Standard lens with the widest angle possible

[Huntrgp]

We do a lot of Real Estate photography which involves standing in a doorway trying to get a good photo of a room. Wide angle lenses add so much "fish-eye" effect that they are almost as useless as a zoom lens. Therefore we are looking for a camera in the 3 to 4 mpix range that has the widest angle lens as "standard Equipment" rather than an add-on lens. We do not need higher resolution since most photos end up as jpegs on Real Estate sites with low file size restrictions and the end user may have low speed internet connections. Any suggestions?

[bsdunek]

Check out the Panasonic Lumix. The wide setting is rated equal to a 28mm lens on a 35mm camera. This is a moderate wide angle and may do the job. Otherwise you need a slr with a full size ccd and wide lenses made for digital.



Bruce

[Wildman]

Most lower end digital cameras have fairly wide angle lenses... the exception being DSLRs and even many of those aren't great at wide angle shooting unless you spend big $$ for wide angle lenses.

An inexpensive and effective alternative is stitching single shots together into panoramas. If you're careful, you can make some pretty credible wide angle pictures.

[JimC]

I would be inclined to look at models like the Olympus C-5060WZ, Nikon Coolpix 5400, Minolta DiMAGE A1, Konica-Minolta DiMAGE A2, the recently announced Nikon Coolpix 8400, the Canon S60, or the recently announced Canon S70.

The new Nikon Coolpix 8400 will have the widest lens of the bunch (24mm equivalent). The rest all start out at approximately 28mm (which is still much wider than most models).

Out of the others, the Nikon Coolpix 5400 and Olympus C-5060WZ both have wide angle converters available. These models also allow the use of an external flash.

Here is a discussion threadstarted bysomeone else with similar requirements:

http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/v...mp;forum_id=87