Canon 10-22 wide angle- users opinions

It is a great lens.

It is sharp in the centre wide open, a little peaking of this about f5.6/8 but not much.

Corner sharpness peaks around f8/f11 this is to be expected with an ultra wide.

There is a little CA but this is easily corrected in an editor, I have adobe camera RAW corrections developed on a 20D which might be usable linked from my test page for this lens (link)

I find flare and ghosting control is excellent and the colour neutral.

Mechanical quality is good and control smoothness and other build measures are very similar to my 17-40/4L although being an EF-S lens it feels much lighter. Sharpness compares very well with the 17-40.

You don't mention what lens you currently have but I will observe that this lens teams very well with the excellent 24-105/4L IS, giving a wide focal length range in a small two lens package.

Of course the lens has fast quiet USM focus, handy when you need it although not a major factor for landscape. The lens is also very handy for environmental shots of flowers etc, although the bokeh is not great compared to longer lenses it is what one would expect from an ultra wide.

There are third part options, but unless cost is a major driver I would stick with the Canon option.

I rented the Lens for a weekend to shoot with my prior 20D. The EF-S 10-22 has very good build quality and I found it to be quit sharp.

But in comparison, I like my EF 17-40 f/4L USM on my 5D better. The EF 17-40 f/4L I found to be sharper, better contrast and build quality just a little better. And the CA performance is better on the EF 17-40 f/4L and has less vinyetting.

What do you shoot with currently? If you are using the 17-40L i'd really recommend waiting for either the 5D replacement, or until you have enough pennies saved for the current 5D.

If the EF-S 10-20mm is not good enough for you and you have to have Canon, you can only go get a 5D or whatever replaces it and buy one of the super wides for it. 17-18mm is just NOT wide enough for a 15x22mm sensor, as I found out on a trip to Egypt. In a classic "barn-door" purchase, I got a Sigma 10-22mm practically the minute I got back. I've been very pleased with the Sigma, but, as I say, if you HAVE to have a Canon lens, go for the EF-S lens.

>> I havent seen much discussion of this lens

You should refine your searching skills. There was plenty of talk about it.

In short, it is a superb lens. It impressed me to a degree few L did.

Happy shooting, Yakim.

I've used it almost exclusively for my street photography coupled to a 20D for the last 5 years. Great IQ, AF performance, and flare resistance.

i hardly ever use it but it's excellent. there are a few samples of landscape shots taken with a 20d and canon 10-22 (as well as other combos) here:

http://www.juzaphoto.com/eng/galleries1200/landscapes.htm#003531

The two "Grand Canyon/swirly cloud" shots in my photo section were done with this lens. I can definitely recommend it

It's the lens that's on my 20D about 95 percent of the time. Great walkaround lens.

i do a lot of commercial work and I also shoot a lot of pools - I use the 17-40 and find it to be awesome -I use it on the 40D and have had zero problems with vinyetting - I tripod it for night and it works great - love it wouldn't change it...

I have a 20d and it's pretty much my European vacation lens. It's also the primary lens for archittect friend of mine. We have a Epson 4800pro and with some interpolation regularly print 17x25 prints. For hunderds of examples go to my wesite http://swensonstudio.com. All of the potos from a recent trip to the Loire Valley France, except for some of the panos, where taken with this lens as were pohots from the Holland trip. There's also a few examples in http://photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=857590

I use the 10-22 on my 30D for landscapes and night photos. My copy though suffers from back-focus and is somewhat soft compared to my 24-70L, but with an aperture in the 8 to 11 range for landscapes it does a good job. Spend a few extra dollars for the lens hood.

I think that Bob's saying that even if your shooting a crapper of a subject it's still a great lens.

Depends on how crtical you are about sharpness, aberrations, and image quality. I used this lens with my 20D and sold it on eBay after 6 months. there are many interior samples from this lens I took in LA, CA. 50D will demand a lot from the lenses due to its small pixel pitch so it depends to your standards. To me this lens is not acceptable for making prints larger than 8 X 10. here is a 100% pic shot in RAW. http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=5279208&size=lg

Don't forget rectilinear ultrawides show apparent softness that is just do with the image geometry, this and the effect of finite DOF often makes corners on interior shots look softer than they really are.

The only reliable and consistent way to test for sharpness is a flat high contrast test target, real world examples can be very misleading.

"Don't forget rectilinear ultrawides show apparent softness that is just do with the image geometry, this and the effect of finite DOF often makes corners on interior shots look softer than they really are. "

what you are refering to is field curvature, this would show itself if you shoot a flat subject, corners will not be in focus and thus look blurred. In other shots depends on the situation and distance of various subjects,it may make corners look softer or even sharper depending on the distance. Also, I disagree that real world samples are misleading, you shoot in real word not in controlled studio enviroment.

"what you are refering to is field curvature"

No it is not. Field curvature is when the surface of sharp focus in not a flat plane.

"image geometry": What I am talking about is the mapping between angle of view and position of axis in rectilinear lens. Simply for a small area of sensor c, in the corners covers a larger angle than in the centre because delta aov=atan(r/f)-atan((r-c)/f), where r is the distance from the sensor centre to the sensor corner and f is the lens focal length. Incidentally this has interesting implications for safe handhold shutter speeds for ultra wides.

"effect of finite DOF": Simply interior rooms have considerable DOF extent, ie a ceiling and often a patterned floor that makes DOF limitation more obvious than in outdoor landscapes. Field curvature on a lens may improve or exacerbate the DOF depending on the direction of curvature and the situation. This is why it is a bad idea to try and compare wide angle lenses using real world test views as one often sees on the web.

Alan Green, I like your website.