18-105G -- Good or Great?
Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2014 12:04 pm
I've seen some discussions on DPR about this lens, but not as many as I would have expected. Most of the examples looked really good, so now, in a horrible fit of GAS, I have one too.
The executive summary is that it covers a great range using a smooth powerzoom that people are either going to love or hate. Color and bokeh are pretty good. It seems better than the kit lenses in sharpness, but I'm not sure how it holds up to primes. The sharpness seems to be good near the center even at f4. It seems like a really good kit lens upgrade, if nothing else.
When you view the photos in RAW, they are scary at first. The distortion is really pronounced, and I'm surprised at how good the results are given the distortion correction that needs to be applied. But, sharpness seems really good. I wonder if this is some sort of tradeoff where the lens design is much more efficient and it's made up for in software; perhaps optical correction would introduce its own problems and soften the results? So, in the end, it's probably just something to accept -- test the after-conversion results, and if they are good enough, then that's that.
The executive summary is that it covers a great range using a smooth powerzoom that people are either going to love or hate. Color and bokeh are pretty good. It seems better than the kit lenses in sharpness, but I'm not sure how it holds up to primes. The sharpness seems to be good near the center even at f4. It seems like a really good kit lens upgrade, if nothing else.
When you view the photos in RAW, they are scary at first. The distortion is really pronounced, and I'm surprised at how good the results are given the distortion correction that needs to be applied. But, sharpness seems really good. I wonder if this is some sort of tradeoff where the lens design is much more efficient and it's made up for in software; perhaps optical correction would introduce its own problems and soften the results? So, in the end, it's probably just something to accept -- test the after-conversion results, and if they are good enough, then that's that.