Thinking of a wide angle for landscapes

[bigtwinky]

As I’m learning photography, I’m also learning what I enjoy and what I don’t. One thing that I have been loving is doing landscapes and cityscapes.

That being said, I’m in the market for a wide angle lens for my Canon but I need some input from more advanced photographers (so anyone reading this basically haha).

I’m looking at:
Sigma 10-22mm 4 – 5.6 which sells for about $650 at a local store
Canon EF-S 10-22mm 3.5 – 4.5 which sells for about $840 at the same store…so about $200 more.

I’m thinking the main reason the Canon is more expensive is because its 3.5 instead of the 4.0. And because its Canon.

My question is, from my basic photography that I have been learning, I’ve been doing city and land scapes with a tripod and using a small aperture (deeper depth of field). While there are instances where a shallow DOP might be interesting, I’m thinking at 4.0, I should be able to achieve this, thus making the 0.5 difference kinda pointless for the type of photography I would be doing with this…

Is my thinking off? Am I overlooking something? Are there other major applications for a wide angle lens?

Thanks for taking the time.

 

[Big Mike]

The difference between F3.5 and F4.0 isn't much...especially on a wide angle lens...so I think you are on the right track there. The DOF is very deep with wide angle lenses anyway.

With these two lenses, I think it comes down to quality. There are many who love the Sigma, especially because it's cheaper than the Canon...but I've never heard a bad review of the Canon 10-22mm...and most or all of the reviews I've read, put it at the top of the list...of the ultra wide lenses for crop sensors.

I'm not sure if the Sigma has their fast & silent focus system, but the Canon has USM focus, which is great.

I read up on all the wide lenses, before I got mine. I went with the Canon, but to be fair, the Sigma 10-22mm was just coming out and there weren't many reviews at that time.

 

[bigtwinky]

Thanks for the tips!

 

[JustAnEngineer]

Have you considered the $570 Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X 116 Pro DX?

 

[skieur]

To comment on your general concept, why a wide angle for landscapers? I find that a wide angle often creates flat boring images. To use a wide angle for landscapes or cityscapes you need to hang over the edge of a canyon, off a suspension bridge over a falls, or off the top of a skyscraper. Very close verticals: heights or depths are the necessary camera angles for shooting landscapes or cityscapers with a wide ange. A combination of physical daring and creativity is an absolute necessity to avoid boring wide angle landscape or cityscape shots.

skieur

 

[RyanLilly]

Have you considered the $570 Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X 116 Pro DX?

It has very good reviews and good in lo light too, they are hard to find in stock though, you usually have to wait a week or two.

 

[bigtwinky]

Arg, thanks for throwing another lens into the mix haha

How useful would the focal lenghts of 17-22mm be that I would get extra on the Canon and the Sigma? They are what, 27-35mm equivalent on a full frame?

I'll have to do some more review reading and see if I can maybe find a friend who can loan me one for a weekend.

 

[bigtwinky]

To comment on your general concept, why a wide angle for landscapers? I find that a wide angle often creates flat boring images. To use a wide angle for landscapes or cityscapes you need to hang over the edge of a canyon, off a suspension bridge over a falls, or off the top of a skyscraper. Very close verticals: heights or depths are the necessary camera angles for shooting landscapes or cityscapers with a wide ange. A combination of physical daring and creativity is an absolute necessity to avoid boring wide angle landscape or cityscape shots.

Very good points, thanks for bringing them up.

Maybe my terminology was a bit off, I’m not looking at simply doing a cityscape, where I am on the other side of a river with the city in the back. Something like this I would probably use a standard lens.

As an example, I was doing some shots for a photo project last week where I was at a parking lot. There was a mix of indoor and outdoor. So I went into the indoor, 3 level parking lot and got a good vantage point looking down on the outdoor parking lot and wanted to capture as much as I could. My widest lens was 28mm on a Canon 28-135 3.5 I borrowed from a friend , and this on my XSI which has a 1.6 crop factor, so I was essentially shooting at 45mm on an equivalent full frame / 35mm camera.

I’m aiming at slowly building my photo arsenal from the lenses I inherited from my mom (canon 22-55 4.0 and canon 55-200 4.0).

So once I get the wide angle covered, I can focus on upgrading my telephoto and a standard zoom. Essentially, different situations call for different lenses, and I’m lacking a true wide angle lens, hence my looking for a new one.

 

[McQueen278]

Perhaps a Canon 28mm f/1.8 would suit you better at $420USD. It is about as wide as I would go for landscape photography with a 1.6x sensor. It will be much sharper than your 28-135 IS. I used to have a 10-22mm Canon for my 40D and I misused it for the same type of photos as your parking garage example. Had I used a 28mm and either go farther away or moved closer to get the field of view I wanted, I would have had sharper images in lower light with less distortion and corner softness. Ultra wides are really only truly good for interiors and getting really close to objects to distort the perspective.

If you've really got some dough to blow, the 24mm f/3.5L TS-E at $1,130USD is a great landscape lens because it is a tilt and shift lens, meaning you can use the tilt, shift and rotation movements to correct perspective distortions. I've used the 45mm f/2.8 TS-E on my 5D and I love it for landscapes. It's almost like using a large format camera... almost.

If you want distortion however, the Canon 10-22mm is impeccable. The build quality is outstanding. It is in many ways like an L series lens. I had no problems with vignetting using a standard polarizing filter vs. a more expensive thin model. Once I understood the lens more I loved it.

 

[JustAnEngineer]

(Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8) are hard to find in stock though, you usually have to wait a week or two.

B&H has had the Canon-mount version in stock for a couple of months. The Nikon-mount version does still seem to be in short supply.

I only suggested this lens because I've read some favorable reviews of it. My widest lens is the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS.

 

[bigtwinky]

thanks for the amazing info people, its greatly appreciated.

 

[skiboarder72]

Have you considered the $570 Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X 116 Pro DX?

I agree, this is a fantastic lens, its superior in everyway (sharpness, speed, distortion control) to my previous sigma 10-20 except it does suffer from a bit more lens flare