A few months ago, I finally pulled the trigger for a FT 9-18 and adapter and a long story short, I am enjoying it very much on my em-10 with grip.
Ultrawide is one of the reason why I went to m4/3, not because the options are so good, but because I was disappointed with the P&S that I had whose main flaw was to start at 25mm equivalent instead of the 40mm I had before.
The point is, that without realizing it, I took most of my pictures at 25mm when I used to take them at 40mm. I had no clue that wide angle should not be used in all types of pictures. But that is the essence of a P&S : most of the time, you don't bother zooming.
So, disappointed (partly for wrong reasons) by modern points and shoots, I bought my first mft camera on a bargain deal. After some research I chose to use prime lenses and had 14mm f2.5, 25mm f1.4 and 45mm f1.8. My photography knowledge and (hopefully) skills have greatly evolved with that move, so much that I thought that, maybe, (ultra) wide angle wasn't all that bad if used properly.
I chose to go for the Ft 9-18 for multiple reasons: price, build quality (the mft 9-18 has a collapsible mechanism which I don't like) and of course image quality. Aperture did not bother me that much for UWA and I lost hope of seeing an affordable UWA prime. Also, I thought that for the extreme ranges, a zoom was preferable to get more usage. Af is a bit slow and noisy and more disappointing, the manual focus by wire action is noisy as well. The feeling of the lens is otherwise great and IQ is a lot higher than my standards.
In the end, what matters most are the pictures and the fun taking and sharing them. UWA is truly fun and unique. I also find a lot a satisfaction to be able to make decent use of the very characteristic look that ruined most of my shots in my P&S days.
Ok so now you maybe want some pictures to support my claims, well I will first post process a little and come back to you...
Ultrawide is one of the reason why I went to m4/3, not because the options are so good, but because I was disappointed with the P&S that I had whose main flaw was to start at 25mm equivalent instead of the 40mm I had before.
The point is, that without realizing it, I took most of my pictures at 25mm when I used to take them at 40mm. I had no clue that wide angle should not be used in all types of pictures. But that is the essence of a P&S : most of the time, you don't bother zooming.
So, disappointed (partly for wrong reasons) by modern points and shoots, I bought my first mft camera on a bargain deal. After some research I chose to use prime lenses and had 14mm f2.5, 25mm f1.4 and 45mm f1.8. My photography knowledge and (hopefully) skills have greatly evolved with that move, so much that I thought that, maybe, (ultra) wide angle wasn't all that bad if used properly.
I chose to go for the Ft 9-18 for multiple reasons: price, build quality (the mft 9-18 has a collapsible mechanism which I don't like) and of course image quality. Aperture did not bother me that much for UWA and I lost hope of seeing an affordable UWA prime. Also, I thought that for the extreme ranges, a zoom was preferable to get more usage. Af is a bit slow and noisy and more disappointing, the manual focus by wire action is noisy as well. The feeling of the lens is otherwise great and IQ is a lot higher than my standards.
In the end, what matters most are the pictures and the fun taking and sharing them. UWA is truly fun and unique. I also find a lot a satisfaction to be able to make decent use of the very characteristic look that ruined most of my shots in my P&S days.
Ok so now you maybe want some pictures to support my claims, well I will first post process a little and come back to you...
