Excellent super-wide solution for EF-S mount
21 April 2007
By brainleek007
This lens was created to fill the hole in Canon's range for a super wide angle lens for their range of EF-S mount DSLR's.
Fortunately, since it inhabits a unique position in the range, it is a superb lens and there is no real alternative (from Canon anyway) that covers the same focal lengths.
It's not an L lens so don't expect weather sealing and and lens pouches/lens hoods in the box. Do expect a very well built lens with excellent image quality.
The lens has a very close minimum focusing distance of 24 cm which can be useful for odd effects at the wide end of things. The zoom and focusing rings are smooth and well placed. The lens takes huge filters (77mm) which can add a lot to the purchase price but should be considered essential as the front element is very convex and should be protected. A useful tip - get the slimmest filters you can for this lens as the lens is so wide angle standard filters will cut off the corners a fraction in the frame.
Image quality is excellent. DOF is almost a non issue with this lens as even at minimum aperture and focusing distances greater than close range everything seems to be in focus. There is no appreciable increase in sharpness when stopping down either like you get with some lenses. I leave mine at around f5.6 all the time because I read somewhere that this is the sweet spot for the lens (it's all sweet but apparently this is marginally sweeter). There is a little bit of colour fringing that can creep in for backlit subjects but nothing that can't be edited out and it's par for the course for a lens of this type. What is probably better than normal in terms of performance is the lens' control of flare which is very good. I haven't had flare in my shots even with the sun in the frame. There is no noticeable pincusion/barrel effect either. Solid performance all round.
So if you have an EF-S mount Canon there really are not many choices out there for a super wide lens. It's not the cheapest but it probably is the best out there right now
Fortunately, since it inhabits a unique position in the range, it is a superb lens and there is no real alternative (from Canon anyway) that covers the same focal lengths.
It's not an L lens so don't expect weather sealing and and lens pouches/lens hoods in the box. Do expect a very well built lens with excellent image quality.
The lens has a very close minimum focusing distance of 24 cm which can be useful for odd effects at the wide end of things. The zoom and focusing rings are smooth and well placed. The lens takes huge filters (77mm) which can add a lot to the purchase price but should be considered essential as the front element is very convex and should be protected. A useful tip - get the slimmest filters you can for this lens as the lens is so wide angle standard filters will cut off the corners a fraction in the frame.
Image quality is excellent. DOF is almost a non issue with this lens as even at minimum aperture and focusing distances greater than close range everything seems to be in focus. There is no appreciable increase in sharpness when stopping down either like you get with some lenses. I leave mine at around f5.6 all the time because I read somewhere that this is the sweet spot for the lens (it's all sweet but apparently this is marginally sweeter). There is a little bit of colour fringing that can creep in for backlit subjects but nothing that can't be edited out and it's par for the course for a lens of this type. What is probably better than normal in terms of performance is the lens' control of flare which is very good. I haven't had flare in my shots even with the sun in the frame. There is no noticeable pincusion/barrel effect either. Solid performance all round.
So if you have an EF-S mount Canon there really are not many choices out there for a super wide lens. It's not the cheapest but it probably is the best out there right now
Click to>>>>>>>>>>>Canon Min. Focal Length : 7-15 mm
