Lenses choice

[street84]

hi, im new in this forum..
currently i own a Canon EOS 500D with EF-S 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 IS
im thinking of buying a new lens, and this is what i want to ask
option 1; canon EF 17-40mm f.4 L USM(ultra wide angle)
option 2; canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM (ultra wide angle)
option 3; canon EF 20mm f2.8 USM + canon EF 50mm f2.5 macro
all three option cost about the same.
im quite new to photography, but i go out a lot to experiment with
manual photo shooting, at least once or twice a week.
which option you think will be the best ?
thank you very much

 

[Drake]

It depends what you want/need. The lens you mentioned differ a lot, which means different applications.

 

[ishafizan]

vital question:
- what do u want to shoot? landscape? portraits? action?
- check also your previous pics and note what focal length u use most ...

 

[street84]

thx for the reply, apparently i just found out that both 17-40 and 20mm doesn't work as ultra wide lens on crop body like my 500D, so ill just go with the 10-22.
since i live in Seoul, there's a lot of mountains here, so landscape and buildings probably what i want to shoot using ultra wide lens.
thx again

 

[Dao]

For Ultra Wide Angle lenses, take a look at this article.

Juza Nature Photography

 

[bigtwinky]

thx for the reply, apparently i just found out that both 17-40 and 20mm doesn't work as ultra wide lens on crop body like my 500D, so ill just go with the 10-22.
since i live in Seoul, there's a lot of mountains here, so landscape and buildings probably what i want to shoot using ultra wide lens.
thx again

The lenses physically fit on the body and can be used. However, due to the 1.6x crop factor, a 17mm lens has an effective focal lenght of 27mm
I personally like a focal lenght of about 26mm for landscapes. I do prefer much wider when I shoot urban and buildings though.
Your best bet is the 10-22mm

 

[street84]

thx for the article Dao, i clearly see now that among ultra wide lenses available both sigma and canon is considerably better than the others, but does the F stops really that important, i have a tripod which allow me to do a long shutter which means even at night time, i dont really need a high aperture (smaller number).
how about the sigma 8-16mm ? this would be wider than others and i read some review regarding its quality, and it doesn't show anything bad on it. does anyone have a experience with this lens ?

 

[Overread]

Street give me a few hours (if the postman likes me it should be here tomorrow) and I should be able to give a little insight into the 8-16mm
Myself I chose this from this list:

Sigma 10-20mm f3.5 - not desperate for the wide aperture, but of the two versions of this lens I felt that the small price different between the two meant that I might as well go for the newer with the constant f3.5 aperture over the variable aperture version. This lens also has the longest reach at 20mm of the three

Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 - has the smallest zoom range of all three and note that with the wide angles the small mm differences do show up. Widest aperture of f2.8 across the whole zoom range is its biggest asset and if you were shooting nighttime action or nightclub/party/wedding anything where lighting is limited and you need a fast shutter speed then this is really the ideal choice.
It is the only one without fulltime manual focusing motors, though I've read that to engage manual focus you just pull back on the focus ring itself (the ring acting as the mf/af switch).

Sigma 8-16mm f4.5-5.6 - worst aperture range of the three (sadly) and also the front element is a bulb shape which means it won't take any screw in filters and it is also incompatible with standard filter holder mountings as well (there are custom options if you google around and Lee Filters are making an adaptor to allow it to take large sized LeeFilters). It is however the widest possible focal length before you go fisheye and also because of its construction its distortion is less at 10mm than the 10-20mm. Further from reading around (including Juza's review) its optics are really very impressive.


For me the 8mm and outstanding optical quality as well as the HSM (fulltime manual focusing) of the 8-16mm won out; but I'll admit its a hard choice to make as all three are good performers. I don't think there is a bad choice here for the budding landscape photographer - a bad choice maybe if you have specific working conditions with set criteria that need to be met.

 

[street84]

thx, ill be waiting for your insight. well frankly speaking im not someone who go to nightclub, maybe a cafe to get a beer with friends only. so my main focus to get a UW is to shoot buildings and landscape only.

 

[Overread]

It's here!! The Sigma 8-16mm is here!

Ok so without any experience of the other wide angle lenses I can say this/add to the above.

1) AF - fast, even in dimmer indoor lighting its a very fast auto focus and quite quite as well. A little burr of the motors working, but little more than that.

2) Manual - the full time manual focus works well and has a very good twist in that once you go past the limit (at either the long or the short end of the focus) the focusing wheel becomes stiffer than normal (noticably so). It will still turn freely without damaging the lens (as per all HSM/USM lenses) but the added friction against motion means that you know once you've reached the end of the lenses focusing distance (a good thing as its min focusing distance is deceptively close and can be a little tricky to see what is perfectly in and out of focus

3) Body build quality is good and strong - the hood adaptor and the permanent lens hood are all metal and slide together well.

4) The front element - honestly its wider than I thought, but with the petal hood its not so bulbus that its ungainly and I can't forsee any problems using it at all.

5) The hood adaptor that comes with the lens can be left on, but pretty much only at the 16mm end of the range - any shorter and you get vignetting on the shot (and by any shorter I really do mean even a tiny shift in the zoom brings the edges into view in the viewfinder - at that close you might get some corner shadowing occurring, though I'd say it would be correctable if you had to shoot like this)

6) Sharpness - yep from 8 to 16mm it looks good. Not done any intensive testing on this, but from my early test shots (mostly of a messy room.....) its got a very good overall optical quality



Edit - on the building front you might also want to take into consideration the canon tilt shift lenses - not cheap options, but they give you something that a regular wide angle can't do. Have a look here
http://www.flickr.com/groups/canondslr/discuss/72157626011442507/
a few posts down is an example 3 shot showing you want a tiltshift lens can do with met with a building. It's something to consider if they are going to be a main part of your photography.

 

[Christie Photo]

...due to the 1.6x crop factor, a 17mm lens has an effective focal lenght of 27mm
I personally like a focal lenght of about 26mm for landscapes. I do prefer much wider when I shoot urban and buildings though.
Your best bet is the 10-22mm

I dunno... I'm thinkin' like you about the 28mm too. I have the 17–40, and I use it a LOT!!! Admittedly, I'm using a "full frame" format, but I'm seldom at 17mm.

-Pete

 

[Tired but willin]

Hi there - i'm really new to photography as well and recently purchased the 500D in December. I had a good play around with my dads 17-85mm IS Canon lens and fell in love straight away. With my limited knowledge i feel she's a great alrounder and perfect as your standard lens. Depending what you want to shoot obviously, but she's definitely worth a look!!

 

[street84]

Hi there - i'm really new to photography as well and recently purchased the 500D in December. I had a good play around with my dads 17-85mm IS Canon lens and fell in love straight away. With my limited knowledge i feel she's a great alrounder and perfect as your standard lens. Depending what you want to shoot obviously, but she's definitely worth a look!!

well i already own a 18-200mm lens which is quite all rounder lens, im thinking of adding ultra wide and a macro (later time).

thx for the insight overread, i read it very well and based on your judgment, it's give me more option to think about. i might go hit some store and try it out myself later time to see the difference.