Wide angle lens' for crop sensor camera

[Grumbaki]

17 or 18 mm is not wide angle enough for APS-C and landscapes... you can cheat by taking several pictures and stitching them together, but if you have people in the shot it just will not do... You really need 10mm...

Imho "landscape" and "ultrawide" are not synonymous, my 17-40L is quite nice at least for what I shoot on crop. And 10mm less still don't capture the 360 degrees world around you and you still might end up doing panoramas which usually also works ok. The reason for uwa is more that you *want* the distortion for creativity, not to necessarily to "take it all in" as Ken Rockwell correctly remarked.

+1

I often use my 70-300L or 100-400L for landscapes.

+1 as my best cityscapes are at 200mm. Compression makes modern and brutal urbanization even more oppressing.

But in that subfield, UWA is indeed "to take it all in" as many things can block the shot...or go back to the core of land/cityscape: location, location, location.

 

[Marsu42]

I often use my 70-300L or 100-400L for landscapes.

Welcome to the 70-300L club, I didn't realize you're a member now

Concerning uwa: The landscape theory also begs the question what f2.8 should be for, that's why the 17-40L is optimized for small apertures (round spot lights up to f8, still no noticeable diffraction @f16).

As far as I understand it a large aperture w/ uwa is for close up shots to still get a strong background blur, something I cannot do with the 17-40L. Also "taking it all in" is extremely useful for group portraits when you cannot get enough distance, and here f2.8 might be useful for shutter speed when indoors.

 

[nubu]

Buy the eos m plus the new 11-22 and be happy! For its total size and weight (and prize!) you can have it in parallel to your other equipment and dont have to change optics...

 

[GaryJ]

Have been using the Tokina 11-16 for a while now on my 7D,excellent results and sharpness,any CA easily fixed in Lr5 , prints from my Pro 1 at A3+ have excellent IQ

 

[Loswr]

I often use my 70-300L or 100-400L for landscapes.

Welcome to the 70-300L club, I didn't realize you're a member now

Yep - picked it up mainly for use as a travel telezoom, it fits my bags vertically, making it much more convenient. The 24-70 II + 70-300L make a great travel kit.

Buy the eos m plus the new 11-22 and be happy! For its total size and weight (and prize!) you can have it in parallel to your other equipment and dont have to change optics...

Unless the OP is in the USA, where Canon isn't selling or servicing the 11-22mm (at least for now, I expect they'll announce the lens with the next verison of the M).

 

[privatebydesign]

that's why the 17-40L is optimized for small apertures (round spot lights up to f8, still no noticeable diffraction @f16).

That seems like a strange thing to say, diffraction is diffraction, and as far as our photographic lenses are concerned stays constant across sensor sizes. Whilst a lens designer, in theory, can make some adjustments in aperture position to marginally adjust diffraction characteristics, in reality, with a 44mm flange distance a 17-40 designer doesn't have any freedom.

I'd like to see a comparison 17-40 and 16-35 images @ f16 to see if there are any diffraction induced differences.

Bryan to the rescue
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=100&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=5&LensComp=412&CameraComp=453&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=6
there aren't.

In fact if you compare any of the lenses there you will see f16 looks pretty much the same on everything.

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=302&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=5&LensComp=458&CameraComp=453&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=7

Diffraction is diffraction.

 

[RLPhoto]

Canon 10-22mm. I made some of my best shots with that lens, It has such little distortion.

 

[Marsu42]

In fact if you compare any of the lenses there you will see f16 looks pretty much the same on everything.

Thanks for correcting me, the diffraction theory was really speaking from the top of my head, I just noticed that the 17-40L has (for me) surprisingly good iq at small apertures where my former used lenses were well beyond their aperture/iq peak. Plus of course the 17-40L has very little flare, which doesn't show in charts.

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=100&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=2&API=5&LensComp=412&CameraComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0

 

[privatebydesign]

Thanks for correcting me....

Only done in the spirit of us all learning a bit, I had never looked at the f16 comparisons before so it confirmed my assumption, but we all know assumption can be the mother of all f--- ups!

As you point out it is important to put any individual test in perspective, and do comparisons for your priorities, there are much more important things than ultimate resolution, DR, fps etc it is all a balancing act of what works best for any one person.

 

[Marsu42]

Thanks for correcting me....

Only done in the spirit of us all learning a bit

Absolutely, one learns the most by being wrong! It's much more boring to be correct all the time or to get ignored if talking rubbish, and I what's great about CR are the experienced people sharing their advice w/o being arrogant. Vice versa I try to share my experiences with other people that even have less money or experience with dslrs so they don't need to make the mistakes I made, which were few so far, again thanks to help around here and a lot of research.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi, I hired the ef-s 10-22 to do a specific job, this lens is awesome. Almost wish I never saw it as it immediately went on my wish list!
I would say you would not go wrong with this lens despite it not being your preferred prime! I keep waiting for the used price to drop, but I don't see that happening until they launch a MKII which i dont see happening any time soon. It would be hard to do as I don't think there is much they could do to improve on this lens except perhaps constant aperture with a lower f stop!
I would suggest you hire or borrow the most often recommended lenses to try for a few days then you will know which one suits your needs / wants.
Good luck with your quest.

Cheers Graham.