Micah Walter

Well, I must first begin by apologizing for the lapse between posts. The thing is, my last few assignments have not been exactly postworthy. For some reason I keep getting assigned to shoot people sitting at their desks. I suppose in Washington this can be a bread and butter type of gig, but as for the blog, well, I just found the pictures to be boring.

So, I thought I would use the experiences to write a better review of the Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens.

So far the lens has been great. Overall I have been impressed beyond my expectations and the lens has become somewhat permanently attached to my camera. The 17-35 2.8 seems to sit idle in the bag and I have really enjoyed using the new wide angle.

The major drawbacks to the lens are plain and simple. It is slow for a journalism work, perhaps Image Stabilization would have been a good thing here, but even with IS it is still not the best piece of equipment for use in low light situations.

That being said the quality of the images I am seeing in more average circumstances or with artificial light have been great. The lens is very sharp from end to end. This had been a major concern of mine, as it doesn’t carry the L series insignia as all the pro lenses do.

I also have yet to encounter any problems with vignetting. I have shot quite a bit at 10mm and though I do have a thin filter on the front and no lens hood, no issues thus far.

The lens construction is pretty good, though not as sturdy as my 17-35, but I think it will hold up for a while.

And lastly the lens is fairly compact making me think that it will work good when I need to take the battery grip off and try to make myself a little more discrete.

Overall, after some haphazard field-testing I have to give the lens high marks. Now I just need some examples worth posting!

Well, Sunday finally came and it was time to return home after a really nice vacation in Puerto Rico. We left the airport after sitting on the runway for about an hour and landed at Dulles around 8:45. I have to say; the weather in Puerto Rico was quickly missed as we were forced to change into warmer clothes at the baggage claim before making our way to the long term parking lot.

On arrival at a parking lot somewhere between Dulles and Puerto Rico we found our car battery dead in the below freezing temperatures. After a AAA jumpstart we made it home and went right to sleep.

Nine o’clock came quickly and like a child on Christmas I headed down to the apartment office and picked up my new Canon EOS 10-22mm EFS lens.

I bought this lens to add some extra wide angle to my 20D, and so far I am very happy. The equivalent 35mm or full-frame focal length on my 20D would be 16-35, and though the lens wont work on cameras that have larger sensors I decided it would be the perfect addition for me while I was using the 20D.

So, it really wouldn’t be fair to write a review about the lens at this point as I have taken maybe a only few frames since I opened the box this morning. I will save the detailed field test report for another date, but at first glance, the lens seems to be just right for my needs. It has a similar construction to my 17-35 f/2.8 in that the zoom mechanism is internal (which means the lens doesn’t telescope), it uses the same size filter as all of my other lenses, and seems to have a decent build quality.

The slower f-stop (f/3.5-4.5) made me very hesitant to buy this lens as I will be using it mainly for journalism, but I decided to give it try. I always have the 17-35 with it’s f/2.8 available, so I’m not worried.

So far my initial reaction is “I finally have my wide angle!!”

More to come.