I have owned the 24 on 2 different camera systems and when it came out it was the best option for shooting that wide without stitching. The issue with it, as others have mentioned, is that it needs a 2 stop center filter to make it useful, so a 1 second exposure become 4 seconds, and 30 seconds becomes 2 minutes. It has very limited movement for sure and does suffer from less sharpness at the edges, but is super sharp in the middle. It also is a symmetrical design and has very little distortion.
The 23HR weighs a ton more and is much bigger due to its retro-focal design (which means distortion, but is correctable with the Alpa Lens Corrector software). This lens gives much more movement, does not need a center filter, and is very sharp edge to edge. There's no comparison really if you have the funds. I rarely even adjust the focus since its so wide, one setting works for 95% of the work I do with it, so that just contributes to the speed of working with it.
All of my other lenses are Schneider which I like very much, so this is my first Rodenstock. I'll trade the distortion for the speed and sharpness.
Hope that helps.
My question is prompted by the comments (in another forum) of a prominent architectural photographer who, as best I can determine, claims that retrofocus wideangle lenses, with their consequent higher degree of rectilinear distortion, are not suitable for architectural photography at its highest level, because (it is the contention of this photographer) software cannot satisfactorily correct for the consequent rectilinear distortion that is characteristic of such a lens. That is (according to the argument, not necessarily mine), once the lens has distorted the shape of the subject, it is not possible for the photographer or the software to recover the original shape of the subject to a degree that accurately represents the intentions of the architect in their fullest form.
My opinion? I would tend to agree with the photographer's argument with respect to some kind of architectural subject matter, but that the number of clients who are willing to pay for this kind of accuracy is very limited and that the compromise (even that of, gasp, small format) is generally acceptable.
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