Travel with 2 small bodies, lens recommendation help

Pad-Thai-101 wrote:

Hello all,

I am thinking about moving from Sony FE system to m4/3 and plan to have 2 small bodies and small lenses for Traveling. Since I don’t like to switch lenses and want to travel light.

1. I plan to have an Olympus Pen-F, but it’s hard to find a used one on eBay and/or the E-P7 which I don’t think they sell in the USA. So I am thinking about an Olympus E-PL9 and an Panasonic GX9. Is it too confusing to have 2 different brands? I thought I lease I have the flip screen from E-PL9 and EVF from GX9.
2. One body might be paired with a Wide angle lens, still not sure what to get between Olympus 9-18mm or the preorder the Panasonic 9mm 1.7
3. Second body I'd like to Pair with Panasonic 20mm 1.7 which I like its small form factor. Hopefully I can detach the body and lens and put in different pants pockets if I want to.
4. This is my headache, what is a decent travel Telephoto lens. Thinking about Panasonic 45-200mm or 40-150mm (Pana/Oly) or any recommendation? I don't mind if it's slow, but prefer it small, light and sharp enough.
5. from no.5, should I even go with the Olympus macro 60mm or 75mm to cover the semi-telephoto range.

Sorry for my poor English and Thank you in advance

Pad-Thai

I suggest the 12-45 and the new 40-150 f4 along with a Panasonic 7-14 and a fast prime.  Go for it!  ......or the 12-100 for an all in one and the Panasonic 7-14 f4 (or the 8-18) and a fast prime.

John

I don't think a lot of people actually do this tbh but I have and I've loved it... I'm still shooting my GX850 with the 42.5/1.7, 75/1.8, or 35-100 f2.8 right alongside my FF kit actually. When I was solely shooting M4/3 I really liked having an UWA on one body (originally the 9-18, then the PL9-18 because I'm an UWA nut, now a Tamron 17-28 on FF) and something like the 45/1.8 or 35-100 f4-5.6 on my other body, with the 20/1.7 always in my bag.

I adore the 75/1.8 and I actually think it's sharp enough that cropping it to match xx-100mm lenses will do fine in a pinch, but I do think it leaves too much of a gap further below the FL range for it to be the only complement to an UWA zoom or even to a normal-ish prime. The Sigma 56/1.4 would be the better choice if you really want a fast short tele prime that can covers lot of use cases.

The Pana 35-100 f4-5.6 may not have the range of some of the other teles btw but it's practically the same size as a prime, eg as small as the 9-18. No other tele zoom can really claim that. I find anything over 100mm to be less useful for everyday shooting (150mm feels like no man's land for me, not long enough for a lot of wildlife or really compressed landscapes), but YMMV.

I think 9-18* + 20/1.7 + 35-100 (or 56/1.4, or the 60/2.8 macro) would make for a heck of a trio in a very very compact package. *(or 9/1.7, but I think the zoom's versatility is key with this kinda kit) They're all small enough that you can have them on a second body and pull said body out quickly or have it hanging anywhere without it being obtrusive, eg I often hang my GX850 with the 75/1.8 off the side of my bag on a Peak Design Capture Clip.

I loved shooting Oly & Pana bodies btw but it can be confusing, Oly UI is a little trickier to get used to, but each has their strengths so once you get used to it their differences can actually be an advantage rather than a hindrance. I would consider just adding a small M4/3 body for the teles alongside your A7C tho, teles are where the biggest size/portability difference often lies.

The Samyang 18/2.8 is the size of the 9/1.7, granted there's no FF UWA as small as the 9-18 tho... Same for the 12-32 pancake. So if that's a big draw then go all in on M4/3, the 14-140 & 14-150 zooms are also hard to compete with size-wise and can be very handy for travel, those might pair better with the 9/1.7 than a tele zoom or even a normal prime would IMO. I love UWA as I said before so an UWA zoom tends to beat staple for me.

So am alternative trio would be something like 9/1.7 + 14-140 II + whatever, vs the earlier trio that has the advantage of being weather sealed while covering a wider range even better and you can still throw the 20/1.7 in and basically bounce between it and the 9/1.7 on your second body. The 14-140 focuses relatively close and you can augment that with a clip on achromat adapter like the Raynox DCR series.

Pad-Thai-101 wrote:

tammons wrote:

Pad-Thai-101 wrote:

Hello all,

I am thinking about moving from Sony FE system to m4/3 and plan to have 2 small bodies and small lenses for Traveling. Since I don’t like to switch lenses and want to travel light.

1. I plan to have an Olympus Pen-F, but it’s hard to find a used one on eBay and/or the E-P7 which I don’t think they sell in the USA. So I am thinking about an Olympus E-PL9 and an Panasonic GX9. Is it too confusing to have 2 different brands? I thought I lease I have the flip screen from E-PL9 and EVF from GX9.
2. One body might be paired with a Wide angle lens, still not sure what to get between Olympus 9-18mm or the preorder the Panasonic 9mm 1.7
3. Second body I'd like to Pair with Panasonic 20mm 1.7 which I like its small form factor. Hopefully I can detach the body and lens and put in different pants pockets if I want to.
4. This is my headache, what is a decent travel Telephoto lens. Thinking about Panasonic 45-200mm or 40-150mm (Pana/Oly) or any recommendation? I don't mind if it's slow, but prefer it small, light and sharp enough.
5. from no.5, should I even go with the Olympus macro 60mm or 75mm to cover the semi-telephoto range.

Sorry for my poor English and Thank you in advance

Pad-Thai

I would suggest to get two bodies that use the same battery.

Awesome recommendation! thank you.

Only issue with that is that few of the smallest bodies use the same batteries as a GX9 type body... I think some of the smaller PENs do use the same battery as the E-M10 tho, but it's not that big a deal if you're not an event shooter or something like that IMO. You'd want a spare for each body regardless of whether they use the same or not, and you can opt for 3rd party USB based chargers which are slimmer than the OEM ones.

It didn't bug me all that much to carry a separate charger for my GM1 & GX850 vs the E-M5 II/III and I can't remember ever going thru 2 batteries on each body in a day. It can be nice to share the same battery for sure but I wouldn't make it a requirement ahead of other considerations.

I can set up something later if you're really interested since I own both 35-100s (f2.8 & f4-5.6) as well as a 75/1.8 and have access to a 14-140 (F3.5-5.6 mk I) and 56/1.4... I've actually been meaning to compare the two 35-100 & 75 vs some FF crops of my shorter FF primes, tho I keep reaching for the former since having them on a smaller (M4/3) second body is just so handy.

alcelc wrote:

Both are not good for selfie.

LCD of GX9 can flip up 90° only. Not for selfie.

LCD of GX8 is a fully articulated model, can be folded out facing the front. It can do selfie but it is not designed for the purpose.

The LCD of GX850 (a.k.a. GF9) or GF10 can flip 180° and face the front. They are designed for selfie. In fact they have a few selfie shooting mode which allows shooting on a selfie stick and control shooting remotely by weaving hand etc...

The countdown selfie timer (w/on screen indicator) of those smaller bodies is also kinda fun/useful tbh, although any body could be mounted on a selfie stick and shot remotely, it's just more of a kludge with larger bodies (and initiating the WiFi connection etc.).

I dunno if Oly has anything like that on the smaller E-PLs, the downward tilting display of the latter PENs always seemed kinda awkward to me but I guess it's manageable.

kcdogger wrote:

Pad-Thai-101 wrote:

Hello all,

I am thinking about moving from Sony FE system to m4/3 and plan to have 2 small bodies and small lenses for Traveling. Since I don’t like to switch lenses and want to travel light.

1. I plan to have an Olympus Pen-F, but it’s hard to find a used one on eBay and/or the E-P7 which I don’t think they sell in the USA. So I am thinking about an Olympus E-PL9 and an Panasonic GX9. Is it too confusing to have 2 different brands? I thought I lease I have the flip screen from E-PL9 and EVF from GX9.
2. One body might be paired with a Wide angle lens, still not sure what to get between Olympus 9-18mm or the preorder the Panasonic 9mm 1.7
3. Second body I'd like to Pair with Panasonic 20mm 1.7 which I like its small form factor. Hopefully I can detach the body and lens and put in different pants pockets if I want to.
4. This is my headache, what is a decent travel Telephoto lens. Thinking about Panasonic 45-200mm or 40-150mm (Pana/Oly) or any recommendation? I don't mind if it's slow, but prefer it small, light and sharp enough.
5. from no.5, should I even go with the Olympus macro 60mm or 75mm to cover the semi-telephoto range.

Sorry for my poor English and Thank you in advance

Pad-Thai

I suggest the 12-45 and the new 40-150 f4 along with a Panasonic 7-14 and a fast prime. Go for it! ......or the 12-100 for an all in one and the Panasonic 7-14 f4 (or the 8-18) and a fast prime.

Sounds okay, but the 8-25mm f4 and 40-150mm f4 would do about the same, but only two lenses. Plus, they're both weather sealed.

The gap between 25mm and 40mm is minimal. If I were going minimal, I'd do that, plus a fast prime for nighttime. With f4 , bumping the ISO and IBIS, you could probably get away with no dedicated low light lenses, just those two.

As for lens gaps, the 2 primes I always carry are the Voigtländer 17.5mm and 42.5mm. For me, it's preferable to have an obvious gap between lenses, rather one that's too close. I definitely know when I want to swap.

jeffharris wrote:

kcdogger wrote:

Pad-Thai-101 wrote:

Hello all,

I am thinking about moving from Sony FE system to m4/3 and plan to have 2 small bodies and small lenses for Traveling. Since I don’t like to switch lenses and want to travel light.

1. I plan to have an Olympus Pen-F, but it’s hard to find a used one on eBay and/or the E-P7 which I don’t think they sell in the USA. So I am thinking about an Olympus E-PL9 and an Panasonic GX9. Is it too confusing to have 2 different brands? I thought I lease I have the flip screen from E-PL9 and EVF from GX9.
2. One body might be paired with a Wide angle lens, still not sure what to get between Olympus 9-18mm or the preorder the Panasonic 9mm 1.7
3. Second body I'd like to Pair with Panasonic 20mm 1.7 which I like its small form factor. Hopefully I can detach the body and lens and put in different pants pockets if I want to.
4. This is my headache, what is a decent travel Telephoto lens. Thinking about Panasonic 45-200mm or 40-150mm (Pana/Oly) or any recommendation? I don't mind if it's slow, but prefer it small, light and sharp enough.
5. from no.5, should I even go with the Olympus macro 60mm or 75mm to cover the semi-telephoto range.

Sorry for my poor English and Thank you in advance

Pad-Thai

I suggest the 12-45 and the new 40-150 f4 along with a Panasonic 7-14 and a fast prime. Go for it! ......or the 12-100 for an all in one and the Panasonic 7-14 f4 (or the 8-18) and a fast prime.

Sounds okay, but the 8-25mm f4 and 40-150mm f4 would do about the same, but only two lenses. Plus, they're both weather sealed.

The gap between 25mm and 40mm is minimal. If I were going minimal, I'd do that, plus a fast prime for nighttime. With f4 , bumping the ISO and IBIS, you could probably get away with no dedicated low light lenses, just those two.

As for lens gaps, the 2 primes I always carry are the Voigtländer 17.5mm and 42.5mm. For me, it's preferable to have an obvious gap between lenses, rather one that's too close. I definitely know when I want to swap.

Those two lenses together are still 2 grands. I don't think the OP is prepared to spend that kind of money.

bluevellet wrote:

jeffharris wrote:

kcdogger wrote:

Pad-Thai-101 wrote:

Hello all,

I am thinking about moving from Sony FE system to m4/3 and plan to have 2 small bodies and small lenses for Traveling. Since I don’t like to switch lenses and want to travel light.

1. I plan to have an Olympus Pen-F, but it’s hard to find a used one on eBay and/or the E-P7 which I don’t think they sell in the USA. So I am thinking about an Olympus E-PL9 and an Panasonic GX9. Is it too confusing to have 2 different brands? I thought I lease I have the flip screen from E-PL9 and EVF from GX9.
2. One body might be paired with a Wide angle lens, still not sure what to get between Olympus 9-18mm or the preorder the Panasonic 9mm 1.7
3. Second body I'd like to Pair with Panasonic 20mm 1.7 which I like its small form factor. Hopefully I can detach the body and lens and put in different pants pockets if I want to.
4. This is my headache, what is a decent travel Telephoto lens. Thinking about Panasonic 45-200mm or 40-150mm (Pana/Oly) or any recommendation? I don't mind if it's slow, but prefer it small, light and sharp enough.
5. from no.5, should I even go with the Olympus macro 60mm or 75mm to cover the semi-telephoto range.

Sorry for my poor English and Thank you in advance

Pad-Thai

I suggest the 12-45 and the new 40-150 f4 along with a Panasonic 7-14 and a fast prime. Go for it! ......or the 12-100 for an all in one and the Panasonic 7-14 f4 (or the 8-18) and a fast prime.

Sounds okay, but the 8-25mm f4 and 40-150mm f4 would do about the same, but only two lenses. Plus, they're both weather sealed.

The gap between 25mm and 40mm is minimal. If I were going minimal, I'd do that, plus a fast prime for nighttime. With f4 , bumping the ISO and IBIS, you could probably get away with no dedicated low light lenses, just those two.

As for lens gaps, the 2 primes I always carry are the Voigtländer 17.5mm and 42.5mm. For me, it's preferable to have an obvious gap between lenses, rather one that's too close. I definitely know when I want to swap.

Those two lenses together are still 2 grands. I don't think the OP is prepared to spend that kind of money.

No, but it's fun to discuss and try to spend somebody else's money, too.

That 2 lens combo looks VERY compelling to me!

alcelc wrote:

Jacques Cornell wrote:

alcelc wrote:

Interesting finding.

As I don't have either 35~100 f/2.8 or the 35~100 f/4~5.6, hard to imagine how they compared to 14~140 (I hope you were talking about the f/3.5~5.6 mk-I or mk-II version).

Here's a test of the 14-140/3.5-5.6 MkI.

Panasonic 14-140/3.5-5.6 MkI on GX9, 92mm, f5.6, processed with DxO PhotoLab 5 Elite.

But I have the 45~150 f/4~5.6. Hence might I ask your opinion on the IQ of 45~150 vs 35~100 f/4~5.6?

I don't have, and have never had, the 45-150. I did have a 45-200 for a couple years. It was OK, but a bit soft beyond 150mm. Still, a very handy focal length range in a soda-can-size package that fits in a field coat pocket.

Thank you for the sample.

The sample of 14140 from GX9 is 20Mp, which it should be, but the two earlier samples of 35100 f/2.8 and f/4-5.6 from GX9 were 7200 x 5403 (38.9Mp) and 7200 x 5328 (38.4Mp) respectively. Had you resized those 2 samples?

Yes, sorry for the inconsistency. Here are versions of the two 35-100 images I posted earlier that have not been Super-Rezzed, interpolated and sharpened. These have simply been processed in DxO PhotoLab.

I produced the enhanced JPEGs so I could assess what final output would look like when prepped for a given print size (in this case 24"), since that is my ultimate goal and such enhancement can reduce the differences among lenses, bodies and formats at certain less-than-maximal print sizes. For example, at 24" the modest 12MP LX100 still puts up a good fight, but at 36" it falls far behind and a 42MP body starts to show a distinct advantage over a 20MP or 24MP body. I tested everything from a shirt-pocket LF1 to a 42MP a7RIII.

Panasonic 35-100/4.0-5.6 on GX9, f5.6, 90mm

Panasonic 35-100/2.8 on GX9, f5.6, 92mm

Finally, since Picture Information Extractor I used can't extract the shutter info from the EXIF of the shots, might I ask whether the 14140 shot was taken by m-shutter or e-shutter?

On GX85, I can still find trace of shutter shock of this lens on m-shutter throughout a very wide range of shutter speed. Therefore, I have to use e-shutter all the time for the sharpest result. As I noticed the sample is unexpectedly soft, might I rule out shutter shock?

Still remembered the reviews on GX1 & 14-42PZ in the old days and eventually realized shutter shock had affected the tests.

The following was an old testing of mine on various lenses I have:

The original scene:

Wide open of the lenses @32mm~45mm

Cropped to 360x360 and line up for comparison as below:

Wide open of various lenses @32mm~45mm

Best (IMHO) of various lenses @32mm~45mm

From the above, 14-140 indeed can hold up very well on the shorter range IMHO.

Another comparison for the long end around 140/150 among 14140, 45200 and 45150 as below:

The original scenery:

Cropping of the above for comparison:

IMHO 14140 indeed is better than the legendary stopping down for the best result of 45200 @f/8, also marginally better than 45150.

Hence I concluded that 14140 is an invaluable lenses I have on IQ and cost despite it is a 10x zoom.

A reason I have keen interest on your finding. Your info could fill up my gap of knowledge vs these two 35-100 lenses... Thank you again for your help.

Please and thank you in advance.

What'd you see with the LF1? I've still got mine and it's been gathering dust, never thought to compare it with my M4/3 gear let alone the FF stuff... It had a nice range tho, and an EVF (that a bunch of people would call unusable these days but I still got a lot of use out of it!)... I should bust it out just to see if the batteries haven't gone kaput.

Impulses wrote:

I don't think a lot of people actually do this tbh but I have and I've loved it... I'm still shooting my GX850 with the 42.5/1.7, 75/1.8, or 35-100 f2.8 right alongside my FF kit actually. When I was solely shooting M4/3 I really liked having an UWA on one body (originally the 9-18, then the PL9-18 because I'm an UWA nut, now a Tamron 17-28 on FF) and something like the 45/1.8 or 35-100 f4-5.6 on my other body, with the 20/1.7 always in my bag.

I adore the 75/1.8 and I actually think it's sharp enough that cropping it to match xx-100mm lenses will do fine in a pinch, but I do think it leaves too much of a gap further below the FL range for it to be the only complement to an UWA zoom or even to a normal-ish prime. The Sigma 56/1.4 would be the better choice if you really want a fast short tele prime that can covers lot of use cases.

The Pana 35-100 f4-5.6 may not have the range of some of the other teles btw but it's practically the same size as a prime, eg as small as the 9-18. No other tele zoom can really claim that. I find anything over 100mm to be less useful for everyday shooting (150mm feels like no man's land for me, not long enough for a lot of wildlife or really compressed landscapes), but YMMV.

I think 9-18* + 20/1.7 + 35-100 (or 56/1.4, or the 60/2.8 macro) would make for a heck of a trio in a very very compact package. *(or 9/1.7, but I think the zoom's versatility is key with this kinda kit) They're all small enough that you can have them on a second body and pull said body out quickly or have it hanging anywhere without it being obtrusive, eg I often hang my GX850 with the 75/1.8 off the side of my bag on a Peak Design Capture Clip.

I loved shooting Oly & Pana bodies btw but it can be confusing, Oly UI is a little trickier to get used to, but each has their strengths so once you get used to it their differences can actually be an advantage rather than a hindrance. I would consider just adding a small M4/3 body for the teles alongside your A7C tho, teles are where the biggest size/portability difference often lies.

The Samyang 18/2.8 is the size of the 9/1.7, granted there's no FF UWA as small as the 9-18 tho... Same for the 12-32 pancake. So if that's a big draw then go all in on M4/3, the 14-140 & 14-150 zooms are also hard to compete with size-wise and can be very handy for travel, those might pair better with the 9/1.7 than a tele zoom or even a normal prime would IMO. I love UWA as I said before so an UWA zoom tends to beat staple for me.

So am alternative trio would be something like 9/1.7 + 14-140 II + whatever, vs the earlier trio that has the advantage of being weather sealed while covering a wider range even better and you can still throw the 20/1.7 in and basically bounce between it and the 9/1.7 on your second body. The 14-140 focuses relatively close and you can augment that with a clip on achromat adapter like the Raynox DCR series.

Thank you, sometime too many good choices can be headache

Oly 9-18mm seems good enough for me, but the new Pana 9mm 1.7 is very tempted too. The semi-telephoto/telephoto can also go with many routes, or even all-in-one like 14-140mm.

Thank you for your help.

jeffharris wrote:

bluevellet wrote:

jeffharris wrote:

kcdogger wrote:

Pad-Thai-101 wrote:

Hello all,

I am thinking about moving from Sony FE system to m4/3 and plan to have 2 small bodies and small lenses for Traveling. Since I don’t like to switch lenses and want to travel light.

1. I plan to have an Olympus Pen-F, but it’s hard to find a used one on eBay and/or the E-P7 which I don’t think they sell in the USA. So I am thinking about an Olympus E-PL9 and an Panasonic GX9. Is it too confusing to have 2 different brands? I thought I lease I have the flip screen from E-PL9 and EVF from GX9.
2. One body might be paired with a Wide angle lens, still not sure what to get between Olympus 9-18mm or the preorder the Panasonic 9mm 1.7
3. Second body I'd like to Pair with Panasonic 20mm 1.7 which I like its small form factor. Hopefully I can detach the body and lens and put in different pants pockets if I want to.
4. This is my headache, what is a decent travel Telephoto lens. Thinking about Panasonic 45-200mm or 40-150mm (Pana/Oly) or any recommendation? I don't mind if it's slow, but prefer it small, light and sharp enough.
5. from no.5, should I even go with the Olympus macro 60mm or 75mm to cover the semi-telephoto range.

Sorry for my poor English and Thank you in advance

Pad-Thai

I suggest the 12-45 and the new 40-150 f4 along with a Panasonic 7-14 and a fast prime. Go for it! ......or the 12-100 for an all in one and the Panasonic 7-14 f4 (or the 8-18) and a fast prime.

Sounds okay, but the 8-25mm f4 and 40-150mm f4 would do about the same, but only two lenses. Plus, they're both weather sealed.

The gap between 25mm and 40mm is minimal. If I were going minimal, I'd do that, plus a fast prime for nighttime. With f4 , bumping the ISO and IBIS, you could probably get away with no dedicated low light lenses, just those two.

As for lens gaps, the 2 primes I always carry are the Voigtländer 17.5mm and 42.5mm. For me, it's preferable to have an obvious gap between lenses, rather one that's too close. I definitely know when I want to swap.

Those two lenses together are still 2 grands. I don't think the OP is prepared to spend that kind of money.

No, but it's fun to discuss and try to spend somebody else's money, too.

That 2 lens combo looks VERY compelling to me!

😀😀😀 If I choose one body, I'll pick 8-25mm, but it's seems a bit big for what I want. I used to travel with Voigtlander 15mm (on Sony A7 series) and Fuji X100 series which has 35mm (equivalent), seems the gap from 15-35mm is too large. So I'd learn sometime from my mistake 😀

Pad-Thai-101 wrote:

Impulses wrote:

I don't think a lot of people actually do this tbh but I have and I've loved it... I'm still shooting my GX850 with the 42.5/1.7, 75/1.8, or 35-100 f2.8 right alongside my FF kit actually. When I was solely shooting M4/3 I really liked having an UWA on one body (originally the 9-18, then the PL9-18 because I'm an UWA nut, now a Tamron 17-28 on FF) and something like the 45/1.8 or 35-100 f4-5.6 on my other body, with the 20/1.7 always in my bag.

I adore the 75/1.8 and I actually think it's sharp enough that cropping it to match xx-100mm lenses will do fine in a pinch, but I do think it leaves too much of a gap further below the FL range for it to be the only complement to an UWA zoom or even to a normal-ish prime. The Sigma 56/1.4 would be the better choice if you really want a fast short tele prime that can covers lot of use cases.

The Pana 35-100 f4-5.6 may not have the range of some of the other teles btw but it's practically the same size as a prime, eg as small as the 9-18. No other tele zoom can really claim that. I find anything over 100mm to be less useful for everyday shooting (150mm feels like no man's land for me, not long enough for a lot of wildlife or really compressed landscapes), but YMMV.

I think 9-18* + 20/1.7 + 35-100 (or 56/1.4, or the 60/2.8 macro) would make for a heck of a trio in a very very compact package. *(or 9/1.7, but I think the zoom's versatility is key with this kinda kit) They're all small enough that you can have them on a second body and pull said body out quickly or have it hanging anywhere without it being obtrusive, eg I often hang my GX850 with the 75/1.8 off the side of my bag on a Peak Design Capture Clip.

I loved shooting Oly & Pana bodies btw but it can be confusing, Oly UI is a little trickier to get used to, but each has their strengths so once you get used to it their differences can actually be an advantage rather than a hindrance. I would consider just adding a small M4/3 body for the teles alongside your A7C tho, teles are where the biggest size/portability difference often lies.

The Samyang 18/2.8 is the size of the 9/1.7, granted there's no FF UWA as small as the 9-18 tho... Same for the 12-32 pancake. So if that's a big draw then go all in on M4/3, the 14-140 & 14-150 zooms are also hard to compete with size-wise and can be very handy for travel, those might pair better with the 9/1.7 than a tele zoom or even a normal prime would IMO. I love UWA as I said before so an UWA zoom tends to beat staple for me.

So am alternative trio would be something like 9/1.7 + 14-140 II + whatever, vs the earlier trio that has the advantage of being weather sealed while covering a wider range even better and you can still throw the 20/1.7 in and basically bounce between it and the 9/1.7 on your second body. The 14-140 focuses relatively close and you can augment that with a clip on achromat adapter like the Raynox DCR series.

Thank you, sometime too many good choices can be headache

Oly 9-18mm seems good enough for me, but the new Pana 9mm 1.7 is very tempted too. The semi-telephoto/telephoto can also go with many routes, or even all-in-one like 14-140mm.

I think the 9/1.7 makes more sense if you have any interest in astro and/or if you only have a passing interest in UWA, so you'll grab it or mount it for the occasional shot and then go back to say the 14-140 (which is larger than the rest of the lenses in question but still relatively small). The 9-18 might make more sense if you want to explore UWA more often and/or don't mind the gap in between it and something like the 35-100... But with two bodies you can skin this cat (so to speak) in a lot more ways than most shooters.

The 9-18 was my first UWA and I really liked having that long end to fall back on when a shot just wasn't working at 9-10mm, this was before I started shooting with multiple bodies often... I think it makes it easier to come to grips with UWA tho. With multiple bodies you can just keep the 9/1.7 on the second and shoot away with the superzoom on the first tho. Having two bodies with the lenses mounted (specially smaller ones) opens up a lot of possibilities and makes it less stressful to pick what to shoot since you can keep two lenses ready.

Having a second body made me appreciate my M4/3 teles a ton more tbh, made me make more use out of them, and that's probably why I'm still reaching for them alongside FF stuff. I might've not bought the 75/1.8 at all if I didn't have a second small body to mount it on.

Pad-Thai-101 wrote:

😀😀😀 If I choose one body, I'll pick 8-25mm, but it's seems a bit big for what I want. I used to travel with Voigtlander 15mm (on Sony A7 series) and Fuji X100 series which has 35mm (equivalent), seems the gap from 15-35mm is too large. So I'd learn sometime from my mistake 😀

Would you swap lenses? If not, why consider an ILC system? IMHO the strength of ILC vs fixed lens compact is that we can enjoy the flexibility on using which lens for the job. e.g.:

• if I want to go light and compact, can mount a tiny pancake lens on it (20 f/1.7 or 12-32?) or/and carry an extra (35-100 f/4-5.6?),
• If for low lighting indoor gathering, I can mount a 15 or 20 f/1.7, or for the more pricey 25 f/1.4 etc,
• If for gardening, 12-35 f/2.8 or 12-40 f/2.8 + a 35 or 60 macro,
• If for travelling, I can carry an ultrawide + 14-140 + fast prime for simplicity,
• if for serious shooting, I can carry the 12-35 or 12-40 f/2.8 and 35-100 or 45-150 f/2.8 or 50-200 f/2.8-4 etc,
• if for BIF, I can use the 100-400s, 300 f/4 etc...

It is the major advantage on shooting with ILC over a fixed lens camera.

I support the idea of using 1+1 camera on travelling is to have a back up in case bad thing will happen to the main camera only. YMMV 

alcelc wrote:

Pad-Thai-101 wrote:

😀😀😀 If I choose one body, I'll pick 8-25mm, but it's seems a bit big for what I want. I used to travel with Voigtlander 15mm (on Sony A7 series) and Fuji X100 series which has 35mm (equivalent), seems the gap from 15-35mm is too large. So I'd learn sometime from my mistake 😀

Would you swap lenses? If not, why consider an ILC system? IMHO the strength of ILC vs fixed lens compact is that we can enjoy the flexibility on using which lens for the job. e.g.:

• if I want to go light and compact, can mount a tiny pancake lens on it (20 f/1.7 or 12-32?) or/and carry an extra (35-100 f/4-5.6?),
• If for low lighting indoor gathering, I can mount a 15 or 20 f/1.7, or for the more pricey 25 f/1.4 etc,
• If for gardening, 12-35 f/2.8 or 12-40 f/2.8 + a 35 or 60 macro,
• If for travelling, I can carry an ultrawide + 14-140 + fast prime for simplicity,
• if for serious shooting, I can carry the 12-35 or 12-40 f/2.8 and 35-100 or 45-150 f/2.8 or 50-200 f/2.8-4 etc,
• if for BIF, I can use the 100-400s, 300 f/4 etc...

It is the major advantage on shooting with ILC over a fixed lens camera.

I support the idea of using 1+1 camera on travelling is to have a back up in case bad thing will happen to the main camera only. YMMV

I will often carry two cameras, particularly when one is sporting a long lens like a 100-400 for wildlife. My second camera will be mounted with a lens suitable for wide or more general FOV. Not only is it more convenient not to have to switch lenses, but the second camera actually fits into a waist pouch where the 100-400  would not fit when dismounted. A little more weight perhaps but the second camera and lens will only weigh only about a pound…less if the second camera is my Lumix ZS100.

Here's some food for thought. These are not enhanced.

LF1, 53mm

LX100, 52mm

FZ1000, 52mm

GX9 & 12-32, 52mm

Obviously, performance may vary with focal length. Lemme know if you want more.

As said YMMV.

For me the best travel light was the Panny GX9 with the PL15mm 1.7 lens on one camera and the other with the 35-100 lens.  Worked out great but I have switched Canon M6MarkII which has 32.5mp sensor and very small lenses.   Great travel camera.

Hal