Panasonic 7-14 f4 or Olympus 12mm f2

Yes, as I mentioned the 'distortion' in question is purely one of trying to image that wide an angle onto a flat plane. Our vision, while encompassing a large angle with peripheral vision, is only acute in a very, very small angle, and our brain processes the rest of what we see to suit our knowledge of the space. Lenses and cameras can't do that processing, so they present us with this flat representation that is equally sharp across the whole angle of view, that we can now take in all at once, and it looks weird because our experience doesn't prepare us for that. There are ways to image and present very wide angles of view, but they all involve not giving us the whole angle of view at once, just like our own vision.

In any case, the 7-14 is a marvellous optic that is actually very good value, in spite of its price. I wish I had as good and inexpensive a piece of glass with the same angle of view range for my Canons!

Henning (my given name)