Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM: Review

Posted to Lenses 2009-06-20

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM Review:

The Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM lens is designed from the ground up to work with Canon's digital SLR cameras. Featuring the S-mount found on the Canon EOS 20D, 30D, 40D, 50D and Digital Rebel series cameras, the lens provides a 35mm equivalent focal length of 16-35mm.

From ultra-wide to wide angle, the lens is fairly fast with a maximum aperture of f/3.5 at 16mm to f/4.5 at 35mm. The lens is built using three aspherical lens elements plus a Super-UD (Ultra Low Dispersion) element. It uses a USM (UltraSonic Motor) for fast and silent autofocus, and features a full-time manual focus ring. The lens features a close-focusing distance of 9.5 inches with a coverage as small as 3.6 inches X 5.4 inches.

Rating:

3.8 out of 5

Quality

This is a truly high-quality lens, as is evidenced by the price. It's built using 13 elements in 10 groups and has a 6-blade electronic diaphragm which means that manually-set apertures stay constant from f/3.5 thru f/22. It also features a circular aperture design, which provides for more natural highlights. The overall build quality is excellent, and the auto and manual focus is smooth and silky. It features superior optics, and is specifically designed to give a usable focal length range to Canon's small sensor format SLRs.

Performance

The EF-S 10-22mm USM is surprisingly small and lightweight, and it uses an inner focusing system, meaning that the front lens element does not rotate and the lens doesn't change length when zoomed. It is very sharp at its widest focal length of 10mm, and even sharper at 12mm. There is moderate barrel distortion at 10mm, and a mild pincushion effect at 22mm. The filter size is on the large size at 77mm, which means you'll probably have to spend a bit more on filters.

Summary

Up until now, there haven't been many truly wide angle zoom solutions for Canon's APS- C sized sensors. This lens changes that picture, but at a price. But if you need a high-quality wide to medium-wide zoom for your small sensor format Canon, you can't beat the performance of the EF-S 10-22mm USM. Almost a pro-quality lens (it's built as well as a Canon L-series lens), it's highly recommended if it's within your budget.

Pros

35mm equivalent focal length of 16-35mm
F/3.5 maximum aperture at 10mm, f/4.5 at 22mm
USM autofocus motor is fast and silent
Full-time manual focus ring
77mm filter diameter

Cons

There are no cons for this product