Beats me how anyone with such a vague grasp of the facts can be a Sony contracted tester etc!

Read this:

"For a lot of years 24mm was considered real wide, and the widest lens most photographers would own. A few had a 20/21mm but for the most part 24mm was it. This all changed as cameras switched from film to digital and the lenses became wider."

That is complete nonsense. The first effect of digital was to lose wide-angle lenses entirely. The 2X factor of the early 1990s Canon and Nikon, Kodak etc bodies meant even the widest lenses then made were equal to almost standard views - 17mm became 36mm. It didn't get much better with the arrival of 1.5X DX/APS-C and Canon 1.6X from 2002 onwards.

In fact, you had to use a full frame ultrawide like the 17-35mm KM originally part of the KM 7D launch kit options, just to get a 28mm or slightly better. There was nothing to match 24mm until the CZ 16-80mm appeared in 2007, other than use of existing film wide angle lenses (often older designs) on some of the early full frame digitals.

Digital initially deprived us of wide lenses, not the other way round.

David

He shoots sports for a living but also deals and uses large format film for art.. Thats where his background is. see his links to his pro sports sit. it's all hockey and football..and thats where his tie to SLR's is

And how old exactly is the Sigma 12-24?

2002, if my first sample provided with a Sigma full frame camera was first wave. I think we had the lens for Canon and Nikon in 2003 and 2004, used on the Kodak 14n - pro/c pro/n models.

But it was, of course, made for film and actually didn't work all that well on the Kodaks because of the lack of flatness to the sensor and the general inaccuracy of the Sigma mounts.

The 10-20mm is a different matter, that was a wide angle made specifically for digital, same with the Tamron 11-18mm. I saw that lens at photokina 2004 in prototype form; by 2004, the 1.5-1.6X format was firmly set to be the major sensor size for a few years.

David