Group picture with 4 lenses

Group picture with 4 lenses is an attempt to judge optical performance of different UWA zoom lenses.

I already [post id=1015]compared[/post] the Canon  16-35/4.0 IS L with the  17-40/4.0 L , where the  16-35/4.0 L IS made the first place, not really a surprise. In a older [post id=634]article[/post], where the EF-S 10-18mm did a good job, at least in terms of optical performance. Usage is very good, except you don’t have a distance scale any more.

My  [post id=813]mFt equipment[/post] was completed by a UWA lens, the Olympus  9-18/4.0-5.6 which is very compact and not expesnive as the Panasonic 7-14mm.

As long as i owned the Canon 17-40/4.0 i just wanted to know how the Olympus and the very priced EF-S 10-18mm compare and if they can reach the optical performance of the 17-40 or maybe the 16-35mm.

Talking about prices it looks like this at the moment (i didn’t calculate Canon Cash Back)

To make sure this comparism (and i don’t talk about a test) does a real comparism, i took the images under the same conditions like i did for the [post id=1015]17-40/16-35[/post] article and made additional picture with the Olympus and  the EF-S 10-18mm lens.

Lets start with the cheapest lens, the  EF-S 10-18mm/4.5-5.6 at 10mm  (i made 5 images even though the difference between f 4.5 and 5.6 is insignificant)

And now at  18mm:

The situation is comparable to the 17-40/4.0, the center is pretty sharp, while the corners are weak at least at 10mm. Closing the aparture helps a little bit. The difference is smaller at 18mm, probably due to the longer focal lenght and the maximum aparture of 5.6 only.

And now we’ll take a look at the Olympus lens, first at 9mm (equals to 18mm on full frame)

And at the maximum focal length 18 mm (equals to 36mm on full frame)

Comparing these results the Olympus seems to be a bit sharper than the EF-S 10-18mm, and comparing the corners are defitnitly better, so the Olympus wins this comparism.

Taking the results of the comaprism between the 17-40/4.0 and the  16-35/4.0 into consideration this gives the following ranking:

1. Canon 16-35mm/4.0 L IS
2. Olympus 9-18mm/4.0-5.6
3. Canon 17-40/4.0 L
4. Canon EF-S 10-18mm/4.5-5-6

Even though the  EF-S 10-18mm is on rank 4 it still a beautiful lens for APS-C cameras with a almost perfect price/performance ratio and i’ll keep it for sure. Compared to the 16-35/4.0 L IS we are talking about a lens with a price tag almost 4 times a high. And even the 17-40/4.0 L still is a good lens, especially if you try a good used lens, which should cost only arround 400,– €. I owned it 4 years and over this times it produced very nice architecture and landscape images.

Do you agree with my results? Just leave me a comment and i would be happy to get questions from you.

ciao tuxoche