topic Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5 in EF & RF Lenses

Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

trossit — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 06:01:10 GMT

Hi Room,

I just recenly bought a used by pristine Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5 Super-wide -angle zoom lens off Ebay. Not being experienced with the typical behavoris of super zoom lenses, are they supposed to be tack sharp like a 50mm prime or tele-zoom lens would be? When taking a picture of citiscape with my focus on the buildings on the far background they dont come out very sharp. I will include a sample photo. Should they be as sharp as other types of lenses? I will include a sample.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

Waddizzle — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 12:37:08 GMT

It would not matter what wide angle lens you use. The stuff in the distance will not be detailed and tack sharp.

I think the EF-S 10-22mm is the best built EF-S lens Canon has made. I like to shoot landscapes, too. You can get more details by creating a higher resolution panoramic image. I use my 70-200,, for capturing pianos.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

shadowsports — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 16:36:48 GMT

Greetings trossit,

I agree with Wadizzle the 10-22 was best in its class.

Its an Ultra Wide Zoom, not "super'

Your shot... You need to consider what you are asking of the lens in this case. You are going to get a wider FOV, but the lens itself does not have the "reach" to bring a subject at infinity into sharp focus.

Sharper focus might be achieved by shooting at f8 or above, but at 10~22mm the focal length of the lens has limits. You can break your image down into 2 catagories.

Yellow plants in are foreground, green trees mid, and the city scape background. Aperature and your focus point can influence what will be in the sharpest focus (to a degree).

Shoot at 22mm (infinity) and f16 or above for the sharpest overall portrait. (Fore, mid and background). Time of day and amount of avaialble light might also come into play. That high cloud ceiling may limit the amount of availble light, so your ISO choice might also influence the overall clarity and end result.

This lens has limits. Its very popular for vlogging and video due to its silent AF. If you consider what you are asking of the lens, I think you will be happier with the resilts.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

ebiggs1 — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 17:18:55 GMT

"The stuff in the distance will not be detailed and tack sharp."

This is true but not for reasons listed above. It is the resolving power of any lens. As distance increases resolving ability of the lens becomes less and less. Also stopping down will increase DOF but will add diffraction elements into the shot making IQ difficult to impossible. I would not stop down below f8 and certainly never below f11 if IQ is your main most thing.

A 10mm lens when stopped down to f16 will have an aperture opening of around 1/2mm. Pretty darn small, right? This means the light gets bent steeply and does not regain a precise focus point.

Add that to less resolving power and you get somewhat lower IQ at distance.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

ebiggs1 — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 17:23:22 GMT

BTW, your photo looks fine. It is a typical representative of a scene like that. If you need more IQ you need to do as suggested above and use multiple shots, preferably form a a mid tele, and stitch them together in Lighroom or some other stitching software of your choice.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

trossit — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 21:26:21 GMT

Waddizzle,

Thanks for replying back. My current photography has been nature, birds, insects, wildlife, where sharpness really counts. I wanted a Wide Angle lens and did a lot of research to find this one, the EF-S 10-22mm. Its looks like a pre 2010 model and in pristine condition. I am new to wide angle photography and have been experimenting and testing the lens the last few days .It can be sharp with text from a close distance (2 feet) 14mm at f11. I am assuming this is not what this focal length wasdesigned for. This lens was well recommended from many online reviews.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

trossit — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 21:32:20 GMT

Thanks shadowsports,

I need to study what wide angle photography truly is. I think in most cases there is a close subject in sharp focus in the foreground and then let your F stop value feather in whats in focus in the background. I am so used to telephoto photography with 300mm F4 L....a totally different animal.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

trossit — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 21:43:47 GMT

Hi ebiggs,

As I am still learning the capabilities of this lens conditions have not been great here for testing. I took this picture the other day focusing on the mansion itself, 22mm at f18, shutter speed was only 1/50 sec on gray overcast day. I was hoping for a little better sharpness on the building but with that slow shutter speed and no IS that could be influencing the lack of sharpness, or is it just the wrong focal length for this kind of photograph?.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

jrhoffman75 — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 00:53:44 GMT

Your image basically fills the frame, so that size building at that distance needs the angle of view of that lens.

I downloaded the file and looked at it in FastStone image viewer. Looks perfectly fine to me, and its only a 1.6MP file.

From the-digital-picture.com website :"In the sharpness category, the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM Lens is a decent performer. Keep in mind that when shooting at these focal lengths, details tend to get extremely small. Our DSLR sensors struggle to produce sharp results when details get down to the pixel or couple-of-pixel size. Resulting images do sharpen nicely."

At f/18 you are also getting into the region where diffraction is going to affect (negatively) your images. A shot like that should be on a tripod at f/8.

But a little post processing can do wonders. Can you post a link to the original full size image?

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

shadowsports — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 01:33:06 GMT

I love the mansion. Architecture and Landscapes are my favorites.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

trossit — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 03:22:58 GMT

Beautiful pictures Shadow! Thanks for sharing. The mansion is called Pittock Mansion built in 1914. One of my favorite places overlooking downtown Portland, Oregon.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

shadowsports — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 14:10:01 GMT

Mine were taken in Liverpool UK, Chantilly France and Moscow Russia.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

ebiggs1 — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 15:41:03 GMT

"At f/18 you are also getting into the region where diffraction is going to affect (negatively) your images. A shot like that should be on a tripod at f/8."

Exactly. I doubt the 1/50 SS was too much of an issue. The f18 was! A very important aspect is how are the images going to be used? Are you just shooting for a computer monitor or printing or Facebook?

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

trossit — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 05:53:16 GMT

Hello ebiggs,

I was taking a few pictures today of a 1859 farmhouse and got much better results with the mid range f stop values. 1/160 at f10, 22mm. Its still hard to read the text on the signs on the porch but I guess wide-angle lenses are not supposed to deliver this kind of detail.

Thanks everyone!

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

ebiggs1 — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 15:02:46 GMT

Yes you are up against the lens resolution ability. "1/160 at f10, 22mm", f10 is still too small aperture for the best IQ. I would limit it to f8 if you want better. Plus, put the focus point directly on the sign you deem important. Even at f8 or f5.6 you DOF is huge with a 22mm lens.

No matter what lens you ever use they all seem to be at their best stopped down one or two stops. Either way more open or more closed is not considered the sweet spot. But again it depends on what your intended use of the picture is.

Your shot is representative for a UWA lens like yours and is a nice photo. Reasonable IQ and nice colors. You can enhance it in post edit if you like. This is a simple levels adjustment in PS with a levels mask to enhance the sky a bit further.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

trossit — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 16:26:41 GMT

ebiggs,

Thanks for the critique and advice. It helps a lot! The enhancements you did to my photo look great. I am currently using "RAW Therapy" as my post editor for RAW files. Its a free piece of software, not sure if you heard of it. It sets up similar ro PS Lightroom but obviously not as good. I need to become more knowledgeable with all the adjustments in RT. I usually just adjust saturation, contrast, over/under exposure, and use the Gradient Filter to get the sky and clouds to pop. I am still an infant to digital photography but learning and enjoying it more each day.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

ebiggs1 — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 16:48:37 GMT

RAW Therapy is OK. I have tried it but I don't recommend it. It works so that's all that matters. I would prefer to see yo uin the free form Canon DPP4.

Not wanting to go the full blow Photoshop route, I don't blame you one bit but there is a PS alternative that is nearly as good. It is Photoshop Elements. It is not free but it isn't expensive either. For hobbyists it is fine.

I didn't take any time with your photo which is good to begin with. That makes things easier. Just a levels adjustment and a mask on the sky with a levels adjustment there. Might have taken 3 minutes.

If you are in to post editing make sure you shoot Raw. I encourage you to get DPP4, too. Using Raw most things can be altered or corrected. One thing that can not be fixed is IQ and lens resolution. You must have that from the get go.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

jrhoffman75 — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 17:33:42 GMT

I concur with Ernie's recommendation to use Canon DPP.

It's a seamless process when shooting RAW; just download the file and open it in DPP. Any and all camera setting you might have applied, like custom white balance or user modified Picture Styles are reflected in the image that appears.

Unlike a JPEG, you can easily change any of those parameters.

Also, shooting RAW allows you to use the Canon Digital lens Optimization (DLO) to in DPP.

Digital Lens Optimizer: Taking Image Quality to Greater Heights (canon-asia.com)

After you do all your global editing in DPP you can configure the software to transfer a TIFF file to Raw Therapee (if that is your choice) for local editing like a linear gradient.

As an example of why your lens focal length is not the controlling factor in why you can't read some of the letters on the sign, here is a set of images captures at different focal lengths. The photographer changed the distance between the camera and the subject to keep the subject size the same. The same size object in an image covers the same amount of pixels in the camera; the number of pixels per person controls how the subject eyes look (putting aside lens quality differences).

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

trossit — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 17:22:23 GMT

ebiggs,

Thanks for the tip on Canon DPP4. I downloaded the software and used it last night and it was fast and effective. My only issue with it I did not find a "Graduated Filter" as seen in RAW Theoropy which I find effective in calming down over-exposed sky's. In DPP4 you mentioned you apply a mask for the sky. Did you mean the function called "Set Adjustment Area?

I took some more pictures yesterday and my expectations for wide angle lenses may have me over-blown. I will try to attach 2 pics what I feel WA lenses are strong at and what they are not strong at. Curious if you agree.

1 - Picture of sailboat just off the shore that is much closer to the photographer...better detail.

2 - Picture taken from a bridge of a far away cityscape - lacks sharpness and detail.

Re: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 3.5 - 4.5

trossit — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 17:27:22 GMT

jr,

Thanks for the information. I want to add I am using an older body 30D with 8.2 mp sensor. Couild this be a major factor in my WA lens sharpness factor?