Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM Lens - Ultra-Wide-Angle Zoom Lens | Compact, Lightweight | Architecture, Landscape, Travel Photography | Canon EOS DSLR Compatible

This is a terrific lens at a price that's very reasonable for the level of performance you get. TL;DR version - buy it, it doesn't disappoint. If you're still reading, I've been wanting to try ultra-wide fields of view, but while i've been um'ing and ah'ing about the Canon 10-22mm for at least a year I couldn't really justify the cost for what will be a fairly infrequently used lens for me. When the 10-18mm appeared on Amazon UK at just under half the price of the 10-22mm it made the decision very easy. Although it's early days i've given it decent workouts in full daylight, sunrise/sunset, and inside buildings, and results are consistently excellent for the price - sharp, a little barrel distortion at 10mm but not bad (I quite like the effect it gives) and 12-18mm are very good. Great results with wide-angle HDR sunsets. As noted in another review it's fairly slow at f/4.5-5.6, but i've not found this a major issue - the IS seems effective when handheld, but I mostly shoot tripod-mounted anyway. With my 600D in low light I get better results from manual settings than auto/landscape which seems to go a bit underexposed, but that's a minor criticism of the camera rather than this lens. Focus is snap-to, quick and quiet, i've not encountered any issues there at all. The lens is plastic and very similar in construction to some of the kit lenses; as a result it doesn't really have the solid feel of Canon's more expensive lenses but is nevertheless well made, plus the construction makes it small and very light, which is a definite positive - makes it easy to stash away in the camera bag on a walkabout when you might well leave a heavier lens behind. Given that i'm unlikely to be in a situation where this is the only lens I'd want to have with me, overall i'd say the lightweight construction is a bonus rather than the negative that a few reviews elsewhere see it as.

I am not usually into very wide angle lenses. Bought this because of its low price and very low distortion at the 18m end (distortion is not too bad at 10mm either) to compliment my general purpose walk around 18-135. (The 18-135 has significant barrel distortion at 18mm so while a good 'walk around' lens it is not so good at its wide end for buildings / other subjects with straight lines.) The 10-18mm however does the job superbly in a quality, light weight and low cost package. I have used it far more than I expected, even at the wide end. Mostly for historical buildings (National Trust, etc) and landscapes. The deep depth of field possible is also useful for nature - flowers, fungi - to provide a close (ish) up view of the subject while still showing the habitat behind - although at about 1:7 at its closest this is NOT a true macro / close up lens. At f4.5 - 5.6 it is a 'slow' lens. If you want to capture moving subjects in poor light it may not be the best lens for you - but you would have to pay a lot more for a faster lens. Does need a little care to keep it 'straight' - unless of course you deliberately want to emphasis perspective effects. (Spirit level built in to my Canon 80d gets used a lot with this lens.) Had this lens about 8 months now and very pleased with it. Lens does the job it is designed for, and I bought it for, very well, producing high quality images at a low cost.

So having recently bought a 7d mk2 I suddenly had a need for a very wide angle lens, being used to full frame. This little EF-S lens is all plastic, made in Taiwan, comes with no hood or pouch and is not fast at f/4.5 - f/5.6. That said, it is very light, affordable has IS and STM. More importantly it takes very good quality images. I got mine for £179 from Amazon and at that price this lens is fantastic value. Of course is it not so great in low light, but for still life the IS helps a lot with that. The focus is near instant on this focal length and for video work on the 7d mk2 this is as easy as point and shoot, like a camcorder. 16mm equivalent is very wide and takes dramatic looking pictures. Background blur is limited again mainly due to the focal length, so the aperture is not such a drawback from that point of view. The lens is so light and compact I often carry it in my jacket pocket in case I need it. Being inexpensive also makes doing that sort of thing less worrying. Images are sharp and of high quality. I own several L lenses and really you do have to be looking closely or in certain circumstances to really see a huge difference. For most people and most pictures, this lens is more than good enough quality. In good light the images are excellent. Yes it is plastic and it is not made in Japan. There are not many other options for canon 1.6x crop bodies though, and none really worth considering at this price. Overall this is a great little lens.

I love this lens! I purchased for a city holiday break and I have been so impressed with it! Pros: It is light in weight! Perfect for travel. Wide! Very wide at 10mm and you also have a decent field of view at the 18mm too for general use. STM motor! Amazing focussing motor for quick reactions and it is silent which is great for video work. Sharp pictures. I am very impressed with the clean and sharp images from this lens. Cons: Not the fastest lens so you need plenty of light or high ISO's....or a tripod! Image Stabiliser. Strange one here, I don't think the IS works very well at the wide 10mm settings. It seems to be better at 18mm. I actually think I have taken better shots (less blur) with the IS off when shooting in the wide ends. Overall, I cannot recommend this lens highly enough. You will not be disappointed!

Got this lens to use with my 60D, but did not expect it to be as good as review sites were saying. At f5.6, the IQ is very, very good - all the way to the edges. The stabilizer works really well and allows you to shoot at very slow speeds. The build quality is very high for a cheap lens – yes, it’s plastic, but it’s very smooth and nothing wobbles. The focus speed is quick and spot on almost every time, but it is so quiet that I have switched the ‘focus lock beep’ back on so I know that is working. My only gripe with this lens is the lack of ‘lens data’ for canons DPP, as I only shoot in RAW and it would be nice to be able to correct the small amount CA you can get in certain conditions. I have to add that most of the time, the CA is so low that you would only see it if making prints the size of your front door! In all, I think this is a very good lens for the money. It is far better than my old sig 10-20 and as good, if not better, than the canon 10-22 I borrowed for a short while.

This is a very good lens and the image quality is amazing for the price. However the image quality is certainly not perfect. There are a lot of chromatic aberrations in corners - this doesn't bother me as it can be easily corrected in raw conversion. It's the lack of sharpness in the corners that lets it down - though I must stress it is still incredible for the price. So unless you are very serious about image quality and really need max quality right into the corners for big prints then this lens is stunning value and very highly recommended. If however you are shooting for maximum detail such as landscapes on a tripod then it is still very good (especially for price) but just not as good as the likes of the new 16-35 f/4 and the TSE lenses which you would expect. If you are trying to get max detail I'd recommend shooting around f/8 at most and to focus with live view rather than relying on autofocus. Corner image quality seemed to improve as you go through the focal range and at 18mm it was very good. So although this is an excellent, affordable, light weight ultra wide lens I personally returned it due to requiring better image quality in the corners for landscapes. I was looking for a small lightweight ultra wide to use for occasions when carrying the 17 and 24 tse's on full frame are too much. I decided to stick with the heavier kit.

Now I'm no professional photographer. I wouldn't even describe myself as a gifted amateur. In fact I'm really just getting into the hobby and I'm trying to do it as cheaply as possible, trying to get the best results without it costing the earth which, with some of the kit that's available out there, the earth would be cheap in comparison! With this in mind this review is really intended for those who, like me, want to get decent photos, broaden their knowledge and enjoy taking pictures of what they see. I bought this lens after being told that a wide angle lens was a must for anyone who was getting into photography. I was recommended to get the sigma 10-20mm lens which I was told offered great performance at a cheap price. Unfortunately £300+ is way beyond my budget and I felt that I would have to wait until I could afford it. Nevertheless I checked the net and was able to find the Canon lens for a much cheaper price offering what to me was a similar spec. The reviews were extremely good with over 90% in many online reviews so I took the plunge. As I've already said I'm no expert, but I'm very pleased with the results. Many reviewers have spoken about distortions and CA around the edges of the picture, but to be fair I've noticed none. I suppose it helps if you don't know what you're looking for!!! I'm very pleased with this lens. I've achieved some goods results with extreme close ups and perspectives. I would recommend it to anyone.

Having just taken delivery of my new Canon 10-18 lens, I have managed to fire off a few test shots to see how it performs in a range of situations. The camera used for this purpose was my Canon EOS 100D. Before I discuss that, though, let me say a few words about the lens itself. First impressions are that although the lens is made from plastic it feels very solid and appears to be extremely well constructed. Yes, it has a plastic mount, which might put some people off. Indeed, this being the first plastic-mounted lens I've ever owned I will confess to having had a few niggling doubts about this aspect of its construction when I was ordering it. But I need not have worried - the mount is solid, and in any case the lens is so light (compared to my Canon 10-22, for example, which is almost twice the weight of the 10-18) that it is simply not an issue. The lens mounts well to the camera body in one smooth twist, and there is no play whatsoever. Had the mount been metal, this would have added significantly to the price. The 10-18 simply does not need a metal mount. On the subject of 'play', in regard to the lens zooming and focusing rings, here again these are well damped and operate extremely smoothly, with no looseness or unwanted movement in any direction. Getting back to the test shots, these ranged from close-ups in artificial light (on a tripod, IS off) to shots of buildings 100 metres distant (hand-held, IS on). I used a variety of aperture settings (from f5.6 to f8) across the entire (albeit short) zoom range. I did not go smaller than f8 because most reviews I've read of the lens would suggest that anything smaller than f8 may lead to diffraction and a loss of sharpness. I always shoot Raw, so it gives me a good yardstick for comparison purposes, knowing that the images I see on my PC screen have not been altered in any way - they are straight out of the camera, with no in-camera processing applied. In every case the quality of the image is nothing short of stunning. Colours are lively, contrast is excellent, and most important - for me, at any rate - the sharpness of this lens has to be seen to be believed. The on-board image stabilisation performs impeccably. Knowledgeable on-line reviewers would have you accept that, like many wide-angle zooms, the sharpness of the 10-18 is only at its best in the centre, but I can honestly say that in my own case while centre sharpness is indeed superb I find it to be generally very good pretty much from edge to edge. As for the lens's 'sweet spot', I found this to be f6.3. The difference in sharpness between that and the next larger aperture - f5.6 - is admittedly marginal, but there is a perceptible improvement at f6.3. And remember: I'm talking about Raw images here, not something that's been post-processed. The other thing I would say about image quality is that - again, in contrast to what the on-line reviews would have you believe - there is no noticeable corner vignetting that I can observe. Light appears to be evenly balance across the image, as is certainly evident from a shot I took of the sky in which I can see no light fall-off or vignetting of any kind. Maybe I just managed to get myself a cracking example of the 10-18, but cracking it is, in every respect. Finally, I indicated that I also have a Canon 10-22 which I purchased about a year ago - a classic lens by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a beast to lug around, especially when it's hanging off a larger SLR body such as my 40D. I've been extremely happy with the 10-22, and thought I'd found the perfect lens for my needs (I shoot mainly landscapes, architecture and street stuff). Then, when I wasn't even looking for it (I actually had my eye on a Canon 24mm STM to use as a prime), along comes the 10-18, which has absolutely blown me away. OK, it's early days, and these are purely first impressions, but based on what I've learned about the lens thus far I can see that the 10-22 might be getting shifted on. Moreover, based on my limited testing thus far, the 10-18 appears to outperform the 10-22 in image quality, especially in the area of sharpness - at half the weight and half the price! If only the 10-18 had been around at the time I bought my 10-22, and I'd been able to compare the two on field test, there is no doubt in my mind which one I would have gone for. Don't get me wrong - the 10-22 is a great lens; it's just that the 10-18 does the job for me just as well, if not slightly better, for a lot less loot. Quite simply, the Canon 10-18 is worth £200+ of anybody's cash, and will give many lenses in its category a serious run for their money. Buy it: you won't be disappointed (in which connection I note that, as of 14 January 2015, it is now some £20 more expensive than when I ordered it a week ago - I guess it all depends from whom you get it. Interestingly, Amazon itself is temporarily out of stock, a telling fact on its own, and currently the lens is only available from a number of third-party sellers, at a range of different prices.)