What is the best Wide Angle Cannon Lens for Landscapes. I am using my 20D.
I am going to Las Vegas and plan on spending some time in the Desert and at the Grand Canyon. I have a helicopter booked for a 5 hour trip to Hoover Dam and the Canyon.
Don't know much about nothing, but I've been researching this for a while, with plan to purchase in a week's time. The 10-22 has been recommended, including by bear_music.
Considering the 1.6x factor, the other lenses just becomes "not so wide" on the 20D, I think.
The 10-22 is relatively expensive (I also had to send one back for being soft), but it's sooo wide and such a cool, sharp lens if you get a good one. I certainly appreciate mine.
For landscapes in the desert, speed is not an issue as there is plenty of light and you'll be shooting at a higher aperture anyway (if you were buying the lens then speed would be more important). So I wouldn't worry too much about speed.
I saw a review where the 17-40 is better at the wide end and the 16-35 is better at the 35mm end when shot at the same aperture. Since you are looking for the wide end, I reccomend the 17-40 over the 16-35 (in this instance) if 17 is going to be wide enough (which it should be).
If you plan on using the same lens for indoor shooting as well, the 16-35 would probably be a better option.
Whether you want this or another lens depends largely on whether you can live with the gap between 22mm and 35mm, the next widest lens in your bag. The 16-35 or the 17-40 leaves you no gap, but no truly extreme wide angle either.
The remarkable thing about the 10-22 is that it's utterly free of barrel distortion even at 10mm. I was blown away by it when I tested it. But 10mm is REALLY wide, you have to compose carefully.
As for sharpness of the 10-22mm, it seems very sharp to me, but you have to be aware that the details you are recording are rendered so small in such a wide field of view that they sometimes are outside the ability of our sensors to really crisp them up. NO lens this wide can look as tack-sharp as, say, the the Canon 85mm 1.8; it's in the nature of the beast. And the images can't be displayed to advantage at 640 pixels on a computer screen either; on the full-size image, you'll find that as you zoom in it appears to get sharper and sharper; that's the screen resolution in play. My prints from this lens, at approx 12x16 inches, are super-sharp.
in terms of optical quality the prime will win by a lot. However that doesn't mean it's your best bet. The 17-40L is great, and the 10-22 opens up some interesting possiblities. In the desert... a vast open area... even a tele lens can seem good. I would take along a 70-200 lens as well because from what i've heard, they get tons of use in the desert.
As for the 14mm 2.8L I've heard it is the best (not worth the extra money over the 15mm mostly, but since it's a rental...) fisheye.
One thing that I haven't yet seen anyone mention is that if you don't have a really good tripod and use mirror lock-up, you probably won't be able to tell the difference in sharpness between any of these lenses (with the possible exception of the prime) -- the slight vibration from inadequate stabilization will probably eradicate the differences quite easily. Also note that if your final destination is going to the screen, you definitely won't be able to tell -- the 10-22, 17-40, and 16-35 are all reasonably sharp lenses, and you'd need a moderately large print to tell the difference under the best of conditions.
After that, though, you probably just want the widest possible image for landscape work, and that makes it the 10-22, no contest. There are primes in that area as well (such as the 14mm that Fotor mentioned), but they've gotten fairly bad reviews. I haven't used any of the ultrawide primes, but I have used the 10-22, and was fairly pleased with it at the time (I was even pleased enough with the one that I borrowed that I tried buying one myself, but Dell canceled my order while I was traveling, and I decided to save my money after I got back after I started hearing rumors of a possible 10mm EF-S prime).
If images from the 10-22 are anything to go by, it should have gotten an L on it...
The only reason it's not an "L" lens, I have read, is because all of those have a certain combination of special glass in them and the 10-22mm doesn't meet that criterion. Optically it performs as well as (or better than) the 17-40L. Apparently Canon is very strict about preserving the integrity of "L" glass construction specifications. A number of their new lenses in the higher price bracket perform as well as "L" glass but don't have one or more of the elements needed to qualify. The EF-S 60mm macro is another of these.
I like my 10-22 a lot. I love the sharpness and the 10mm focal length, but I have noted there's a fair amound of distortion around the outer parts of shots. But I don't have anything else this wide to compare it to.
I've found on hikes, if I only can take one lens, that's the one! I have a bunch of shots from my Acadia vacation with this lens I'll post soon, but here's some I already have uploaded:
The only downside is the 77mm filter size and the high price. Also, I would have liked to have IS (at least for me, my hands are not steady enough, some days I can shoot with this lens at 1/8 of a second but other days I miss at 1/30). The new Canon 24-105/F4L is interesting in that respect (but I haven't heard the price yet).
I presume, Robert, by being careful composing, you mean to keep the camera level?
