Bernard and Slobodan,
I wish I had time to demonstrate, and perhaps, upon reflection, you may be correct that there will be little difference.
I started from the idea of anamorphic cinema lenses that are wide only in the horizontal. And they feel different than simply cropping a wide lens to the same aspect ratio.
Maybe this is more do to the optical effect of the lens? I'm not sure, and unfortunately don't have time to test right now. I'm still open to the idea that there might be some difference in the optics between the wide lens and the normal lens. In an attempt to limit the curvature of the wide lens, it may have a different distortion when cropped than the normal focal length lens when stitched. Of course stitching to match a wide angle lens does not change the perspective view at all when using multiple rows of stitched frames. But the distortion might be different, and stitching software may effect this.
So, maybe, never mind
-bruce
