Canon EF-M 11-22mm f/4-5.6 STM Lens

This is an excellent lens and a great addition to the EF-M family, giving me a nice, small, light-weight wide-angle lens for the M bodies. For me, the main point of the "M" bodies is to keep things small and light for easy carry. This lens gives me the wide angle range I often enjoy in a small, light package. It seems quite sharp, and with good contrast and color. And despite what a lot of folks say, having good image stabilization in a wide angle lens is extremely helpful to me. So many times I want to shoot a landscape or interior shot, or even family moments, when lighting is low and I dont want to drag out a tripod and waste precious time fumbling with it when searching for the best shooting position. The zoom range is handy for getting both perspective and framing just right, and the IS makes it easy to move around to find the best place from which to get the point of view that I want because Im not tied-down and slowed-down by a tripod. Having a few extra stops of hand-hold-ability is always welcome for me. A small rant for those who often say they prefer a prime over a zoom: While primes can be engineered to be sharper or have other characteristics that may surpass what a similar zoom can have, the tired old saw of being able to "zoom with your feet" is complete nonsense. With a prime, you cannot zoom in any way. In the situations where you can alter the framing by physically moving, the fact is that you also alter the point of view, or "perspective" of the shot. And if you want to get the perfect perspective, then you cannot adjust the framing. So with a prime, you are stuck with less flexibility, period! Only with a zoom can you adjust both the perspective and framing of a shot. If you havent played with this all, then you owe it to yourself to take the plunge, and find out just what great creative control you get when you have a zoom lens. You adjust perspective by changing the precise location of the camera with respect to the objects in the image. And with the zoom, you adjust the framing to get just what you want in the frame. For me, this is especially true with a wide angle lens where there is so much opportunity to play with foreground, midground, and background. Primes have their place, for sure. But make no mistake: You cannot "zoom with your feet". Its not only about fitting grandma and the grandkids into the frame nicely. Sometimes you want to get creative with the perspective of the image. And a zoom allows you to play with all of the variables, not just one of them. And again, this is something particularly fun to play with in the wide angle realm. I recommend this lens for anyone who has never had a wide zoom. Its just plain fun! Trust me: You will enjoy it. And prepare to get dirty, crawling around on the ground, or climbing up into things as you work on getting interesting compositions that take advantage of the deep depth of field and wide angle of view to place things in the foreground and get the perspectives you want. Thats another reason to like the small size and light weight of the M series and other compact systems. And, of course, the IS so you dont need a tripod! The lens was shipped fast, as usual, and arrived in perfect shape.

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When I first bought the EOS M3 for Xiaoqin, I stuck with the prime lenses. First, the EFM 22/2 is very sharp, tiny and light, and the lack of a zoom actually simplifies camera use. Its a great lens. In Japan, however, youre frequently in constrained environments, where the potential to frame the picture by moving your feet is very limited. That calls for a wide angle lens. My preference would have been a 15mm fixed lens, but all the fixed wide-angles for the EOS M system are manual focused, and you really dont want to manual focus while looking at a screen rather than a view-finder. The EF-M 11-22/4-5.6 STM retails for $400 in the US, but you can get it at a big camera store (Yodabashi had the lowest prices, but Bic Camera is also decent in a pinch) in Tokyo for about $320, sans tax. If youre brave, you can avoid having to go to a store by having Amazons Japanese site ship to your hotel, but then youll pay a little bit more, because when theyre unable to verify your foreign passport they have to charge tax. The issue with buying from a Japanese camera store is that the warranty is Japan-only, though in practice Canon will typically honor the Japanese purchase. By the way, while youre at it, one of the best deals is you can get a spare battery LP-EP17 while youre at it for about $40, about 30% off from the best available US prices. Well, the results speak for themselves: one of my favorite pictures from the trip came right out of the lens at 14mm and with it wide open (photograph by Xiaoqin Ma). Note that the lens does vignette, but the modern approach is to let the Lightroom camera profile work its magic and correct for distortion and vignetting. The camera will do it in place if you shoot in JPG mode, but I dont buy high end cameras so I can treat them like a point and shoot. In combination with the flex-LCD screen on the back of the M3, you can get shots you just cant get on a regular point and shoot or a DSLR (11mm, f/8, ISO 100, fill-flash): The lens filter ring size is an odd size: 55mm. You cant argue with the IS, which Canon claims to provide 3 stops of hand holdability. Note that at the longest end, at 22mm, f/5.6 is exactly 3 stops from f/2.0, which is what the non-IS prime we have is at. In practice, whenever we went to dinner, I made a habit out of switching over to the prime 22mm. While I missed the IS, stopping the motion of a kid about to do something quickly was more important. Also, when handing over the camera to someone else to shoot a picture, the lack of a zoom actually helped. (Most people are now used to fixed lenses on their smartphones and zooms confuse them) My dislikes: having to collapse the lens and extend it for shooting. I understand that compactness helps, but the extension makes the lens feel a little flimsy. I would have happily given up a little bit of compactness. All in all, for the price, youre getting a fancy piece of technology that grants you really wide angles on a compact camera the feels almost too small for your hands. Its not a substitute for an 11mm/2.8 prime (if Canon ever makes one, Id seriously consider trading up), but the IS isnt a feature to sniff at, and the price is plenty reasonable, especially if you make it to Tokyo and qualify for the tax-free prices. Recommended.

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I bought this lens for my M5 to add more range to my wide angle shots. I take a lot of close-up pictures and needed more field of view. This lens works perfectly but don’t believe the reviews stating “no fish-eye effect”. There is a slight bit of distortion on the fringe of the 11mm setting. None-the-less, this lens produces beautiful results.

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I have found this to be my go to lens now. Allows a better view of the world I like looking at. A well made lens that will always be part of my M50 kit for sure.

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Great for houses in a tight location. Sharp and clear.

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Love this wide angle lens for the Canon M system. Original Canon lenses have never let me down. Will work with the new Canon EOS M5 to be released in November 2016.

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I love this lens. Its compact, the optics are good as with the other EOS M lenses, it focuses fast. If I had one thing to pick on it would be the lens lock which is also present on the EF-M 15-45. Im getting used to it but otherwise its a fun lens and rounds out the EOS M3 kit.

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