Contemporary optical advance is obvious: we get previously unthinkably wide coverage and good-excellent linear rendition as well. The Laowa 9mm f/5.6 is amazingly rectilinear given its unbelievable 135 degrees angle of view (diagonally) on the FX frame. Horizontally it still delivers a whopping 125 degrees view. Image quality can be very high, but the inevitable "price" to pay is elevated light fall-off towards the corners of the frame.
It is safe to say these über-ultra-wide views clash violently with human vision impressions and therefore, rarely actually confer a visually useful advantage to the image, apart from the shock effect. We simply do not perceive our environment in a similar manner. Thus the impressions are alienated and strange. For landscapes they are next to useless if the intention is "showing all". They indeed do, but concomitantly everything is reduced to tiny objects and the sheer greatness of a landscape is lost. You can easily shrink even the mighty Mount Everest to a tiny protrusion on the horizon
Yet despite these objections, playing with challenges is always desirable.
