Lens for landscapes - for wishlist

[donoreo]

I am looking for suggestions for a lens to put on my wishlist. I want a lens for landscapes for my Canon 450D. I will not be entertaining suggestions of L series lenses, too expensive, so please be frugal minded. I am looking for decent performance vs price. I know that in Issue 18, Photo Plus recommended the Tokina 11-16 AT-X as best and Sigma 10-20 EX DC HSM as best value. I do not have issue 18 to look at the whole review.

Really just looking for a few suggestions to use for comparisons.

Now on to general equipment to ask about tripods....

[flake]

Just a comment to consider the Sigma 12 - 24mm as it's a FF lens and will last during your upgrades. Good quality too!

[matt wilson]

In an ideal world I would have gone for the canon ef.

However I recently got the Sigma 10 to 20 .saving myself a fair sum of money.

I have yet to see a bad review of that lens .
Surprisingly even the difference of 10 versus 11 mm at the wide setting is quite dramatic .

Sigma is widely available too.

If you were thinking of it it's well built ,has whisper quiet and accurate focussing ,built in hood ,and a good padded case.

Read another review where the owner of the lens tested the newer fixed aperture version f 3.5 throughout .She liked it but came to the conclusion it was not worth upgrading.

Finally I tried the tamron and was less than impressed with it's build just felt sloppy and plasticky.I would rate the sigma as equally qell built as my canon efs lenses.

[TommoR]

The Sigma's on my list.

[chris-p]

I've got the Sigma in Nikon fit and it's very good. Fairly distorted at the very wide end but it's 10mm so you'd expect it. Good value and well built. Also it's got an interesting coating on it which seems to "polarise" slightly so Sigma have obviously optimised it for landscapes.

Originally Posted by matt wilson

Surprisingly even the difference of 10 versus 11 mm at the wide setting is quite dramatic .

It's not that surprising as the angle of view increases dramatically as the focal length gets shorter. On a 400D at 11mm the diagonal AoV is 101 degress and at 10mm its 106.3 degrees

Originally Posted by flake

Just a comment to consider the Sigma 12 - 24mm as it's a FF lens and will last during your upgrades. Good quality too!

Only if you're upgrading to FF. And APS-C isn't dead or dying anytime soon.

A couple of samples with the 10-20

Click to EMBIGGEN

You can see the distortion in the one below.


Click to EMBIGGEN

[flake]

I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that you should only consider the 12 -24mm if you are planning to upgrade to FF Chris, on crop frame it certainly outperforms the 10 - 20mm in terms of distortion, it vignettes less (probably being a FF lens), resolution was about the same, although the 10 - 20mm beats it on CA's.

Most of the lenses in this sector perform to a very similar standard, personaly I don't think that because a lens is FF you should discount it. Aps C isn't dead but FF lenses do usually perform better than dedicated Aps C ones because they can take advantage of the sweet spot. The fall off in resolution of the 10 - 20mm towards the edges of the frame is marked, you can see it in your images, it's much less so on the 12 - 24mm. This is not recoverable in Post processing, once it's lost it's lost.

[chris-p]

Originally Posted by flake

I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that you should only consider the 12 -24mm if you are planning to upgrade to FF

I agree with you Flake. My point was you implied (or, at least, thats how I read it) that the OP would, if and when they upgrade, go FF. This isn't necessarily the case.

Originally Posted by flake

...on crop frame it [the 12-24] certainly outperforms the 10 - 20mm in terms of distortion, it vignettes less (probably being a FF lens), resolution was about the same, although the 10 - 20mm beats it on CA's.

Absolutely. I completely agree. The lower distortion is partly due to the fact that it's not quite so wide but it is also a better corrected lens.

It's also a question of budget. Personally (and this is my own opinion - it's not based on lab tests etc.) I think the 10-20mm is the best value for money. I'm not sure I'd buy the f/3.5 model as it's quite a but more expensive than the f/4-5.6 (£390 vs £520 at WEx).