Best wide angle lens

My husband has given me the green light to purchase a good wide angle lens for my T1i. This will be a "birthday, anniversary, christmas" present, so he told me to get the best.

Can you suggest the best and the next to the best lens for me?

I'm guessing you mean wider than the 18-55, so UWAs.

IMHO, the best for outdoor shots is the 10-22 because of IQ, focus speed, flare resistance, and range.
The best for indoors would probably be the 11-16 because of the 2.8 aperture, but again IMHO, it is too short. 11-16 is just not much of a zoom. Also, it is not my choice for outdoor shots because of its propensity to flare quite badly.
Second best for both would probably be the sigma 10-20 because although it does lag behind both the above-mentioned lenses in IQ, it is also quite a bit cheaper, has HSM (and FTM), decent build and good range.

Shots from the canon 10-22:

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As my sig line shows I have and really like the images from my Sigma 8mmX16mm UWA. It is Not a fisheye but a rectilinear (sp) design, not even close to a fisheye in abberations but you do need to be aware of where the tripod legs are or your own feet if handheld. Find a local camera shop with one of them in stock and take your body(camera) up and try it on your camera in the store. I think you will be impressed with its fov even at its longest. which on a crop camera will make it 25.6 mm

Not sure if this will help, but I have some test shots from:

Canon 10-22
Sigma 10-20 f4-5.6
Tamron 10-24

They were taken outside a camera shop that let me try the lenses. Each lens was used as min/max focal lengths wide open, f8 and f14.

I tried to be consistent as I could with the framing and where I was standing for each shot.

The album is here : http://www.flickr.com …s/sets/72157627​672159911/

I'd be interested to here what others think / if anyone else has comparison shots.

Edit: Full size are available, no processing done, just converted to JPG

i love my Canon 10-22. Great lens and a blast to shoot. You won't be disappointed.

Some examples:
http://flic.kr/p/9wzCo​5
http://flic.kr/p/9wwCV​M
http://flic.kr/p/9wzCY​N

Get it and have fun.

Another vote for the Canon 10-22.

Canon 10-22 - the colour is fantastic

The best is the nikon 12-24 but you have to get a adapter and loose auto focus

10-22 is beyond amazing. only time i will ever say, you're lucky you have a crop sensor!

Canon 10-22 - longest
Tamron 11-16 - fastest
Sigma 10-20 - cheapest
Sigma 8-16 - widest

you can save money going sigma. but canon might be the best quality more than likely

I have the sig 8-16, and it is super sharp, and build quality is great. Not sure is this is the case of the cheaper 10-20. I had a Tammy 11-16, it is very sharp too but build quality is sub par (as is the case with many tamrons)

I know it doesn't have an image stabilizer, so being hand held does it do a really job?

You don't have to have IS on a UWA

10-22 is the one I'd get.