CANON EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM
Compact, lightweight and stabilized, this EF-S lens rewrote the wide-angle zoom rulebook when it was launched
Carrying around additional lenses is no fun when they’re big, heavy and cumbersome. This offering from Canon for APS-C cameras is refreshingly small for a wide-angle zoom and tips the scales at less than half the weight of many competing lenses. Its 67mm filter thread is also a lot smaller than usual, so filters are relatively inexpensive to buy.
One weight-saving feature of the lens is that it has a plastic mounting plate, but build quality feels reasonably robust. Typical of many recent Canon lenses, it features an STM (Stepping Motor) autofocus system which is fast for stills, smooth for video capture and virtually silent. The electronicallycoupled focus ring enables manual override of autofocus but there’s no focus distance scale.
Less than half the price of Canon’s ancient EF-S 10-22mm wide zoom, also for APS-C cameras, this lens adds the bonus of image stabilization. As normal with non L-series Canon lenses, you need to buy the lens hood separately, the genuine EW-73C costing around £21/$40.
Performance
Centre-sharpness is very respectable even when combining the widest viewing angle and aperture, at the short end of the zoom range. However, it’s not as sharp as the equivalent RF-S 10-18mm lens towards the edges and corners of the image frame, and colour fringing can be more noticeable at both ends of the zoom range. Even so, it’s easy to correct, either during editing or when using the automatic in-camera fix that’s available in recent Canon cameras. For an own-brand Canon lens, it’s a steal at the price.