> A number of people recommended very wide angle, 18mm, 17mm,
> etc. and, even though I own a 24mm shift (which is coming
> with me even at the expense of extra clothes), 24mm is my
> current widest.
Not owning a shift lens, I can't really comment, but I'd guess that if
you're trying to take pictures of buildings, a 24 shift will be
"effectively" wider than a normal 24mm, because you could take a shot of the
top half of a building, shift it, then shoot the bottom half without all the
awkward perspective issues that normally get in the way with that type of
thing. Sure, it's not quite the same as a genuinely wider lens, but it's
worth thinking about.
As for the 17mm, that's a 93 degree field-of-view (horizontally), the 24mm
is 73 degrees, so it's a fairly substantial gain. From what I remember of
Paris, though, you can get a fair distance away from most of the things
you'd want to photo, so it's not going to be as critical as it would be in
London where the most impressive buildings can be in really narrow streets.
That said, not taking one is a good way to guarantee you'll need it..
The other thing about really really wide lenses is that, as someone else
said, you need to be careful that the shots don't just look like 'a shot
with a wide-angle lens' -- composition is very tricky balancing angles
against a horizontal horizon, it's pretty easy to get your feet in shot, and
with the depth-of-field you get it's hard to fuzz out unwanted background
elements.
Then again, I'm assuming that most of these shots will be the
back-against-a-wall type of thing where you can't get any further away from
the other side of the road, so then you need all the width you can get your
hands on -- at which point, heck, anything that'll get the shot at all is
better than the alternative.
-- dan
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