Recently, I’ve been using a Panasonic TZ100 compact and also a 12-40mm M4/3 lens. The Panny starts at 25mm the 12mm equals 24mm in 35mm terms. Looking back at the pictures, wide angle rarely looks good, or more likely I just suck using it. The rule-of-thumb that something needs to be in front to give emphasis to the perspective is pretty hard to master too. Wide angle messes up proportions pretty badly, but it still has a gravitational pull: you want to give context to your subject, hoping that it makes your framing more interesting. It might, but there’s something inherently unnatural about all these images. Some have value (I actually like the featured image minus the power lines), but most simply doesn’t.
That’s one of my main concerns about mobile photography too: by default your phone’s camera app starts up in wide angle mode, as it’s the most comfortable setting for selfies. People get used to using it that way, so most mobile photoghraps will suffer from not just obvious distortion, but also painfully bad proportions. I’ll actually try to refrain from anything <28mm generally, and will focus specifically on wide angle shots.