Canon EF wide-angle zoom lens - 10 mm - 22 mm F/3.5-4.5 > Reviews (2)

Introduction

The Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-f4.5 USM lens is a high quality wide-angle zoom lens that is ideal for landscape, architectural and interior photography.

It is designed to be used with all Canon EOS cameras with an APS-C sized censor and an EF-S lens mount, it cannot be used with Canon full frame or film cameras, also some older EOS models will not accept this lens either.

To see if your camera is compatible with this lens, check your camera for the following.

All Canon EOScameras have a red spot on the lens mount to denote the lens alignment for EF mount lenses, check to see if your camera has an additional white spot to denote the lens alignment for EF-S mount lenses, if it does, then this lens will fit.

Focal length

This lens has an actual focal length of 10-22mm, but because of the x1.6 crop factor of the APS-C sized censor, it will have an effective focal length of 16-35.2mm (35mm equivalent) which is a very useful wide-angle range that is ideal for landscape photography, it is also very useful for indoor photography, especially where space is tight.

Focusing

This lens has a USM motor which means that focusing is lightning fast and very quiet, I have found that the focusing is very accurate with this lens, the pictures are very sharp from the center, right out to the corners of the frame, and are well focused throughout the focal range of the lens, especially when stopped down a couple of stops from the maximum aperture, and the finest picture details are rendered accurately, even on a 15mp camera which would show up any flaws in the lens.

Colours

Colours are rendered very well, and the pictures are bright and clear with very good saturation, which is especially important in defining distant objects and sky details in landscape pictures.

Chromatic aberrations (colour fringing around high contrast subjects) are a common problem on wide-angle zoom lenses, and some cheaper lenses can suffer quite a lot with this, but the Canon lens has very little chromatic aberration at all, and it is not noticeable on most pictures, even where it is present it is very minor and you would have to enlarge the picture quite a lot to even see it, which is quite impressive.

Lens Flare

Lens flare happens when the sun strikes the front element of a lens and causes reflections inside the lens, The elements in this lens have a "super spectra coating" which reduces lens flare to a minimum, and it works well on this lens, a lens hood will reduce this even further, unfortunately this lens does not come with a supplied lens hood, but it is an optional extra (Canon should be ashamed of themselves, supplying a wide angle lens without a hood, especially at this price point.)

Distortion

Another common problem with wide-angle zoom lenses is barrel distortion, which causes a slight magnification in the center of the picture, causing straight lines to curve away from the center of the picture, and pincushion distortion which has the opposite effect, causing straight lines to curve in towards the center of the picture, at the 10mm end of the focal length, barrel distortion is evident as you would expect at this focal length, but it is very slight and well controlled in this lens, and by the time you reach 15mm it is hardly evident at all, pincushion distortion starts to creep in at the 22mm end of the focal length but again it is very slight, overall this lens is very good at controlling distortion, which is quite impressive for a wide-angle zoom lens of this range, I have had prime (fixed) focal length lenses in the past that couldn't match this performance.

Viginetting

Viginetting occurs when the extreme field of view of a wide-angle lens causes light falloff at the corners of the pictures, this lens is pretty good, but there is a little viginetting at the 10mm setting, stopping the lens aperture down a couple of notches cuts this down quite a bit, if this lens is used with an EOS 50D the camera compensates for this automatically, otherwise it can be easily removed during post processing, but overall this lens is better than most.

Build quality

This lens feels solidly built, it is of polycarbonate and metal (mount) construction with a rubber covering on the zoom ring, which operate very smoothly in use, and there is no slippage or unintentional movement of the zoom ring during operation, the lens mount is well machined and it fits easily onto the camera body, it turns smoothly and locks firmly into place, all of which gives you confidence in it's reliability and quality of build.

Handling

This lens is well balanced, not too heavy, it feels solid and it is easy to use, the focusing and zoom rings are well placed and with their raised rubber coating, you get a good grip, and they are easy to find by feel, negating the need to take your eye from the viewfinder to locate the rings in order to manually focus or zoom in and out whilst composing your picture, there is a small slider switch to turn the auto-focus on or off, and with its USM motor it is very quiet in use.

There is no image stabilizer on this lens, but unlike telephoto lenses there is little need for it on a wide-angle lens, as camera shake is not usually a problem in daylight or flash operation, camera shake would occur in low light situations, such as in night shots when you would need to use a slow shutter speed, but you would want to use a tripod in those circumstances anyway.

All movements of the elements in this lens whilst focusing and zooming are internal, so the lens does not extend causing a difference in handling.

What is it like to use?

When I first got this lens I was amazed at the wide field of view especially at the 10mm end of the focal range, when you look through the viewfinder at a nearby object, it looks very small and far away, when out in the country you can get everything in view from a very wide area, creating a wide vista and a feeling of space, the field of view is so wide in fact, you have to watch that you don't get your feet in the picture as well, and because they have a very wide depth of field, everything is in focus from nearby objects through to distant scenes, if you want to take a picture of a large building, then if you fit this lens you don't have to walk a long way off to get it all in, and because it is a zoom you can still frame it perfectly.

Indoors this lens comes into its own as well, even in a small room you can get quite a lot in, that is why estate agents like to use them, they make a room look a lot bigger than it really is, and family shots are easier to take indoors, as you can fit them all into the frame without them having to huddle together to fit into the shot.

One word of warning though, if you are using flash, the cameras built in flash will not have a wide enough coverage area to light the whole scene when this lens is zoomed out to it's widest setting, one or two external flashes would be required to light the whole scene, otherwise zoom in as much as possible when using flash.

Because this lens has a very wide depth of field, focusing is quick and the motor does not need to work hard when focusing, this means that this lens will cause less drain on your cameras battery when auto-focusing.

Likes

Quality of pictures.
The most useful range of wide-angle focal lengths.
Build quality.
Ease of use.
Quiet USM motor
Speed and accuracy of auto-focus.
Good Handling.
Size

Dislikes

No lens hood supplied
Not compatible with all EOS cameras.
A good quality lens of this type is never going to be cheap

Price

This lens can be had from around £590 to £650 on Amazon at the time of writing.

The lens hood is available from around £25 to £30.

Conclusion

This is an excellent lens for the landscape, architectural or indoor photographer, the pictures you will get from it will be sharp and clear, it comes at a price but for the excellent quality you get, this is quite good value, it covers the most useful wide-angle range of focal lengths in one lens without compromising quality, it is well built and should give years of service.

On the downside, this lens is not compatible with all EOS cameras, this is something to consider if you are thinking about upgrading to a full frame camera in the future, and there is no lens hood supplied as standard.

Highly recommended.
Specifications

Lens Construction (groups) - 10
Lens Construction (elements) - 13 (3 aspheric elements - 1 Super UD element)
Minimum Aperture - 22-27 (1/3-stop increments 22-29)
Closest Focusing Distance - 0.24m (9.5") at all focal lengths
Maximum Magnification - 0.17x at 22mm setting
Optical Zoom - 2.2x
Filter Diameter - 77mm (thin polarizer required for 10mm use)
Maximum Diameter x Length - 83.5mm x 89.8mm (3.3" x 3.5")
No. of Diaphragm Blades - 6(circular aperture)
Lens Mount Type - EF-S
Weight - 385g (13.5oz)
Hood - optional, petal-shaped, snap-on type

Test shots

The four pictures are test shots all taken from the same position, showing lens prformance at 10mm, 14mm, 18mm and 22mm, respectively.