The lens to get started on wide angle photography

I bought this lens because I hadn't shot wide before. Typically, I fill the frame. nail the focus and the moment - I like things tight but I was missing something and I knew it.

I don't mind overlapping focal lengths, carrying primes and having too many choices - not a gear head as such but dropping a small lens for the sake of a lighter bag - not really my thing. Suffer in silence rather.

So I got the 10-18 for an absolute steal and decided I'd tame the differences in perspective - sure, there were the moments where I just had to have the widest field of view but that's not what intrigued me most - and here we get to the specifics of the lens itself.

IS is necessary on this lens - especially in low light as it does vignette quite a bit unless you stop it down.

This weakness means that you'll be losing colour depth. The tiny aperture means that nearly everything is in focus so there's no weakness possible in terms of focus accuracy.10/10 considering it's a consumer grade zoom - 8/10 when compared to L series glass - because of the smaller aperture needed to get rid of vigneting.

Distortion is 90% controlled in-camera or with DPP. No problems here.

Sharpness is excellent overall - an absolute steal for the money - even better for what I paid. 8/10

Ergonomics are excellent too - unless you're struggling to get used to focus by wire. 9/10

For video, it's a no-brainer.  10/10

I'd rate construction at 9/10 - even if it's plastic. Maybe it's the quality of the plastic or how light the lens is that makes me give it such a high rating - it feels right.

Yes, there are faster lenses this wide, there are sharper ones, there are more solid ones - but this must be the best balanced APS-C wide angle on the market - and certainly the best for the money and probably the only one an APS-C shooter needs - unless you just have to have wider apertures.

Value: 10/10

Overall: 8/10 - Why? It's a bit predictably boring. Everything's good about it but it doesn't have the extra little bit of something to make you want to pull it out of the bag in the same way that say the 50mm f/1.4 does, The 60mm, the 24mm STM or the 70-200 f/4 IS. Yes, it complements the 18-135 STM perfectly - maybe even being one up on that lens but then again, that lens had the same lack of WHAM about it. Useful, incredibly so but not as inspiring.

Nice review  and I agree with you about both the 10-18 and 18-135 stm

Thanks

Quite a good review here.