Best wide angle lens on a budget?

Not that I know of. Keep in mind that there's a 1.6x crop factor on the 400D so the widest you're actually going to be able to go is the equivalent of 16 mm. Check out the Sigma 10-20mm in addition to the Tamron if you don't want to buy Canon's 10-22mm.

Not quite as wide as the 10-20 or such, but I totally love my Tokina 12-24 f4
It was quite reasonably priced in my mind and it is very solid... also it works down to about 15 or 16mm on a full frame while the others mentioned here don't work at all on a full frame body.

I'd go for the Sigma if I were you. No point going for cheap lenses and not getting the image quality.

Having used the Sigma I think it's fantastic. It's made me money too so it can't be too bad.
I find it to be on a par with Canons EF-S 10-22 which is a stellar lens!

This may be lower quality than you want, but for real cheap you can build your own, the $5 fish eye (video shows the steps):

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/03/build_your_own.php

Go for Tokina's 12-24 f/4, it's a much better lens than the Sigma or Tamron and the built quality is a lot better as well.

OreoCookie said:

Go for Tokina's 12-24 f/4, it's a much better lens than the Sigma or Tamron and the built quality is a lot better as well.

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Having used this lens I found it a little bit soft and 12mm vs 10mm is a huge factor when you're dealing with ultra wide angles.

The f/4 throughout the zoom is nice though!

bmcgrath said:

Having used this lens I found it a little bit soft and 12mm vs 10mm is a huge factor when you're dealing with ultra wide angles.

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AFAIK neither the Sigma nor the Tamron are any better, although I haven't used these two lenses. In any case, the softness at the corners of UW lenses is rather typical. In any case, most reviews I've seen have the Tokina neck to neck with the original lenses (10-22 mm Canon or 12-24 Nikkor).

Regarding focal lengths, that's correct, 2 mm difference translates to a noticeable difference in fov. Plus, the Sigma has a HSM motor.

If you are going to spring for the Sigma, I would save a bit more and get the Canon 10-22. I've owned the 10-22 and used the Sigma 10-20 and the build quality as well as image quality was noticeably worse with the Sigma. It wasn't just a trial run I did with it, either. I had sold the 10-22 and was wide-angle-less for a brief period and borrowed the Sigma from a friend for a couple of shoots.
I mean, I hear Sigma's built quality is spotty, so you may end up with a great model, and I may have ended up with a crap model. Who knows. I don't have an inherent distrust of Sigma, I own their 70-200 f/2.8 and there is nothing to hate about it (except the lens cap doesn't fit snugly for some reason).

Just tossing that out there. As someone said, soft corners is part of wide-angle photography, so I would get as sharp a lens as you can. If you've got $500 now, I would save another $200 or so and look for a refurb or good conditioned used, or maybe you can find one new for around there.

edit: Amazon has the Canon 10-22 for $666 (oooh spooky) which is a steal. That lens is nice.

seenew, What is your sigma 70-200 f2.8 like, I have the opportunity yo buy one really cheap @ Australian $980, its brand new.

How long have you had yours?
Would you recommend it over the canon 2.8 version?
Have you any sample pics

OreoCookie said:

In any case, most reviews I've seen have the Tokina neck to neck with the original lenses (10-22 mm Canon or 12-24 Nikkor).

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Actually, I read LOTS of reviews before I went ultra-wide and pretty-much all the reviews I read said the Tokina was only comparable to the Nikon 12-24 if you factored in the price difference (that is the reviewers didn't think the marginal performance gains were worth the extra money.) That's not really neck to neck- and may be a factor for some folks.

I went with the Sigma 10-20mm and use Bibble Pro to do distortion correction (necessary for all the ultra-wides if you want real verticals.)

The OP may want to see if there's a cheap fisheye and distortion correction available for it if they're not simply looking for rectilinear out of the box.

compuwar said:

Actually, I read LOTS of reviews before I went ultra-wide and pretty-much all the reviews I read said the Tokina was only comparable to the Nikon 12-24 if you factored in the price difference (that is the reviewers didn't think the marginal performance gains were worth the extra money.) That's not really neck to neck- and may be a factor for some folks.

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Well, if you want to spend more, Tokina has released the new 11-16 f/2.8 zoom which (according to photozone, for example) is the best UW zoom for crop sensors on the market (including Canon's 10-22 mm and Nikon's 12-24 mm). But again, that's only one review (in English). Although I don't trust Ken Rockwell in terms of reviews, he has very interesting sample pics on the bottom that show that the Tokina is a lot sharper in the corners than the Nikkor.

sud said:

seenew, What is your sigma 70-200 f2.8 like, I have the opportunity yo buy one really cheap @ Australian $980, its brand new.

How long have you had yours?
Would you recommend it over the canon 2.8 version?
Have you any sample pics

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I've had mine a little over a year now, no problems. I haven't personally used the Canon version, but like I said, I have found no faults with it. It is very well built, heavy, but it has a tripod-mount-collar so it won't hang off your camera if you're using a tripod.
Uhh.. It's pretty sharp.
As for samples, I'll try to find some.
as far as the "macro abilities", here's a series I just did with it: http://flickr.com/photos/chrisnew/sets/72157609829743823/

click for larger--

G5Unit said:

For a while now I've been searching for a ultra wide angle lens(10-11mm) for a Canon 400D yet I've come up empty handed. I lowest price I have found is still just under $500 for a Tamron.

Are their any others out there?

-Yannik

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Tokina and Tamron are very nice lenses. I use Tokina's 12-24mm f/4, and it costs under $500.00. I love this little lens, and used most often around 12mm. Nice and sharp. Sigma has a 10-20mm (or so), and so Tokina.

At B&H Photo & Video:
Sigma 10-20mm ($479.95 - 47.99 instant rebate = $431.10 or so).
Tokina 12-24mm ($499.95)

Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 is great. I just got mine for my D90.

I love my Sigma 10-20mm

I would use the Tamron Wide Lens if you are on a budget. It's an excellent lens that i've used for interior shots:



http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0009TSIP6