PL 9 or 8-18, to pair with Pana14-140 and PL15 for travel?

Hi all,

I wanted to add a wide-angle lens to complete my travel kit with Pana 14-140 and PL15/1.7. I need advice on choosing between PL9/1.7 and PL8-18/2.4-4.

The PL9/1.7 attracts me for its small size and large aperture and overall decent image quality, but I've got some concerns about its edge performance, and also the fixed FL may be less flexible during travel. I used to have Laowa 7.5mm as my UWA solution, while it's quite a nice lens, I found its FL was too wide for me, and even though I always took it with me during travel thanks to its small size, I rarely used it because it was quite a pain to swap the lens only for 1 or 2 shots. I imagine because of AF and narrower perspective, the PL9 could be used more frequently, that's why I still want to give the prime a try. The PL8-18/2.4-4 could certainly solve the flexibility problem, and it has a good reputation of image quality which is more suitable for landscape shot when uses small apeture. The only downside remains of its relatively bigger size and heavier weight. The difference of price is not an issue, especially there are plenty of used 8-18 on the market, makes the gap not very significant.

After all, it seems another question between zoom and prime. Generally I prefer zoom option for travel, I just want to listen to some first-hand experience related to these two lenses and help me to make the decision. Thanks in advance.