In early January 2015, I purchased my first ever ultra wide angle lens, the EF-S 10 – 18mm STM for use in my work, which includes real estate photography. I pointed out the ghosting and flaring in my first impressions of the EF-S 10 – 18mm back at the end of January. Since that time it has become much more irksome as I spend much more time that I’d like in Lightroom and Photoshop correcting these lens issues.
I am now considering buying the more expensive Canon EF-S 10 – 22mm USM Lens. I understand that Chromatic Aberration is more of an issue on the 10 – 22mm, but that is less of a problem than pronounced ghosting of light sources using the 10 – 18mm. At times, I have experienced very bad ghosting of windows where there is a perfect ghost of the mini-blinds to the side of the window.
In January, I had the time to fix these ghosts in Photoshop, but my workload has increased significantly and my time is more limited. Which makes the 10 – 22mm appealing to me, if I can cut my time in post, that will allow me to spend time with my family instead of working on into the evening and weekends.
The issue is the cost; at $600 the 10 – 22mm is double the price of the 10 – 18mm, sure I can spread the cost by putting the purchase on a credit card, but I already have enough financial issues without adding to my credit card balances. It basically comes down to the perfectionist side of me Versus the financially frugal side of me. There’s lots of things I want, but I rarely ever buy. Plus I also need to get a new tripod as my battle scarred Polaroid tripod is really at the end of it’s life being held together with duct tape.
Below are some examples of the ghosting effect, these are reasonably mild examples. I have had shots rendered completely unusable by the flare and ghosting the EF-S 10 – 18mm creates, but I can’t remember which shoots these photos came from and I don’t have time to search through my archive.
I’m not going to condemn the 10 – 18mm as other than the ghosting, it’s a decent lens, just be aware of the potential issues of using this lens. If you can live with imperfections in your photos or have plenty of time to dedicate to post production, I would steer clear and pay the extra $300 for the EF-S 10 – 22mm.
I’m having the same problems with my 10-18mm. Did you get a 10-22mm? Did that help with the ghosting?
Sadly I’ve not been able to upgrade, but from my understanding, the ghosting issue does not affect the more expensive 10-22mm.