Several of the independent lens companies like Sigma are beginning to offer wide angle zoom lens designs specifically for the APS sensor with a shortest focal length of 10 or 12mm, that are fairly resonable in cost. I would presume that the performance/cost ratio of these lenses may be quite favorable because there is an inherent design advantage with APS digital SLR's built on a traditional 35mm chassis, with a greater than needed flange to focal plane distance relative to the image size area, making the design and construction of such lenses easier and favoring superior image edge resolution fidelity.

Jon: That depends on your budget and how short a lens you want. With your camera, multiply the focal lengths by 1.6x to get an equivalent. (Hence, a 20mm lens would provide the equivalent of a 32mm lens (in terms of angle of view) on your camera.)

The March issue of Shutterbug magazine includes reviews of some Sigma ultra-wide angle lenses. These have not yet been posted to www.shutterbug.com but will be in future.

Also, see http://www.shutterbug.net/test_reports/0402sb_sigma/index.html

http://www.shutterbug.net/test_reports/0804sb_tamron/index.html

Note too that Tamron will soon release a new zoom: SP AF11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 Di-II LD Aspherical (IF) zoom exclusively for digital SLR

Thanks guys, this has been very helpful!

I don't know what came with your camera, but I love my Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L lens on my 1.3 focal multiplier body, and when I need to go just that little bit wider my Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM Lens is a very nice piece of glass as well, but it will only work on my EOS-20D bodies with the 1.6 focal multiplier. I think it is compatible with the Digital Rebel series as well, but I am not 100% sure. As an EF-S mount lens it has a red dot used to align the lens to the body when mounting. It is compatible with you Digital Rebel if you have the red dot for aligning EF-S lenses as well as the white dot for standard EF mount lenses.

The build quality of the 10-22mm EF-S lens is light years better than the kit lenses that come with the Rebel and 20D bodies. Except for missing weather seals, I would say it feels nearly as solid as my other L series glass. It is a pretty sharp lens too. Contrary to reviews I have read elsewhere, it can also take a standard UV filter without vignetting and does not require a slim filter $$$. I have the standard thickness B&W MRC UV filter and have never been able to produce any negative effect.

All I know is Canon and Nikon glass. I can't help with the 3rd party comparisons.

Quote:
...I love my Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L (and) Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM Lens...

The cost of these lenses is approaching the price of the Rebel body.

Quote:
It is compatible with you Digital Rebel if you have the red dot for aligning EF-S lenses as well as the white dot for standard EF mount lenses.

Just a clarification.... The EF-S lenses will have a white alignment mark, and the EF lenses have a red mark.

I'm very pleased with the Tokina 12-24. Since I use the old-style auto flashes (Vivitar 285HV) in my wedding photography (you can't kill a Vivitar 285 if you try, and they do the job well), the fixed aperture is nice to have. LOVE the easy switch to manual focus without taking my eye away from the viewfinder (no tiny switch to find - pull the focusing ring out or push it in to switch from autofocus to manual). Sharp, too.

JimZ

If, like me, you have more time than money and want very wide angle views, I would recommend trying the Peleng 8mm circular fisheye. This is a fairly inexpensive (~$200) manual focus lens made in Belarus. Although individual images from the lens are not especially sharp or contrasty, the lens is excellent for photographing static subjects where several images can be un-fisheyed and stitched together using some of the good free panorama programs available (e.g. Hugin, hugin.sourceforge.net). The resulting higher resolution, rectilinear images can be spectacular. Using six images oriented along the faces of a cube, one can get 24 megapixel, 360x180 degree full sphere images, which is as wide-angle as you can get. This technique has worked very well with my Digital Rebel.

Anybody who wants a UWA should read this.

http://kenrockwell.com/tech/digital-wide-zooms/comparison.htm

I really like that website Ken Rockwell set up; thanks for sharing!

i am looking for a wide angle lens for my digital rebel xt and have been considering the lenses mentioned in this thread. however, i recently ran across a search on ebay that yielded these low cost "wide angle lenses" and was wondering if anyone could explain to me how these differ. thanks in advance.

ebay search results

I think what you're seeing is add on lenses that screw to the front of an existing lens, like we used to use on our compact consumer digital cameras. The image quality is nowhere what you'll get with a real wide angle single focal length or zoom lens.