18-55mm lens or 18-135mm lens?

[haveadoubt]

I've decided to buy canon 650d / Rebel T4i and would like to Know Which lens is best out of them.

Does 18-55mm and 18-135mm lens have same 'Image Quality'??
Which lens takes better videos??

[Skirball · Accepted solution]

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@haveadoubt wrote:

I've decided to buy canon 650d / Rebel T4i and would like to Know Which lens is best out of them.

Does 18-55mm and 18-135mm lens have same 'Image Quality'??
Which lens takes better videos??

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Both the lenses are in the same general category, and I don't think you'll see a large IQ difference between the two outside of test charts and pixel peeping.  This is a popular question, so you can read all kinds of opinions on it if you do a search for it, but at the gist of it is this consensus:  The 18-55, when coupled with the 55-250, gives slightly better IQ (and range obviously).  The 18-135 gives a good amount of range in a single package.  So the choice comes down to a slight IQ advantage, or the convenience of a single lens which can be great for travel or street photography.

If you're not planning on getting a longer telephoto to accompany it then I'd get the 18-135 for the extra reach.
 

[Skirball]

Also wanted to add that you specifically mentioned video and the 18-135 comes in an STM version, which is designed for video.  The down side is that the manual focus is electronic, something that I would find annoying for shooting stills with manual focus.  But if you don't do a lot of manual focus, and shoot video, then you should probably get teh 18-135 STM.

[haveadoubt]

Thank You for the advice Sir

[thuas]

Hi,

What is the main difference between STM & USM lens? What is recommended in general?

[kvbarkley]

This gets tricky. 

Older USM lenses were fine for still photography, but were pretty noisy and not suited for focusing while taking video.

STM lenses were developed to work well for video and still photography.

The newer nano-crystal USM works fine for video, too.

So, even though the new 18-135 is USM, it is still a good lens for continuous focus during video. I suspect the new 70-300 also has nano-crystal USM.

The new 18-135 also has an attachment that allows for motorized zooming - a first for Canon.

[RobertTheFat]

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@kvbarkley wrote:

...

The new 18-135 also has an attachment that allows for motorized zooming - a first for Canon.

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Well, yes and no. My 2003 Canon G-5 had that. 

[kvbarkley]

A first for Canon DSLR's 8^)