Fresh from our latest trip, I feel it wise to take stock of technical and technique changes and gear performance.
Cameras
The EM5 mk1 I took (my least favourite) failed during the trip. It was fine for the one outing it had but the next time i went to use it, I noticed banding i the image. Luck was in my side as i shot an unappreciated snap of my wife sitting next to me and noticed it before I went out to with only.
Turning it off and on again, the sensor (or power supply) showed definite signs of “pink line” failure.
This limited me to one camera and a heavy reliance on my 12-40 zoom, rather than my preferred 2 camera/2 prime style.
It and the 3 primes I took became dead weight for the rest of the trip.
The Em1 performed flawlessly.
There are a few things I would change;
it and the zoom were a little too big for my liking, drawing attention and just being bulkier than I like.
The ISO setting in Aperture priority (set low for quality) and Shutter priority (set to Auto for adaptability) cannot be set separately, which got annoying.
The camera suffered from slow buffering sometimes, with brand new fast cards, even taking as long as 20 seconds to buffer one file if i turned the camera on a shot immediately. This will have to be investigated, but is probably just a little compatibility issue and I was shooting RAW and LSF jpeg on two cards at the same time.
The spongy shutter button when fired by thumb, forced me to miss a couple of shots.
On the bright side, the image quality and hit to miss ratio was definitely higher than previous trips, so a win overall.
My bias towards flip up over flip out screens is also changing. The ability to shoot from a low angle in portrait orientation is a plus.
Lenses
The 12-40, a rush purchase before a Christmas trip to see family, paid for itself over and over. It became my “2 lens kit” usually hovering around the 18 and 40mm settings. The focussing may well be faster, or at least more accurate on the EM1 than the 17mm prime and it’s balance of sharpness and Bokeh are ideal.
So fast, it could capture fleeting moments as quickly as i could compose them.
The crappy little 40-150 kit tele got a disproportionate amount of use and took a series of images that will prove to be my favourites from this trip. Apart from the stiff zoom mechanism, (so stiff it actually created a little lens mount play over time) it never made me conscious or concerned about using it. In tandem with the 45mm prime for low light work, it was just right.
The primes all performed as expected, but were not used much. The heavy 75mm only got an outing at the end of the trip to justify taking it at all.
Other
The TT Turnstyle 10l was a revelation. It limited me to amount of gear I needed (especially when the EM5 died) and never felt cramped. I even managed to fit a large table top Manfrotto tripod into it.
When fully loaded, it felt comfortable down the middle of my back and when half empty, it seemed to disappear. Any bag over a couple of weeks can wear thin, even just the strap can get annoying, but this one was definitely the best I have used.
The mini tripod I took was only used twice. I found the EM1 with the inertia of the 12-40 lens was capable of pulling of plenty of 1/5th to 1/15th of a second images for suitable blurred water images.
This was with the tripod. Without, the blurring is not as silky, but is smooth enough to avoid the “caught in motion” look.
Apart from the slight fear i felt when facing the bulk of the trip with only one camera, all went well and i adapted to changing dynamic.