Worth Buying a 10-22mm?

Bruce_h · Mar 26, 2008

I am going on a trip to Asia, including Mount Everest, and I was told to make sure to bring a wide angle lens. Currently I have a Canon 40D with the stock EF - S 17-85mm f/4 - 5.6, and a Canon 70-200mm L IS. The only lens I could find wider is a 14mm L series (can't seem to find it on a Canadian site), and the Canon EF-S 10-22mm F/3.5 - 4.5? Is the 10-22mm really going to make that much of a difference over the 17-85mm for width? If not I'd rather spend my money on some other lens... Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks!

Yahoozy · Mar 26, 2008

17mm is technically a wide angle, and is probably all you need
although a 10-20mm is a cool lense to have, if your only going to need it this one time stick with the 17 and buy something else

Steph · Mar 26, 2008

Bruce_h said:
Is the 10-22mm really going to make that much of a difference over the 17-85mm for width?

Oh yes!!! A few miliimeter diffence on a wide angle lens makes a huge difference in terms of field of view. On a 40D the diagonal field of view is about 76 degrees with a 17mm whereas it is about 106 degrees with a 10mm.

Drake · Mar 26, 2008

If I were you I'd go for it. There's nothing better for landscape photography than proper wide angle lens.

andrew99 · Mar 26, 2008

Look at the Sigma 10-20, I have one for my Nikon and I love it! It goes *much* wider than my 18-55 it lens.

D-50 · Mar 26, 2008

Calling a 17mm lens a wide angle is misleading. when shooting landscapes especially mountains a 10mm is very useful and truly deserves the distinction of being called wide angle

keith204 · Mar 26, 2008

I went with the Sigma 10-20 (not saying you should get it, but that's just what fit in my budget)

10mm is VERY wide compared to 17mm. If you have the budget room, go for it. 10mm certainly is fun to play with, and takes some nice landscape shots.

Village Idiot · Mar 26, 2008

D-50 said:
Calling a 17mm lens a wide angle is misleading. when shooting landscapes especially mountains a 10mm is very useful and truly deserves the distinction of being called wide angle

Not when everything is still judged by 35mm standards. That's why the 10-20's and 10-22's are UWA, Ultra Wide Angle

Big Mike · Mar 26, 2008

I absolutely recommend an ultra wide angle lens like the EF-S 10-22mm.

It's a great lens for landscape shooting.

Bruce_h · Mar 26, 2008

That would be a definite yes! Thanks everybody!

Garbz · Mar 26, 2008

Given that mountains don't tend to move very much I would go with a tripod and some software like Autopano pro. THen I choose just how wide I want wide to be using multiple exposures.

Mav · Mar 26, 2008

If I shot Canon, the EF-S 10-22mm would be one of the first lenses I'd buy, along with the 17-85IS you already have, and then a 70-200 f/4L IS. I love Canon glass. For ultra ultra wide, I'd also consider the Sigma 10mm fisheye which they have a Canon mount for. It'll give a 167-degree angle of view on Canon, which will make even the 10mm rectilinear lenses look long. I have the Nikon 10.5DX fisheye for the Nikon system and love it.

Fisheyes can be a bit tricky, but as long as you pay attention to composition you won't even have to mess with distortion. There's also plenty of software out there to adjust fisheye images into pretty much anything you want. Here's one from my Nikon with some processing work done but no distortion adjustments or transformations at all.

Taroko Gorge, Taiwan

The fisheye is one of my favorite lenses, and I love it so much and find it so flexible that I haven't even bothered with a traditional rectilinear wide angle lens like the Nikon 12-24DX.

Bruce_h · Mar 26, 2008

That picture is incredible, that's the kinds of things I can't wait to see and try to get good pics of... I had never even thought about a fish eye, but you've got my curiosity going now. The only one I see at the camera shop is a 14mm Canon, or 8mm Sigma. I would imagine the 8mm would be the better purchase?

keith204 · Mar 26, 2008

Bruce_h said:
That picture is incredible, that's the kinds of things I can't wait to see and try to get good pics of... I had never even thought about a fish eye, but you've got my curiosity going now. The only one I see at the camera shop is a 14mm Canon, or 8mm Sigma. I would imagine the 8mm would be the better purchase?

If you get the 8mm Sigma, share some shots! I am interested to hear how it performs.

Mav · Mar 26, 2008

Bruce_h said:
That picture is incredible, that's the kinds of things I can't wait to see and try to get good pics of... I had never even thought about a fish eye, but you've got my curiosity going now. The only one I see at the camera shop is a 14mm Canon, or 8mm Sigma. I would imagine the 8mm would be the better purchase?

What you want is the Sigma 10mm f/2.8 EX DC Fisheye HSM lens.

The Canon 14mm is an ultra-wide angle lens, but for the full-frame digital (1Ds or 5D) cameras or 35mm film. It's not very wide at all on a 40D, less wide than the EF-S 10-22mm which is specifically designed for the crop-body cameras. The Sigma 8mm is a full circular fisheye which is not what you want either. That's also for full-frame digital or 35mm film use.

The lens I have is here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/105fe.htm

There's no equivalent Canon branded lens for Canon, which is why the Sigma 10mm is what you want. I have no idea how it performs, though.

It's also good for urban night time street photography. The fast f/2.8 aperture and slow shutter speeds you can hold it at make it a perfect night time lens. This one I corrected with the Image Trends Hemi plug-in to keep the vertical structures of the building straight, but left horizontal features as-is.

It makes capturing fireworks easy, LOL

(no distortion correction on this one)

And here's some more mountainous rugged terrain (no distortion correction here either)

This is 180-degrees diagonally and about 160-degrees horizontally. So a 10mm rectilinear lens with a horizontal field of view of about 100-degrees isn't going to get even remotely close to this view. You'd have to take multiple exposures and stitch. If you note closely though at the upper right, you can see some nasty chromatic abberations even at web-sized stuff. So if you're ok with 100-degrees or less, definitely stick with a rectilinear wide angle and not a fisheye.

And here's one with a full rectilinear conversion with no horizontal or vertical distortion remaining that I did with DxO software. You do lose a good bit of the wideness, but I think it'll still come out at about the equivalent of a 14mm rectilinear lens or so. That's what I've heard elsewhere. I took some test shots once to do my own measurements but have never been bored enough to go into Photoshop and see for myself. It's still way wider than 18mm either way.

They're also insanely useful in museums where you need both the fast aperture and an ultra ultra wide angle. I have a lot of examples of this too, but not online yet to share.

Fisheyes are more difficult to work with and require more post-processing work than a rectilinear wide angle will, but they still deliver a much much wider view, and as long as you get your composition right and have the right tools at your disposal when you don't or can't, they're amazingly versatile lenses in the digital era. If you want maximum image quality and can live with a 100-degree angle of view or less, you should still stick with a traditional rectilinear wide angle lens like the EF-S 10-22 as noted above. I like even wider than that though. All of these photos are from a recent vacation to Taiwan where my wife has a lot of her family. I took 2900 photos total and we toured all over the place. My fisheye was my 2nd most used lens at around 900 photos, right behind my workhorse 18-135 lens. If only the weather had been better. :grumpy: