Alternatives to Canon 18-55mm Kit Lens?

[Zad]

Annoyingly, my Canon (450D) 18-55mm kit lens has failed, with AF only moving the focus one way. I suspect one of the motor drive bridge transistors has gone. It is possible to obtain replacement drive electronics on Ebay, but there is no guarantee they would fix the fault, and it feels a bit like throwing good money away. The lenses seem to fetch £80 or so on Ebay (£10 less from far East suppliers, but no doubt getting stung for duty) and the image quality is okay at best. At the moment I am focussing manually which, despite being brought up on manual focus, is a real faff on this lens.

Money is tight at the moment, but I was wondering if there were an alternative short zoom, preferably under £150 that would give me better performance. The more reviews I read and the more searching I do, the more confused I get.

It looks like I need to be spending £160-180 to get an equivalent Sigma/Tamron/etc lens (e.g. Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8-4.5 DC OS HSM £169.00 ) but for less than that I can get an 18-200. Is the quality of the longer zooms likely to be worse than my old kit lens? The extra length would be handy (fnarr fnarr missis etc) as I don't have a longer lens at the moment, but it isn't vital.

Stabilisation and macro are both useful but not essential. Any thoughts?

[markmullen]

Although I am quite unusual in recommending it (most people aren't that impressed) when I had my 450d I upgraded from the 18-55 non IS to a 17-85 IS and found it a very good upgrade, nice and sharp, lightweight, IS, all for about £160-170

[Speed addicted]

I went from the kit lens on my 500d to the Sigma 17-70, it's got more reach, is stabilised and goes to f2.8.
Of course it also costs around £330 new (probably around £200 used) so I'd buy another kit lens for the time being as it's a known option then save up for something better.

[RobDickinson]

The Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8-4.5 DC OS doesnt wet much press because its not a sexay f2.8 ex lens. IMO its a superb kit lens replacement, from all I've seen it really delivers on quality.

17-70 is going to be out of budget I think?

I've never really liked the 17-85IS, its no better optically than the kit lens (in some ways poorer!), but it has USM and is built well, My 'beef' with it was mostly due to price tho, canon took the piss with it because it was the only crop lens available in the lineup. Now its not the used market is flooded with them and at a decent price its possibly worth a punt.

[Zad]

Much appreciated folks. I'm going to keep an eye on the Ebay auctions for the Canon 17-85, Sigma 17-70 and 18-50 (both types), so I can see what the prices are like and take it from there.

Cheers!

[Cybertronian]

I'm a big supporter for the Canon 17-85mm too. Great IS and build quality, and full time manual focus too should you want it.

Check out AVforums, there's one or two guys on there selling the 17-85mm for around the £160 mark possibly less if you negotiate, which is the lowest I've ever seen it go for. I paid just over £400 for mine brand new several years ago and the release of the new 15-85mm has eroded the price down ever since.