Uncle Mike Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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Yes, there's a big difference between 9mm and 12mm.
The wider the angle, the harder it is to compose pictures. If you've never used a 18mm-equivalent focal length before, you should practice a lot before leaving for China. Ultra-wide-angle is not everybody's cup of tea. For casual travel photography, if you're not a serious photographer, 12-40mm is all you need. But there are serious travel photographers and photojournalists who like the UWA look and who use a UWA lens as their main lens.
Although FlyPenFly has trashed the 9-18mm image quality, (1) it's not clear to me that the 9-18mm is really any worse than similarly priced lenses from other manufacturers; and (2) I think it produces better image quality than any of the m43 kit lenses I've used, as well as the 17mm and 14mm prime lenses. I also find that it's almost as good wide open as it is stopped down from 9-14mm (although wide open isn't that wide open on an f/4-f/5.6 lens).
The 12-40mm is also a kit lens, but not one that I own, and I will give it the benefit of the doubt for being at an IQ level above all other m43 lenses.
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