Oh dear.
Yeah, THAT. The reaction you get when you tell someone what lens you used for a session or a particular photo. The face that is made may as well imply that you grabbed Thin Mints off the table outside the grocery store being manned by munchkins wearing green and RAN.
The dreaded KIT LENS reaction.
Frankly, I think it would be great if camera manufacturers started pairing bodies with 50mm 1.8 lenses. That’s how it was in film days. You pretty much got a 35mm lens with your body. That’s how it should still be. Yet, I digress…
So, if you own a kit lens, that pretty much means that you bought a package deal when you bought your camera body. You didn’t know about the “body-only” deals, or else it just didn’t make sense to go that route because buying a lens on top of it was more than you wanted to spend.
So, you have a lens that is sneered at. What to do?
Ignore the sneering. It’s a viable lens. Really. It doesn’t have the versatility of a lens that can go from f/1.8 to f/22, but right now, you probably don’t need that, anyway. Learn to use your kit lens. It will be restricting in some instances. You’re not going to be able to get good bokeh out of it, no matter how hard you try, but you’ll be able to get some great usable images out of it early in your journey.
When I started out, I bought a kit lens, the lovely 18-55mm. After a year or so, I heard a story about a newer photographer who had something tragic happen to her kit lens and she just couldn’t swing the cost of a new one. She was dead in the water. So I sent her mine. And just told her to pay it forward some day.
So, quit yer whining about your gear and learn to use it to the fullest capacity you are able. After you replace it, keep it as a backup (you all know about having backup gear, right?). After you have a better backup – find it a new home with someone just starting out.
Pay it forward, freckles and all.