Ah Chip-not nice to Assume! For I too am a professional photographer (36 yrs worth and Certified with the PPofA). Yes I realize the lens will give you distortion (especially wide angles close in) but for 25 yrs I shot with Leica-my all time favorite lens was the 19 f 2.8 and it DID NOT distort like the 16mm end of this lens does.
Quoting Chasseur d'Images reputed French magazine the distortion of 16-35mm at 16mm is 1.3%: Same figure at 17 for the previous 17-35mm. This is a not bad distortion amount for the kind of zoom. The Leica 21-35mm has a smaller figure at 21: 0.8% but it's not open at f2.8 but at f3.5 and reaches only 21mm. Canon 14mm has a distortion of 0.7 and Nikon 17-35mm has, at 17mm, 1.3%. I'm speaking about lenses I actually own and use. These rectilinear extreme wides have not so much distortion, at least the primes, but they produces images much bigger if the object is close the lens and if the lens is inclined the lines are converging much quicker that standard lens, but it's a small price for the extreme field of view. I use them too for architectural work and the pictures may be postreated very well in PS correcting this extreme converging. The Canon 15mm is another completely different beast. The wider of all of them but here with a huge distortion due to his fisheye character. Leica lenses have in general better figures at distortion, sharpness and vignetting and with a better behaviour full open but are lenses with minor capabilities, for instance the zooms are slower and with less range and up to now -DMR just launched- with scarce digital possibilities at least in a Leica body. I have too quite a lot of Leica lenses and the pictures can be better but very often you find yourself unable to shoot the picture you want. In digital most of the pictures I shoot are full frame so the distortion issues are the same but the corners are a little bit softer than with film. No that bad the defenders of APS digital sensors pretend but I suppose that a new generation of extreme wide tele centric Canon zooms and primes are on the way. I'm switching continuously between Canon and Leica and very often I forget which camera took a picture. I use a APS digital Canon - just with a 18-50mm f2.8- but only when traveling too light. It seems to me, too, that the future in Canon is full frame. Regards Felix * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
