Canon Rebel Lens Recommendation

New to underwater photography and am building a Canon Digital Rebel, Ikelite Housing, Ikelite Strobe system. Now I have to purchase a lens. Under consideration are the Canon 17-85 and the 10-22. I assume the 10-22 will be the recommendation - correct?

I am looking for just one lens and port system for now and from what I have read there seems to be a lot of support for wide angle when shooting under water?

Is there anything about the 10-22 I should be concerned with? According to reviews it is a good quality lens with the right perspective for underwater?

Thanks for your help!!

Mike

Hi Mike and welcome to Wetpixel.

I would recommend you purchase the 10-22 and also get the rebel with the kit 18-55 lens. It's only like $60 more and you will get a LOT of use out of it, both above and below water.

The 10-22 is a great zoom lens which will allow you to take photos of anything bigger than a breadbox underwater.

HTH

James Wiseman

No Canon owner should be without the canon 50mm lens.

At $70.00 it is nearly disposable and provides great image quality. I promise you that you will find no better lense for the price.

I have not used it underwater but utilize it extensively for portrait shots on the surface

B&H Link

-Peter

I have the 17-85 lens, it is a very quick sharp lens but it is not very compact or light, as is the 18-55 that I also have. I am building an Ikelite housing & strobe (125 strobe) around a 20D so I am interested in the follow ups to your post. I as of now am pricing the 10-22 Wide Angle Zoom, and the 100mm macro.

I have seen great results with the 18-55, but the 17-85 is a wider range and has Image Stabilization, which does seem to be worth it. I am trying to decide which lens/port combo to start with, they all require a different port.

Does the 50mm mentioned above offer advantages to the above combos given the range they offer? Doess the pricier 50mm make sense?

I am also looking at the 75-300 ISM for topside use.

Gee, another 5 k or so and I'll be set for my next trip............

Cheers as they say here!

azdesertdiver, you don't mention what kind of photography you want to do. By all accounts, the 10-22 is a great lens, but it is wide-angle only - its range on a DRebel is 35mm equiv 16-35mm. You may not want to purchase an $800 wide-angle lens unless you're sure it's what you want.

I've been diving my dRebel primarily with the kit lens (18-55mm) - it's not an incredible quality lens, but for the little extra it costs, it's worth it. It goes to 1:3 macro ratio, so while not a macro lens it can do pretty good closeups. I've gotten some great UW pictures with it. I'm planning to upgrade to the 17-85mm, as it is a better quality lens, and will be a much better walkaround lens topside. If you're new to UW photography, I would recommend going with one of these two lenses, and not just the 10-22, which will force you to do wide-angle only. Either of these lenses will let you do fairly wide-angle to fairly close-up work, which will let you figure out what you really want to do. My only complaint with the 18-55mm underwater is sharpness, and I'm very picky about that.

My other housed lens is the 100mm f2.8 macro - which is an AWESOME lens. Highly recommended for sharpness - however, it takes some getting used to shooting a 35mm equiv 160mm macro lens underwater. You will not get many full-fish pix with this lens, but it takes incredible macros.

The 50mm f.18 is also one of my favorite lenses for topside. Underwater, I don't know this has a whole lot to specifically recommend it, but it is a great indoor available-light lens. Very very sharp, very small and light, and very fast. I would recommend anyone who has a Canon camera, doesn't own the 50mm f/1.4, and ever takes pictures of people to purchase this lens.

I started out with the 75-300mm non-IS, non-USM. The glass is mostly the same for all three of these lenses, and I gotta say, this is not a great lens. Mine has bad chromatic aberration, not very contrasty, and pretty soft on sharpness. I would save your money and go for the 100-300 or another lens.

I think you should take a look, too, at the new Canon EF-S 60mm macro. It provides a 35mm equivalent of about 96mm, which should be great underwater. Personally, I've found I shoot far more macro than wide angle. Good wide angle tends to require a much more optimal environment of very good visibility and good ambient light. If vis is not good, I can pretty much forget about wide angle, but it hardly affects my macro shooting. Housing the 18-55mm might be a good first choice until you sort out what works best for you. The 17-85 is quite a bit larger and heavier. It offers IS, a longer range and perhaps better quality. But IS isn't really important underwater and the extended zoom range won't help a lot there either ... the focus at 85mm will likely be beyond your strobe range, and close ups will be fairly limited by the minimum focus distance. The 10-22 is a great lens, but my own experience is that I just shoot a lot more close up and macro than wide angle. In order of acquision, I'd get the 18-55 kit lens, then the 60mm macro, then the 10-22 wide, and finally the 100 macro if you develop a fascination with the tiny.

These comments REALLY help-thank you. !

Just note that the Canon EF-S 60 isn't due for release until end of April (I may be wrong on this?).

Also, at the moment the Canon 60mm is US$200 more than the Sigma.

I too am kitting out a Rebel (XT) rig and unfortunately I'm tight on cash and have a Red Sea trip at start of June, so I'm going Sigma 50mm EX DG for my Macro lens.

I have the Canon 10-22 as my WA and will be operating with this and the 50mm macro for the moment, I'm not getting a port for the kit 18-55mm.

Cheers,

Aengus