Canon Super Wide Angle EF 20mm f/2.8 USM Autofocus Lens

There are not that many (better) alternatives to Canon's EF 20mm f/2.8 USM that fall within the same price range and at the same time deliver superior performance. That might be the reason to seriously consider this lens for your ultra wide photographic needs, despite somewhat lackluster performance...

The Canon 20mm f/2.8 USM lens often catches a bad rap for being soft in the corners, having horrendous vignetting wide open, and being plagued with an overall lack of contrast. I’m here to tell you why absolutely none of that matters.

As a wide-angle lens for cropped sensors, this lens falls a little short, with virtually all of the standard zooms giving a wider angle of view. However, on the full frame sensors that Canon are now producing, this lens still warrants its place in their line-up.

• +

  Good build and finish, Nice focal length on Full Frame cameras, Silent and fast autofocus., Good image quality

• -

  Not that useful on cropped sensors., Stiff manual focus ring (on example tested), Distortion worse than on modern designs (minor point), Hood not included with lens

The conclusion for this review comes down to recommendations, and we have to segregate the audience into a couple of camps. For full-frame digital SLR or film users, the 20mm Æ’/2.8 shows off its poorer performance issues, especially for sharpness and light falloff.

The Canon EF 20mm f/2.8 USM Lens fits in a nice wide angle focal length space below the ultra-common 24-something and 28-something zoom lenses. There is a noticeable FOV (field of view) difference between 20mm and 24/28mm. People often look for a prime lens for their ultra wide angle needs.

Our tests are supposed to answer one main question - whether or not a given instrument is worth buying. In the case of the Canon EF 2.8/20 mm the answer is unambiguous – it isn’t!

• +

  solid casing,, excellent resolution in the frame centre,, very well corrected astigmatism,, decently controlled coma,, silent, quick and accurate autofocus.

• -

  average image quality at the frame edge,, a bit too high chromatic aberration,, huge vignetting even on an APS-C sensor,, weak work against bright light.

The Canon EF 20mm f/2.8 USM is not a bad lens but it shows that its design dates back to the early 90s. The technical resolution is actually pretty good with a very sharp image center and pretty good borders. The corners are also very decent at medium aperture settings.

There are a lot of bad reviews about this lens. It does have it's flaws, but overall it is great wide angle lens for the price. I was in the market for as wide of a lens as I could find around the $500 price mark. And this what I took a risk after reading multiple bad reviews.

If you were actively seeking a review of this lens, the chances are that you've already seen another one written by Mr Ken Rockwell, who I believe it's fair to say divides opinion on many photography matters.

• +

  Fast and accurate focus; sharp frame centre; attractive colour rendering

• -

  Soft corners; field curvature; colour fringing

Short and simple. This lens is does exactly what I expected it to do - take great photos. One can get a balanced impression and make a judgment about this lens by reading all the reviews. It is made for the serious amateur, maybe not for the pro.

• +

  Superior build quality

Agree with the other reviewer RE crops. I'm using this on a trip and with a 7D @ 18MP I get fantastic 100% crops. This is a great landscape lens and I think a great buy if you can deal with primes.

• +

  Sharpness, fast AF, color, contrast

• -

  None

I bought this lens to get a bit wider than The 28-135mm IS which was my first lens for the new 10D. I liked the reasonable size and that I could share the 72mm filters with the 28-135IS. I am not happy with the sharpness of this lens at any f/stop and will not use it at all wide open.

• +

  Low used price. I like the size and weight. I can share filters with my 28-135mm IS. I like the focal length.

• -

  This lens is not as sharp as I expect from a prime and is not as sharp as the 17-40L that I replaced it with.

Using for video, time lapse, and still photography. Wish it had more cross type focusing points and lower F stop. 20mm is perfect for what I'm doing in my studio and is a great lens to have in my kit.