Learning wide-angle…
Posted by boombadeus on November 12th, 2007 in hobbies, photography
We’ve had the Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens for about a week now so I thought I’d put some pics up I’ve taken while getting to know it. The bottom line is, it’s living up to expectations! Even our 35mm lens feels a bit like a telephoto lens in comparison.
Focus is with Canon’s so-called USM (UltraSonic Motor) so it’s nearly silent, and fast. (or at least, fast enough for me, so far). You can have it in auto focus mode but manually focus by just grabbing the focus ring (which non of our cheapie lenses do). It feels solid, but doesn’t weigh a ton. At F/3.5 to F/4.5, it’s not the word’s greatest indoor natural light lens, but you can work with it. Also on the minus side, I found myself setting the exposure compensation (EV or Av) to +2/3 stop to avoid under-exposing in “program” (P) mode indoors. But now that I know that, I can work with it.
Here’s a boring shot to demonstrate just how wide this thing shoots. (By “boring” I mean I didn’t think much at all about the shot. Not going for art or anything.) It’s a picture of my car’s steering wheel, at 10mm. The only thing that’s impressive about it is that I took the photo in a normal driving position, and not only do you get the entire steering wheel but you can see my legs, the radio, even the driver’s side rear view mirror. And yet, the tip of the lens was maybe 8 inches from the Mazda logo in the center. That’s pretty amazing! Now, this might be the most lame possible use for a wide-angle lens. It just illustrates how wide this sucker goes.
You can use the distortion of a very wide-angle lens for artistic purposes. Here’s a pretty boring straight-ahead shot of an emergency wash station, at 22mm:
Here’s a different view of the emergency wash station, at 10mm, purposefully using the distortion of the ultra-wide angle lens:
Personally, I think it’s an interesting, somewhat unusual shot. Nothing I could have accomplished with any camera equipment I’ve ever owned before. Cool. 
More to come in the future as we learn more about it’s quirks and capabilities.
5 Responses to “Learning wide-angle…”
By albert on Nov 13, 2007
wiiiiiide! every mm counts on the wide end. i was surprised to see the difference between 12mm and 10mm on my nikon d70 when i put a friend’s lens on my d70.
wide angle photography is a hard thing to get good at - composition counts even more.
By boombadeus on Nov 13, 2007
There’s definitely a learning curve to it. One thing I read about ultra-wide angle is that newbies have a tendency to use wider angle than necessary and get all sorts of extra crap on the sides, because of the wow-factor. So I’ve been actively fighting the urge to just leave it at 10mm.
Similarly, I’ve also decided that this is the last post I’ll make about the lens itself. I feel like I’m getting dangerously close to being one of those guys that talks equipment but never uses it. (Except that I actually use it…) From here on out, there’ll be photos taken with the lens, but without all the “gee whiz” commentary.
I think I got it out of my system…
By saul on Feb 26, 2008
I’m sold - was thinking about going wide - but the eyewash station photo sold me… I bought a DISCOUNT sigma telephoto on amazon - it’s okay - but I may have to get the brand name wideangle..
love the blog.
By boombadeus on Feb 26, 2008
Cool!
F4 to F5.6 on the Sigma means you’ll have to be a little more careful taking shots in low light indoors. But not that much, it’s only about 1/3 stop. That’s no big deal, I’m sure you’ll love messing around with it!
Glad you like the blog!