Photography teacher bans students from using 18-55mm kit lenses

Kit lens comparison
(Image credit: Future)

"The 18-55mm kit lenses that come with entry level, crop sensor DSLR’s are NOT good quality.” "you should do everything within your power to never use these lenses again"

Strong words, but not ours. Rather, it's the opinion of a photography teacher at a university in North Carolina who is forbidding her students from using humble DSLR kit lenses for future photography assignments. The teacher goes on to say in the undergraduate syllabus: "You are talented enough by this point to not compromise your image quality by using these sub-par lenses"

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Ben Andrews

Ben is the Imaging Labs manager, responsible for all the testing on Digital Camera World and across the entire photography portfolio at Future. Whether he's in the lab testing the sharpness of new lenses, the resolution of the latest image sensors, the zoom range of monster bridge cameras or even the latest camera phones, Ben is our go-to guy for technical insight. He's also the team's man-at-arms when it comes to camera bags, filters, memory cards, and all manner of camera accessories – his lab is a bit like the Batcave of photography! With years of experience trialling and testing kit, he's a human encyclopedia of benchmarks when it comes to recommending the best buys.