Canon 10-22 EF-S vs 17-85 EF-S @17mm comparo

kdog

If, like me, you wonder whether the 10-22 is better than the 17-85 within the focal lengths where they overlap, read on.

I recently purchased a 10-22 and have been putting it through its paces to see how it does. I decided to compare it against my 17-85 that I'm relatively happy with. So, I set up a tripod and took some pictures with both lenses to compare them. Here are two completely unretouched 100% crops at 17mm. Both of these are cropped from a corner, which appears to be worst area for both lenses. Bear in mind that they represent a very small portion of the original images. Sorry the crops aren't exactly the same size.


The first one is from the 10-22.


The second one is from the 17-85



A couple of things to look at are the right-edge of the brown post. Also, look at the edges of the rocks near the left side of the crops.

I believe the results show that the 10-22 has significantly less chromatic abberation, and better contrast and color. In reviewing other shots during my testing, the 10-22 looks as good at 11mm, and almost as good at 10mm. So I'm happy with that. The 17-85 did not improve significantly at 20mm.


I hope you found this interesting, and maybe it will help somebody who's on the fence about the 10-22.


-joel

Mike Lane

Very interesting indeed. Now if we could get a similar test with the 17-55 and/or a test comparing the 17-85, 17-55, and sigma 17-70 2.8 macro.

kdog

Mike Lane wrote:

Very interesting indeed. Now if we could get a similar test with the 17-55 and/or a test comparing the 17-85, 17-55, and sigma 17-70 2.8 macro.

Thanks, Mike. I'd love to get my hands on the 17-55 for comparison.