Searching for a wide angle zoom

[sutejok]

Hi all. I currently own the canon 24-70 f2.8L and i've been using it for my

trips and it works great. however, there are times when I feel that the lower

end at 24mm is not wide enough.. I'm using 400D so the crop factor make it worse.

 

i'm considering to get a wide lense. I've been looking at a couple of options

but i'm not sure which should i be getting.. hoping you guys can help me figure

out :) my options are canon ef-s 10-22 f3.5-4.5, sigma 12-24. would you guys

prefer one over the other? the other option i was considering is the canon

17-40mm f4. a friend of mine let me use his lens for a couple of days and it

felt pretty good. i didnt have the chance to take it out and really test it. but

the wideness seems sufficient for archi shots, and the upper range at 40 seems

to make it a walk around lense. the only disadvantage is just the limit to 17mm,

and it overlaps with my 24-70m (not sure if this is even a disadvantage..). what

do you guys think? This will be my third lens after 24-70mm and 50mm 1.8.

 

as of now, i dont have plan anytime soon to move up to 5D, so ef-s might not

affect me for a while.

 

Please help! thank you very much.

 

Sutejo

[peterlyons]

The 10-22 is a sweet lens of high quality. If you're interested in going wide, you really owe it

to yourself to try it out!

[mendel_leisk]

The 10-22 is very good, *extremely* wide at 10mm.

 

I've used the combo of 1.6 crop body, 24-70 and 10-22. For me the big frustration was the incovenience of swapping lens. The 22~24mm zone is just into wide territory, sort of a high-traffic zone, an awkward place to have to constantly stop, take one lens off, put another on.

 

My eventual solution was to go to the 5D and just use the 24-70, which becomes plenty wide on full frame, comparable to 15mm on crop, which is not *super* wide, but more than enough for most shots, in my experience.

[mike_stemberg]

I second Peter on that unreservedly!<br>I have no experience of the Sigma or any other 'wide' but all I can say is the Canon 10-22mm is all what is supposed to be ~ a cracking good lens!<br><br>

 

Have a look at

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/6716482"> this shot.</a>

[kiloromeo]

I just got the Canon 10-22 a month ago. I also have the Tamron 11-18 which I picked up at a local camera shop for about the same price I just paid for the 10-22. At the time I wanted a super-wide and had to have that immediate gratification, oops.

The Canon IQ is strikingly better. If you like wide angle shots, you should really just get the Canon ef-s.

You current setup seems to indicate that you probably won't be too happy with a 3rd party super-wide IQ. Of course this is just my experience, undoubtedly people that have already purchased the Sigma might chime in with something different.

The Canon is a known quantity. In the future it will also be a known quantity for all those Ebay people that need a superwide.

[anthony_zipple]

The 10-22 is a great lens, but:

1. I miss a wide f/2.8 and wish that the 10-22 was faster

2. I wish that I had a wide to short telephoto range without swapping lenses... like a 24-70!

 

I love wide lenses and while I have adjusted to my 20 and 40D bodies, I may buy the replacement for the 5D when it comes out, just to manage the wide angle options. A next generation 5D for wide, a 40D for telephoto and my life would be complete.

[steve_crist]

I agree with Mendel. I originally had a 20D and had the 17-40L, 24-70L and 70-200LIS lenses. I was always searching for the perfect walk-around lens. When I got my 5D the 24-70L was IT. It's wider and longer than the 17-40 on a crop body and opens to 2.8 versus F4 on the 17-40. I hardly ever have to change lenses for my style of photography. When the new 5D model comes out, my 20D will be up for sale and I'll mount the 70-200 on the new 5D and virtually never have to change lenses again. Every now and then I use the 17-40 and a TRUE 17mm is all the width I ever need. Full frame is the way to go.

[alan_green4]

the 10-22 and 17-55 are tremendous. i believe the 17-55 is sharper than the 17-40 and has cleaner color (also has constant 2.8)

 

there is a lot of swapping when using the 10-22 though. a second body for this lens would be a good idea.

 

also, at 10mm this lens is best stopped down/on a tripod -- (the same applies to all super-wides) -- you just can't handhold at slow shutter speeds that wide.

 

i wish the 10-22 was an IS lens

[JDMvW]

If you're not worried about going to full-frame, you should broaden your Sigma considerations to their very nice 10-20mm lens.

 

 

It's really good to have an ultrawide, so that you can get real wide angle on the APS-size sensors.

 

 

Because of the wide angle, you really don't need IS as much as you do on a telephoto where every little twitch is magnified. Still, a tripod is always a good idea for maximum real sharpness as compared to perceived sharpness. However, the 'minimization' of the twitch in so wide an angle is probably the reason that they are rarely if ever fitted with IS or VR or whatever.

[alan_green4]

twitch is magnified with super-wide view just as it is with telephoto view, especially in the corners. however, the effect of camera shake is not as apparent in wide angle shots as it is in telephoto shots. the blur caused by camera motion in wide angle shots would only be seen on critical examination and would not be noticed by the average shooter (especially considering the average consumer doesn't really care what the corners look like)

 

the rule of thumb for calculating minimum shutter speed needed to prevent camera shake does not apply to extreme wide angle. that is, you can't shoot at 1/10th of a second handheld because you are shooting at 10mm lens. try it -- the center may be acceptable but the corners will be mush. by extension, if you apply the same rule, you would be able to shoot a 6mm lens at 1/6th of a second and still get sharp results. a 6mm view is so wide that any shake is greatly magnified (in the corners). at 1/6th second, handheld, you'd have a terrible shot

 

you don't need to use a tripod to get sharp results at 10mm, but you can't handhold at slow shutter speeds and expect the corners to be sharp just because you're using a wide angle lens. whereas you might get sharp results with a 50mm (on a full frame body) at 1/50th second handheld, you can't expect the same rule to apply at super-wide angles. with a 10mm at 1/10th second handheld you'd have soft corners (although IS would improve your odds). the rule of thumb changes around 28mm or so. wider than 24mm you have to bump the shutter speed higher and higher to get sharp corners. by the time you get to 10mm you'd have to be shooting at around 1/200th (handheld) before you could hope for good corners -- even then you'd have to fire off several frames and pick the best one.

 

IS is not included with super-wides not because it's not needed, but because most people think it's not needed, therefore it's inclusion would be perceived as adding unnecessary cost. the casual shooter would balk at the inclusion of IS on an ultra-wide lens -- this would cost the camera company market share

 

of course, if you're able to shoot a 10mm lens handheld at 1/10th second and get sharp corners, great. i suppose such a photographer would be able to shoot a 2mm lens at 1/2 second and get hard sharp corners...

 

if only they made a lens with a view of 360 degrees. applying the same rule of thumb (the wider the view the slower the shutter speed) you would be able to handhold such a lens for 30 seconds or a minute and still get hard sharp images

[freelance]

I have sigma 12-24 because I prefer lenses that can be used with FF too. When using it with a crop camera, I have to use manual focus as autofocus is not very accurate. With FF is the widest rectilinear lens for Canon, being only the fish-eyes 15 mm Canon and the Peleng (8mm) wider.

[alan_myers]

If OP has no immediate plans to go to full frame D-SLR, another option to consider is the Tokina 12-24/4.

 

It's a crop only, like EF-S, but about the same price ($470) as the Sigma 10-20, except the Tokina is a full stop faster at the long end of the zoom. Both the Canon 10-22 and the Sigma 12-24 are a lot more expensive (roughly +$200).

 

I've done a little comparison of the Tokina and Canon 10-22 side-by-side. Image quality is pretty similar (very good, IMO), although the extra 2mm WA is noticeable.

 

I like the non-variable aperture, since I sometimes use manual, studio lighting where variable apertures are a pain.

 

Overall build quality of the Tokina reminds me a lot of an older Canon 17-35/2.8L I've got. One small niggle, to me, is the focus clutch method changing from AF to manual focus, but I'm sure I could get used to it.

[matthias_meixner2]

Regarding the sigma 12-24: There seem to be tremendous copy variations. One guy reported that he tried 6 copies until he got a good one, but then this one was very good.

[dougolupski]

I will sing the praises of the 17-40L. I first purchased it when I had a 10D and a 30D and it takes fantastic pictures. It's very sharp and pretty wide on the crop camera's. Works as a good walk around lens and I guess a small advatage of the crop camera is it eliminates the sometimes soft corners. I recently sold the 10 and bought a 5D and I can say this lens knocked my socks off. I forgot what a real wide angle looked like only disadvantage on a full frame is it can show soft corners if your not two careful. But I don't mean to discourage just disclose. Most people will never see it in a picture and compared to canons other offering lately I would say it's right on par with them.

[aepelbacher]

I LOVE my 10-22! It has a tendency to give your skies "WOW!" quality. Here are two shots I took at 10mm that I love. <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/4933484&size=lg">The Iwo Jima Marine Memorial in Arlington, VA</a> and <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/6696543&size=lg">Buffalo, NY City Hall</a>.

[zigzag]

Canon 10-22mm can produce very nice results: <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/6534991">seascape</a>. I have also tried the Sigma 10-20mm which is a good lens. According to photozone.de the Sigma 12-24 is not so good (but I haven't tried that one). Of the 12-24s I believe Tokina has the best version, well built and good IQ.

[zigzag]

I keep doing that: <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/6534991">seascape</a>

[William Michael]

Really, if 135 format is taken out of the equation, your options are limited to: Sigma 12-24; Tokina 12-24/4:Canon EF-S 10-22 f3.5-4.5.

 

The EF17 to 40 is not wide enough.

 

WW

[JDMvW]

"however, the effect of camera shake is not as apparent in wide angle shots as it is in telephoto shots."

 

exactly--quibble as you will, the effect is not as noticeable because everything in the image is reduced in size. The image, and hence the twitch, is smaller on the wider view.

[sutejok]

hoho thank you very much everyone. I think.. i'm going with canon 10-22.. i think too i will hate to be changing lenses every 2 minutes. but i thought if i want to get a wide angle, might as well go all the way :) (17-40 is not wide enough, some say..)

 

Thank you all!