Which country or countries are you visiting? I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, and one can definitely benefit from an ultra-wide in the many narrow streets. It all depends on your style, though.
I used to be an ultra-wide fanatic, and even used the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 on my Sony a7R V before I switched to OM System. When I look back at my images, I only like a few of them. Most ultra-wide images are not that interesting, unless it is of a huge, magnificient cathedral, or experimenting with perspective distortion in curved trees and buidlings, with prominent forgrounds.
Now a days, I al fine with 16mm equivalent in almost all situations. My style has changed, and I am much more into more standard and intimate details of landscapes and buildings. Furthermore, I lean more towards wildlife, both insects, birds and mammals, so I gravitate more towards telephoto lenses.
My kit for landscape and architecture consists of tje 8-25 and 40-150 f/4 lenses. They are both excellent for that, and f/4 is plenty bright for indoor architecture in 99% situations due to the incredible stabilisation of the OM cameras. I can easily go down to 1/2 s, and I have gotten quite consistent results down to 2 s.
All in all, if you consider using ultra-wide angle often, and pair it with the 40-150, I recommend the 8-25. If you only consider using it at times, and mostly indoors, I recommend the 9mm f/1.7, and just adding it to your kit at times. Both are incredible optically. As for astro, the 12-40 can do alright, but you will not get good astro results anywhere near the cities in Europe due to the light pollution.
Jul 21, 2026 at 04:58 AM
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