Kit lens and low light

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Phil1076

Well-known member
How does the 18-200 kit lens perform in low light? I realize that it's all subjective and that there is no comparison to a f1.x prime, but is it still usable?

I'm looking to upgrade my HMC150 and, since Canon's C300 announcement was quite disappointing for me ($20k price tag) I'm looking at the FS100/AF100. The only thing going for the FS100 is the sensor and I'm curious whether the extremely sensitive sensor can kind of make up for the lack of low light in the kit lens.

Thanks
 
You will have no problem at all. The kit lens is shockingly good in low light or should I say yes the FS100 makes up for it!
 
I was shooting an all day conference with 2 EX1s today, with a third camera (my FS100) as the reverse angle. 'House' lighitng, a couple of follow spots at half-cock. The two EX1s were at f2.8 3dB gain, the FS100 was at 12dB gain but f10 (used throughout the zoom range). It had a cleaner image than the EX1s despite the monster gain.

In fact, the whole week, it's been pressed into service as a 'substitute EX1' with the kit lens, and it's done very very well. Better than I hoped.

My tests have shown that the FS100 with kit lens at f8 offers equivalent or slightly better Dof than an EX1 at 2.8.

The lens is totally workable so long as you base your expectations on EX1/half inch sensor levels of separation.

It will do a good job, but if you're doing this a lot, for Pete's sake consider an EX1 which is better at it, and has a damn good lens, better resoloving power and the all important parfocal setup. Yes, creep zooms stutter using the servos, but they're better than the kit lens, and its focus modes are top notch, whereas the kit lens relies a lot on auto focus functions.

But the FS100 with kit lens is still a rockin' good camera.
 
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