EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM to complement a Nifty Fifty?

[TakahiroW4047]

I was looking at the EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM to complement my Nifty Fifty. The ultra-wide angle is very appealing for me. On the review it says that "close-up" photos will have creative distortion (HUGE heads lol) and that for minimum barrel distortion subjects should be shot from a distance. But I don't recall it saying exactly how far the subject needs to be for that? Would I be able to shoot in a relatively confined indoor setting with out having to do some heavy post processing??

[neuroanatomist]

You'll definitely see some distortion on indoor shots at the wide end of the 10-22 range, in fact, pretty much anything wider than your 18-55mm kit lens will show some distortion of door frames, wall corners, etc., that are away from the center of the frame. It's not too bad, but it's there. I think that the EF-S 10-22mm is something of a niche lens - if you are going to shoot a lot of landscapes, or you're a real estate agent and need to represent an entire room in the shot, this UWA lens is a good choice.


Indoors, you'll run into another problem - the 10-22mm lens is too wide for flash coverage with the built-in pop-up flash. So, if you need to use flash with that lens (and it's not a fast lens, much like your problems with the kit lens in your other thread), you'll also want to consider an external Speedlite flash.

[TakahiroW4047]

It does seem to come back to the flash a lot for me haha. Maybe that should be my next stop instead for now.

[Sean Setters]

I was on a small step stool practically right on top of Amber when I took this shot:





However, with just a little bit of distance, you can avoid drastic distortions:





(Follow the pic to flickr and then you can click on the setup picture in the caption to see the confined space we were working in.)

[TakahiroW4047]

Wow! Great photos!! Must be a whole new experience composing photos with this wide of an angle. I think it was one of your photos where you mentioned the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8? How is that lens compared to the Canon 10-22mm? It's about $170 cheaper...