For architecture I would go with the E-3 and 7-14 because it's wider and almost distortion free, but for weddings I wouldn't go for any of these combinations.
Saad,
For architecture the Oly 7-14 beats all Canon wide angle zooms. For wedding work I would go for a faster Canon wide though.
But Oly has some new interesting zooms now, like the 14-35/2 and 12-60/2.8-4.
One of the FM members here does very good reviews on wide angle lenses and he has covered the Zeiss 17-35N in excellent detail and compared it to the Nikon 17-35mm f2.8 and Canon 16-35mm f2.8 L. I am awaiting his comparison of the Zeiss to the Olympus. For me, the olympus is on par / very close to the Zeiss 17-35mm f2.8 - only wider and 1-stop slower. The Zeiss is considered one of the best wide angle lenses ever mounted on a full frame canon SLR.
If distortion and resolution are primary criteria for an SLR wide angle lens, the Olympus will have no issues covering those with ease when it comes to architecture/indoor shooting.
For weddings, would you rather have an E-3+7-14mm for wide angle work - giving you access to autofocus and high image quality or would you rather use a 5D and step down metering - something that isn't always practical (but can be done) when it comes to shooting events.
Also consider the field of view/focal length - 7mm on the E-3 gives you a field of view of 14mm on a 5D. Now take this field of view and throw in excellent distortion control and very decent resolution and many can see how the olympus may come out a winner. That 7-14mm isn't cheap, but it is well worth the $$$ for a lens as capable.
My my own experience, the 21-35 has moderate barrel distortion at wide end which is not suitable for architecture work, and its edge sharpness is a bit weak also. Other than that, it's the most contrasy WA zoom I've ever seen, that implies some higher order of aberrations are strickly controlled.
marbrink wrote:
Saad,
For architecture the Oly 7-14 beats all Canon wide angle zooms. For wedding work I would go for a faster Canon wide though.
But Oly has some new interesting zooms now, like the 14-35/2 and 12-60/2.8-4.
Do you really think that 17.3x13.0 mm sensor could be as good for ultra-wide angle work as a 35.8x23.9mm sensor?
Sure, when you double the focal length of the Oly the 7-14 turns into a 14-28 -- which is a wider focal length than the 16-35mm Canon zoom -- but unless Oly has created lenses with unprecedentedly small Circles of Confusion, the larger canon sensor images should result in much higher quality images.
I used the Leica 21-35 on the 1Ds and found the lens to quite nice. Nice resolution, but the corners were so-so at best in the 21-25mm range. As a 35mm lens it is quite good, but 35mm F3,5 isn't the most exciting combination. Overall I liked the lens, but for the money I'm not sure if it's worth it. It's very compact. I have a 16-35L II with the 1Ds2 right now and the 16-35L II is easily 2 to 2.5x longer. Getting manual focus correct on a wide angle can be challenging because the details are so tiny (thus hard to see).
The Oly 7-14 is stated to have a 0.0167 circle of confusion. This is a little more than 1/2 the suggested circle of confusion for 35mm. Which should mean that the Oly is capable of producing images with a little less than twice as much detail. However, the Oly sensor is 224.9 mm^2, which is a little less than 1/4th the size of the 5D's sensor (823.4 mm^2). This leads me to conclude that the 5D should be able to produce higher resolution images, not just in the digital mega-pixel sense, but also in the lens resolution on the "film plane" sense (assuming the lens used has a circle of confusion no worse than 0.06).
