which UWA

im thinking of getting a UWA lens for my 50D. i would prefer to use it more indoors for group portraits than for landscape shots (though the ability to shoot urban landscapes would be nice as well every once in a while)

i know the usual suspects - canon 10-22, sigma 10-20 3.5, sigma 10-20 4-5.6, and tokina 11-16 2.8

since this would be a rarely used lens, i wouldnt want to spend the canon premium, which leaves the 2 siggys and the tokina. it seems to me that the fixed aperture siggy would be better than the variable aperture, but i feel like theres a catch...

what would the masses recommend?

ehh, mods please move this, i didnt realize i was posting in the sample archive!!

Indoor for me would mean 11-16 because of the 2.8 aperture (for group photos you don't have to worry about DOF with an UWA like you would with a standard/tele lens so wider aperture is always good).

thanks Sirrith

just curious... whats the tradeoff between the 2 sigmas? it just seems that the 3.5 constant aperture is such a better choice...

i suppose i wouldnt have a need for a UWA for indoor shots if i wasnt so keen on keeping my 24-105 and siggy 30 instead of going with a 17-5Xmm

Sirrith wrote in post #14314777
Indoor for me would mean 11-16 because of the 2.8 aperture (for group photos you don't have to worry about DOF with an UWA like you would with a standard/tele lens so wider aperture is always good).

+ 1

ekinnyc wrote in post #14327951
thanks Sirrith

just curious... whats the tradeoff between the 2 sigmas? it just seems that the 3.5 constant aperture is such a better choice...

There have been some reports that the 3.5 version is not as good optically. I have no idea if these are accurate, or if sigma has done a silent upgrade to fix the issue, or if the reports came from users with bad copies of the lens.

I know someone who has the 3.5 and is very happy with it. I also know someone with the variable aperture version and he is also happy with it.

The downside of the 3.5 version is the 82mm filter thread. Expensive filters = big downside. Coupled with the fact that it is not much cheaper than the canon 10-22 makes it rather unattractive compared to the old version.