While many photographers prefer shooting with telephoto lenses that get them closer to their subjects, I've always had a preference for wide-angle lenses that let me capture a vast expanse in a single frame.

I've enjoyed using panorama stitching software to achieve wide angles of view, but this process has its drawbacks. It's inconvenient to set up, a tripod must be used, it takes work to stitch the images together, and stitching does not always respond well to images that contain moving subjects.

I've also owned a couple of wide-angle lenses over the years: the Sigma 14 mm f/3.5 lens and the Sigma 12-24 mm f/4.5-5.6 lens. Both of these lenses easily captured the wide angles of view that I was after, and were a lot of fun to use, but they simply did not have the optical quality needed to maintain image sharpness across the frame. I felt that there was too much vignetting and that the image corners were not very sharp.

Canon has offered a 14 mm f/2.8 lens for many years. I tried one once, and it was a fine performer, but I did not feel that the improvement over the Sigma version was dramatic enough to justify the higher cost. I decided to continue using my existing tools while waiting for something better to become available.

So you can imagine my excitement when Canon introduced an updated version of their 14 mm lens last year, which they claimed delivers "higher image quality overall including superior peripheral image quality." Could this be what I'd been waiting for all these years? It certainly sounded promising, and I put it on my wish list.

Finally, I took the plunge and acquired this magnificent chunk of optical glass for my very own. I was very excited! I put it on my Canon EOS 5D, which has a full-frame sensor to take full advantage of wide-angle lenses, and took it for a quick spin to try it out. I was not disappointed. At last, I am getting both the angle of view and the image quality that I was after. While a 14mm is not an everyday lens, it has quickly become one of my favourites.

Here are my first pictures, taken in and around the University of Waterloo. (You can click on each image to enlarge it in a new window.)



While these are just some quick shots to try out the lens, I'm looking forward to unleashing my creativity with the use of dramatic wide angles!