REVIEW: EF-M 22mm f/2 lens on my aging EOS-M (PICS)
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My EOS-M with the EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens this morning...
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The Canon EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens is a decent lens and well worth the small, reasonable price that it retails for. In fact it ought to receive an award for the price alone. It weighs a mere 105 grams and that's a mere fraction the weight of some of the lenses I've been using on the EOS-M camera body. In fact, at $105 per lens, that's just $1 per gram! On the EOS-M, which has an APS-C sized sensor with a 1.6x crop factor, the 22mm lens equates to around a 35mm wide field of view. This makes it an obvious choice for a walkabout lens so that's exactly how I approached it when I took these photographs over a two day period prior to writing this review. The lens barrel is metal (good!) but the lens doesn't come with a lend hood (bad!) and that seems to be a new routine for Canon these days. But the new lens is a fun lens... and on the EOS-M, which is already a fun camera to use, it's like having an all new camera to play with again.
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I've been using the Canon EOS-M daily since the day of release! - with my much larger Canon EF lenses. I bought the Camera Body with no lenses (Body Only + EF-M/EF adapter) and it was a great decision because I've never enjoyed photography as much as when using this camera. It's a fantastic camera but without a native EF-M lens mounted, it was heavy, large and unwieldy. Now that I've migrated my EF lenses to a Full Frame DSLR, I thought it was time to revisit the EOS-M with a smaller native lens and the EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens was an obvious choice. Quite a few forum members here have been asking me why I didn't get this lens sooner. The answer is simple: I didn't have a need for it. But now I do. Now I need a SMALL camera with a SMALL lens that takes a good picture in any typical lighting situation. I bought three different jackets with an EOS-M sized pocket to carry this camera in and over the last few days I've attended all manner of events with this camera accompanying me without anyone noticing it. To avoid lint getting into the camera, I bag it in a zip-lock baggie before pocketing it. I've since removed the camera strap (something I've never bothered to do before) and it's VERY handy to have such a powerful little camera in my pocket and on hand. The following images are all JPEGS from the camera with minimal editing.
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EOS-M + EF-M 22mm f/2 STM (Wireless Flash and Tripod used ONLY for this shot).
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HANDLING THE LOW LIGHT:
This is a fairly bright lens at f/2.0 and it's especially useful if you want something to carry to dinner, a day trip to the fair or a dinner party. I found that I could comfortably shoot in Manual mode with this lens to control shutter speed and aperture but it was also a great, low-profile lens to be walking around in the city at night with. With an external flash, it performs admirably and I could easily capture sharp, clean images with a narrow aperture if desired. This lens produces some pleasant bokeh at wider apertures, much more than a compact camera is capable of. Headshots and portraits in low light or at night will always offer some degree of bokeh with this lens. Image Stabilization isn't really needed on an f/2 lens when it's on an APS-C sensor because there's plenty of light coming through the lens and the larger sensor soaks it up... as these picture below demonstrate. Camera phones can now capture great low light shots but they tend to be noisy with less dynamic range to play with. i watched people I was with (including my wife) trying to take similar shots in the same light with varying degrees of success.
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EOS-M + EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens (handheld)
EOS-M + EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens (handheld) - some nice detail here.
EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens (resting on a pier)
EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens (handheld)
LOWLIGHT/NIGHT SHOTS with the EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens
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Auto Focus SPEED and ACCURACY:
The 22mm lens is not the fastest lens I've used on the EOS-M but it's generally faster than Canon compact cameras and it appears to have little trouble shooting in very low light if you aim for something that has a little bit of contrasting detail. Out of 3,000 pictures taken over the weekend, I had about 4 that were out of focus. Only one was inexplicable. In one instance the camera/lens focused on the reflections in a shop window. On another occasion I was shooting from a moving car window at passing objects in the DARK so that made sense to me. So generally speaking, the lens was fast enough and quite accurate. In a dimly lit room that was not dark but with all the window shutters closed, I have a consistent 3/4 second (three quarters of a second/ 0.65 second) delay in achieving AF lock... which was very good. I had no trouble focusing on a couple smooching halfway down a dark alley in Chinatown at night (I asked them to stand there, so don't worry, I wasn't being a voyeur) and I've since raised the shadow details in Lightroom before posting the picture here (above). I had just a small amount of trouble focusing on fireworks that were going off nearby until I focused on the lights in the distance and then recomposed. AF accuracy was actually very good.
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Using Manual Focus requires this feature to be engaged on your EOS-M camera Menu. I set mine so that I can focus using AF and then I can turn the outer ring of the lens to manually focus the shot (I photographed the Amethyst crystals this way coupled with the Magnify Feature).
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BURST MODE:
Burst mode with this lens is similar to using the EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro USM lens on the EOS-M - I could hold my finger down on the shutter-release button and the EOS-M would fire off three (3) shots in quick succession before immediately slowing down considerably to something closer to 2 shots per second until I stopped shooting. The Specs for the EOS-M state 4.3fps but it never seems to feel that fast.
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It sounds kinda like this: "CHICK-CHICK-CHICK... KER-CHUNK KER-CHUNK KER-CHUNK" etc.
This is clearly a camera limitation but I do get variations of this depending on the lens being used on the camera at the time.
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CLOSEUP PHOTOGRAPHY:
The lens can physically focus if you're closer than 6 inches from your subject. But considering the APS-C sensor size on the EOS-M camera, I suppose this is to be expected. I could have gotten closer to the Dandelion, Cat and Amethyst Crystals but was prevented by distance from getting any closer to the Vase and tree Leaves. The dew drops on the Rose were at the minimum focusing distance limitation of 5.9 inches.
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CLOSEUPS with the EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens
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AFTERTHOUGHTS:
In retrospect, I'm enjoying this lens. It produces good results in most environments. The only challenge I had was photographing a black cat alongside a white cat that was sitting in the sunlight streaming into a darkened room (using P-Mode) ... and again, that wasn't really the lens but a limitation in the camera. Such a small lens on such a tiny camera means it can be handled with one hand and you can use your thumb to shift the AF reticule. One thing I experienced with this lens was that I accidentally touched the One-Touch-Shutter release button on the touch screen several times. In my years using the EOS-M with larger lenses, I'd never previously bumped this button and always wondered why others complained about accidentally doing it themselves. Obviously I used to hold my camera differently with the larger EF lenses.
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I used to find the tiny lens element (one of the smallest in the world!) to be a little odd at first sight. But it grows on you. It's also extremely well protected and much easier to clean if required. I feel that this lens is rather 'contrasted' compared to other Canon lenses, especially those featuring faster glass. The contrast on this lens is decent and the images are generally crisp. I did experience some slight banding in the shadows when lifting them during editing. Then again, I shot all of these images in JPEG so perhaps some minor noise was to be expected. On the other hand, the color from this lens appeared very slightly muted but only compared to my other lenses. It was so slight that I was easily able to tweak this when processing.
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ARCHITECTURE with the EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens.
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I tend to cover a lot of subject types with my individual lenses and wide Prime lenses are almost always more practical (and flexible) for all-purpose photography than specialist lenses. I tend to photograph landscapes, architecture, food (see below!) and nature with wider lenses. I'm actually THAT GUY in the fine restaurant that will embarrass everyone by pulling out an enormous DSLR camera with an ENORMOUS lens from under the table to snap a shot of my meal if it looks good enough. Most of that embarrassment can now be avoided with this 22mm f/2 lens on the EOS-M. It's VERY subtle with this lens and it's fantastic value for money.
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All in all, the EF 22mm f/2 STM lens is a great LITTLE lens that, much like the EOS-M itself, punches way above its weight and still wins. I'm giving this lens 4 STARS out of five. Optically there's no much they can do to improve this lens but a MF/AF switch would have been useful and the lack of an included Lens Hood in the box is my main reason for knocking it down a star from 5. I think Canon deliberately held off supplying one to keep the price down and it's hard to argue with that logic when you see people selling this lens for close to USD $105. Image quality is excellent and the images are always of a consistent quality. The 43mm diameter filter threads might prove challenging although this is the first lens I have no intention of mounting a filter to.
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It's made my EOS-M fun to use all over again!
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FOOD! Various images of food that I had an opportunity to photograph with this lens.
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Regards,
Marco Nero.
