The images in this article are just awful. They are too wide, terrible extension distortion, exaggerated and false perspectives, really bad keystoning, except for the bathroom shot. If that is the "look" you are going for, great. But this is not going to work for landscape. That first shotof the ground with the horizon at the top edge is a stale cliche at this point.

He is right about two things - ultrawides are best used in close quarters, and if you want to make a room bigger for an MLS interior room shot, great. But even the RE agent is going to frown at a room that looks disproportionately deep - that kind of stuff is hard to explain to a prospective buyer. The second thing is that most people don't know how to properly use an ultra wide lens. Everyone wants a really wide lens, but they do become boring after the novelty wears off. You can see just how much you need to crop from that gas station shot - to make it look reasonable.

The biggest issue with ultrawides is visual confusion about what your target is. Is it the tiny waterfall in the far-off distance or the gravel path that creates a gigantic leading line from bottom corner,to the tiny insignificant waterfall. A good composition will be able to do this without losing the priority of the waterfall to the path. But when you toss an ultrawide into the process, the path becomes bigger than life, demanding your attention, and your viewers will lose focus on what that leading line leads to.

Gene, I think there is a mind set in the general area of photography that landscape, by its nature, automatically requires the use of a wide angle lens. This has been touted for so long that it is now 2nd nature to most and any suggestion to use something other than the wide angle is interpreted by them as heresy and consequently ignored, leaving themselves to fall short of their inherent potential. As you have been saying far better landscape images can be made using moderate telephoto or even “normal lenses”. I’m posting this in, possibly vain, hope that some will have the stones to venture into the unknown.

Gene, I think there is a mind set in the general area of photography that landscape, by its nature, automatically requires the use of a wide angle lens. This has been touted for so long that it is now 2nd nature to most and any suggestion to use something other than the wide angle is interpreted by them as heresy and consequently ignored, leaving themselves to fall short of their inherent potential. As you have been saying far better landscape images can be made using moderate telephoto or even “normal lenses”. I’m posting this in, possibly vain, hope that some will have the stones to venture into the unknown.