Canon Ultra Wide Zoom Lenses

To understand wide-angle lenses one has to know what camera lens gives you the closest view to seeing with the naked eye. It is widely accepted that 50mm lens (focal length of 50mm) does this. So any lens bigger than this gives you magnification and allows you to see the object bigger than with the naked eye (and make pictures accordingly). So what does any lens smaller than 50mm do? Give you a smaller image than looking at the object with the naked eye? No. These lenses are made in such a way that they allow you to bring more area into focus than any other type of lens can do and that’s why they are called "wide lenses".

A feature of telephoto zoom lenses is the fact that greater magnification comes at the cost of angle of view and depth of field: The higher the magnification, the narrower the angle of view and the shallower the depth of field (DOF). You not only see less; the shallower field of vision causes only the object in focus to be in focus; the rest is not. If this is what you want, fine. If you want magnification as well as wider field of vision and bigger depth of field (everything in focus), a wide-angle lens is the answer. One of the most interesting features of a wide-angle lens is "the capability to stretch perspective". When you look through a wide-angle lens, it seems that the distance between objects has extended. In addition to this the proportion of objects dramatically increases, so the one close to the camera looks enormous, but the ones father away almost disappear in the distance.

Canon distinguishes between wide-angle lenses and ultra-wide zoom lenses. Wide-angle lenses have fixed focal lengths, like the following lenses: EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM, EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM and EF 35mm f/2. Ultra-wide zoom lenses, on the other hand, has variable focal lengths, as in the following examples: The EF 35mm f/2, EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM and EF 17-40 f/4L USM. You can change the focal lengths as you wish simply by turning the lens barrel.