitar FD 28mm, 2.5 plus an extra battery and a Canon EF adapter and Canon FD adapter but no kit lens.

Now, I will get a shoulder rig w/matte box, rails and FF anyway so would I need the kit lens?
Would it be better to grab a new kit and then add the adapter/primes and the rig or just get the cam with primes and forget about the kit lens?

Autofocus might be nice for quick run and gun work which I will need to do about 30% of the time for events.

I love manual controls and hardly ever use autofocus with my HMC's.

So many choices... hehe
Click to expand...

This is purely an opinion - but I think $900 for the eBay item you are looking at is too much. If it stays where it is for the last few hours, maybe.

I think your better choice is to buy the new kit and look for the primes later - there are plenty available.

As I said, just an opinion.
 
ATL Media Group said:
Been looking to buy soon... I can get the kit w/lens for $1186 w/free shipping from Amazon.
Or..... I can get a used one for around $900 with two primes.. a Canon FD 50mm 1.4, and a Vivitar FD 28mm, 2.5 plus an extra battery and a Canon EF adapter and Canon FD adapter but no kit lens.

Now, I will get a shoulder rig w/matte box, rails and FF anyway so would I need the kit lens?
Would it be better to grab a new kit and then add the adapter/primes and the rig or just get the cam with primes and forget about the kit lens?

Autofocus might be nice for quick run and gun work which I will need to do about 30% of the time for events.

I love manual controls and hardly ever use autofocus with my HMC's.

So many choices... hehe
Click to expand...

Honestly get it from Amazon - your pretty much getting the body for not even $300 vs. buying the kit lens new/used. If you already have a body, now you have a 2nd on the cheap so you don't have to switch or you can just ebay the body and get $560-600 for it, thus paying $600 for a new kit lens.
 
Can't say I use the kit lens that much but I'm happy to have it available. The autofocus is like having a really smart kangaroo pulling focus - it may go up on the curb a couple of times but it'll get you there. Most of the time. You can check the 'STHML Rim Shots' in my sig link to see it in action.
 
Get the kit lens, it's the only one that does all the magic super silent autofocus stuff and it's got a really practical range from 28mm to 140mm and even though it's slow.... it's pretty damn useful and I think it would be silly not to buy the kit, learn the cam with the kit first.
 
Blackout said:
Get the kit lens, it's the only one that does all the magic super silent autofocus stuff and it's got a really practical range from 28mm to 140mm and even though it's slow.... it's pretty damn useful and I think it would be silly not to buy the kit, learn the cam with the kit first.
Click to expand...

28mm to 280mm.

The kit is great. When the camera first came out there were tons of threads asking if you could get by with only the kit lens and now there are tons asking if you need it. The answer is pretty simple:

Yeah you want it and your fast primes.
 
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