11-22mm - a high-contrast lens ...
4
The first time I was told about a lens that produced "crisp blacks and high contrast" it was a Canon dealer telling be about the EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. He wasn't wrong either. Something about the aperture seemed to produce very little bokeh but plenty of contrast. His assistant was using one and spoke highly of it. I bought one for my wife and it quickly became one of her favorite lenses.
.
So when I saw the EF-M 11-22mm f/4-5.6 IS STM lens announced, I thought that I might benefit from the ultra-wide angle. It appears to produce pleasant sunstars, it's lightweight and it's affordable. In fact it's a very close match to the EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM lens which is respected for its qualities. I own the non-IS f/2.8L lens so the focal length seemed useful to me. When I got to try the 11-22mm lens for the first time, I took this picture of the interior ceiling of the Queen Victoria Building as I left the camera store. It showed me how clean it was and what I might expect from it in future. I haven't been able to reproduce the same results with any other lens since...
.
11-22mm lens - my first picture with this lens - taken just after leaving the store with it.
.
I've chosen to slip this additional reply into the thread I started because a couple of people messaged me to say that they were from other camera brand platforms and were contemplating the EOS M based on some of the samples they saw in this thread. I don't like to influence people with my own photographs and get them to swap platforms though. I remember being at a public fair in the mountains many years ago (called the Winter Magic Festival) and spotted a girl using a camera that I was VERY fond of. I asked her if she were enjoying the results from her camera and they said that they "utterly hated it". How could they hate something that I liked so much? Since then, I've tried to avoid recommending products unless I felt others might really benefit from their use. I tend not to personally endorse anything that I don't personally use. But I will point out products that I would like to own or use, based on my research and I do sometimes recommend photographic products that my wife uses if I've seen the results.
.
11-22mm lens - a different approach to ambient light...
The 11-22mm lens is a very sharp lens. On the original EOS M (which has a smaller sensor resolution at 18MP) it performs very nicely. But I'm able to get much, much more detail on my EOS M6 (24MP) and the difference is visible during editing and printing. The lens is sensitive in the sense that it will vignette unless a thin filter is used. And I can't double stack filters on it or I end up with THIS:
.
11-22mm lens - Hard Vignetting (not Light Falloff) due to me accidentally double-stacking a normal CPL filter on top of the thin Pro 1 UV filter. I won't make this mistake again.
.
The 11-22mm lens has a lot of contrast and I would presume that this is because of the smaller aperture which starts at f/4. So instead of being able to recover details obscured by shadows, you're using the shadows to generate the atmosphere in the images. Normally, when I think about using this lens, it's for the ultra-wide view that it offers. That's usually my motivation for using it. If I'm dealing with large crowds, architecture, landscapes or similar, this tends to be my primary choice of lens. But having high contrast doesn't mean a lens is limited to 'contrasty shots'... but they do stand out.
.
I feel that the 11-22mm lens is limited to either good lighting (if handheld) or a tripod for the best results. It's almost a polar opposite to the 32mm f/1.4 lens in these respects.. (see below). These images were all taken in JPEG but some have been subjected to minor edits or tweaks for color and contrast only. One image required skin blemish correction.
.
11-22mm - I was mixing with people 'above my station' here and was asked to leave after taking this image. Yes, really. I had booked to return last weekend but we cancelled our reservation after a 14 month investigation by the Ombudsman into worker abuse allegedly found the establishment guilty.
11-22mm - Fireworks and a burst of lightning in the distance (mini tripod used). There was about 3,000 people standing behind me.
11-22mm lens - a little gold - photographed by torchlight
11-22mm - Gold Panning - those boots might look silly... but you should see the leeches here .
11-22mm lens - EF lens performance in a tiny EF-M package.
11-22mm lens - known for its high contrast (presumably due to the aperture)
11-22mm lens - taken in my car at night - My wife had just removed a costume wig and was illuminated by the overhead lamp in the car. Since the AWB wasn't ideal (the interior light made her skin look bright orange), I simply desaturated the shot to rescue it. Taken at ISO 3200 (surprisingly).
11-22mm lens - literally working with available light.
11-22mm lens - Taken with a long exposure to capture passing traffic at sunset. NiSi Natural Night Filter used (hence the color hue).
