The Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS is the next generation budget "kit" lens for Canon EOS APS-C DSLRs. It is a long awaited and, frankly, urgently needed successor for the rather mediocre EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II which was not able to convince anymore ever since the release of EOS 20D. However, Canon did not only improve the optical design - they also added an image stabilizer, changed the finish and introduced circular aperture blades for a better bokeh (out-of-focus blur).The field-of-view of the lens is equivalent to 29-88mm on full format cameras so it's a quite typical standard zoom lens.