Changing Lanes

The widest lens I’ve been shooting with lately after losing my Ultra wide angle (UWA) (i.e. Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5) has been the Canon EF 16-35mm f2.8 L. Even though that is UWA territory even for a crop sensor camera like the Canon EOS 7D; it just isn’t wide enough for quite a few situations (read: corporate group shots, interiors, branding etc). Furthermore this lens belongs to SJ and therefore isn’t at my disposal every single time. Keeping this in mind, somewhere down the line I’d decided to buy myself a decent zoom lens that was wide enough for most jobs. Now I do own an Sigma 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 OS but honestly it’s ineffective on my camera as it’s unable to resolve the high megapixel count the camera sports. The widest lens after that was either the Sigma 50mm f2.8 macro or the Canon EF 50mm f1.8. Neither of them good enough because they’re just too long on a crop sensor (80mm to be exact) and you don’t have the ability to zoom. So there was a need for a lens and that’s where the problems began.

Canon makes a normal zoom lens for crop sensors in the form of an EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 IS. Perfect aperture but not enough zoom cause by then I’d gotten used to a Canon EF 24-105mm f4 IS L (borrowed from SJ) which seemed like the perfect lens with plenty of zoom though a little short on the wider side. Priced at around a thousand dollars, it was cheaper than the 17-55mm and was full frame compatible. It made total sense but then I tried the Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8 L(borrowed) and loved it. Priced beyond my budget, I was settling down for the 24-105mm. But then I did this...

I seemed to have then eliminated the need for a zoom because I could borrow a zoom lens from SJ for events and use my prime lenses for anything else. It made perfect sense. I was still lacking a UWA and a second hand 10-22mm on the market for around five hundred dollars was tempting. Instead I bought this...