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2 lens or 3 lens fast prime choice for travel

  
 
offtraildog
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p.1 #1 · 2 lens or 3 lens fast prime choice for travel


Curious what others have used for their fast primes when shooting in darker settings like churches, museums and in the evening.

I am just capturing memories vs creating fine art. Will be in a variety of Eastern European cities famous for architecture, old buildings, narrow streets, etc.

I bought the OM5.2 to downsize my travel kit and will leave my OM1.2 and Pen-F at home. My daytime lenses will be: 9/1.7, 12-45/4, 35-100/4-5.6 (I have the 12-32 and 12-40/2.8 II but I prefer the 12-45 for travel - best blend of focal length and size)

My other two fast primes are the PL 15/1.7 and the OM 20/1.4

My thought is I could take either:

1) the 9/1.7 and 20/1.4
Not sure I need to be so concerned about covering every focal length and the simplicity of using the 20/1.4 for just about everything except those UWA shots inside places like a church is appealing. Plus the benefit of a slightly faster lens. As much as I don’t like having to process images thru OMW, I could use HHHR with the 9 and 20 if I need more focal length.

OR

2) the 9/1.7, 15/1.7 and get the OM25/1.8 … I am not trying to justify another lens

With a 1.5x crop still yielding a 4k image (viewing is on our Apple devices & OLED TVs), the 9/15/25 gives me
9mm = crop to 13mm (18 to 26)
15mm = crop to 23mm (30 to 46)
25mm = crop to 37mm (50 to 74)

Very little missed focal length and each of these lens is small on the camera. I imagine I would primary be using the 15







Jul 28, 2025 at 04:27 PM
Frogfish
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p.1 #2 · 2 lens or 3 lens fast prime choice for travel


As you know, since I'm retired, I do a LOT of travelling (in Asia and Europe) and in the last 18 months since I bought into M43 we've been to Istanbul, Capadoccia, Budapest, Vienna, Lisbon, Porto, Shanghai, Wenzhou, Labrang Monastery, Lanzhou, Furong, Fenghuang, Kyoto, Tokyo, London, Belgium, a ton of small villages/towns in China, and earlier this month Puglia, Italy. Plus plenty of small towns in and around those places.

My standard M43 kit for those trips was / or would be now since I didn't have the full kit for all of them :
Laowa 6mm (superb for church, mosque and country house interiors), Laowa 10mm, OM 12-40/2.8, OM 20/1.4 Pro and OM 45/1.2 Pro. If I have space or requirement then I'll take the 40-150/2.8 too (but I only used it a handful of times on the trip this month to Puglia / Matera.

I have both the DJI 15mm and OM 25/1.2 PRO but don't use them (selling both).

Most used in order : 12-40 (guessing 65% of shots), 6mm (15%), 20mm (10%), 45mm (5%) and a few shots each for the 10mm (this is low as generally I use this lens) and 40-150 (in Matera for both the city and bird Ids).

I'd take your 9/1.7, 20/1.4, 12-45/4 and 35-100/4-5.6 (and I'd buy the Laowa 6mm as the 9mm isn't wide enough) !

From memory (because some of these are from Snapseed which strips away the EXIF):

45/1.2






12-40






20/1.4






6mm






6mm






12-40






45/1.2







Jul 28, 2025 at 05:52 PM
offtraildog
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p.1 #3 · 2 lens or 3 lens fast prime choice for travel


Thanks for the suggestions and images Kevin.

This trip the primary cities will be Krakow, Budapest, Vienna and Prague with lots of small villages in Poland and Slovakia. We always fly through Amsterdam and spend the evening both ways.

I’ll have to consider the Laowa 6.
Is there a reason you like the Laowa 10 vs the PL 9.



Jul 28, 2025 at 07:38 PM
Frogfish
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p.1 #4 · 2 lens or 3 lens fast prime choice for travel




offtraildog wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions and images Kevin.

This trip the primary cities will be Krakow, Budapest, Vienna and Prague with lots of small villages in Poland and Slovakia. We always fly through Amsterdam and spend the evening both ways.

I’ll have to consider the Laowa 6.
Is there a reason you like the Laowa 10 vs the PL 9.

Yes. I live in China and it's much cheaper to buy the Laowa 10mm there than in the West! Also fabulous sunstars from f2.8

I've never used the PL 9mm.



Jul 28, 2025 at 07:53 PM
offtraildog
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p.1 #5 · 2 lens or 3 lens fast prime choice for travel


I have been missing my FF Voitglanders that have great sunstars at night. I’ll have to buy the 10mm. I don’t need AF@9mm. I went to their site and they show/mention the 10 point stars for both the 6 and 10mm

Do you know if computational features like Live Composite and Live ND work with the Laowa 10 and 6?



Jul 28, 2025 at 09:26 PM
 


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BLLX
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p.1 #6 · 2 lens or 3 lens fast prime choice for travel


If I had your lenses I think I would choose 9+20 - I could do most of my shots with that combo.

Traveling ultra light I would probably bring my 6/2, 15/1.7 and 45/1.8 and a close-up filter



Jul 29, 2025 at 03:57 AM
Frogfish
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p.1 #7 · 2 lens or 3 lens fast prime choice for travel


offtraildog wrote:
I have been missing my FF Voitglanders that have great sunstars at night. I’ll have to buy the 10mm. I don’t need AF@9mm. I went to their site and they show/mention the 10 point stars for both the 6 and 10mm

Do you know if computational features like Live Composite and Live ND work with the Laowa 10 and 6?


Yes they do. Both the Live Composite and Live ND - I haven't tried the Grad ND with the 6mm). These shots in the IG link were all taken with the 6mm (note it says Long Exposure but it was Live Composite - the vast majority of people wouldn't understand that term)!

https://www.instagram.com/p/DENcXCiMOVy/?img_index=2&igsh=eWlibXh1cnRheGZ2



Jul 29, 2025 at 04:43 AM
offtraildog
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p.1 #8 · 2 lens or 3 lens fast prime choice for travel


Frogfish wrote:
Yes they do. Both the Live Composite and Live ND - I haven't tried the Grad ND with the 6mm). These shots in the IG link were all taken with the 6mm (note it says Long Exposure but it was Live Composite - the vast majority of people wouldn't understand that term)!

https://www.instagram.com/p/DENcXCiMOVy/?img_index=2&igsh=eWlibXh1cnRheGZ2


Thanks. really like the tree image



Jul 29, 2025 at 08:29 AM
snegron7
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p.1 #9 · 2 lens or 3 lens fast prime choice for travel


A few months ago I took my OM-5 with Panasonic 9mm f1.7 and 12-35mm f2.8 on a week-long trip to Madrid. It was my first time using the 9mm. Here's a link to the images (sooc):

https://www.flickr.com/gp/195506119@N07/P2LBjC58k5

The pictures look bland, muddy, etc., because I wanted to show how the lens performed BEFORE/WITHOUT and editing.

It was raining the entire week I was there, so changing lenses was a bit of a challenge. After experimenting with the 9mm a bit, I switched over to my trusty 12-35mm f2.8 for the remainder of the trip.



Jul 31, 2025 at 07:26 PM







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