[DPR] Ultimate travel kit - Thailand with Olympus' E-M1 II & 25mm prime lens
Introduction
When I travel, I always bring a dedicated camera with me. My preferred form of 'travel photography,' at least when taking pictures for myself, is to document my experiences and create a visual diary. I like to travel as light as I can while still being able to come back with results of decent quality (though a personal trip to Iceland with a D810 was a notable exception to the notion of traveling light).
So, what would I bring for a planned personal trip to Thailand? My D700's are solid but a bit bulky, and I'm not entirely sure how my original X100 would stand up to high humidity, beaches and possibly a rain shower or two (understatement of the year, as I'll get to in a bit). I considered the Nikon D500 or the Pentax K-3 II, but both are also fairly bulky, though I was still hoping to end up with a camera that had a larger sensor than the waterproof Nikon AW1.
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| My constant companion, based on a combination of size, speed and durability. |
It was settled, then. An informal travel experience with a Micro Four Thirds camera and a fixed, 50mm-equivalent lens to document the trip of a lifetime. What could possibly go wrong?
Full disclosure: This was a personal trip paid for entirely by myself. The choice to bring along an Olympus E-M1 II and lens was mine alone. I do wish to express gratitude to Olympus for allowing DPReview to hold on to our E-M1 II review sample, as well as my fellow staffers at DPReview for allowing me to borrow it for this trip.
All images processed and cropped to taste in a beta version of Adobe Camera Raw unless otherwise noted.
Living with your choices
When I told photo-nerd friends that I was going to Thailand with only an E-M1 II, they thought that was awesome. When I told them that I was going with only a 50mm equivalent lens, a sort of shade passed over their faces; a mixture of interest, bemusement and pity.
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| Wat Pho is also known as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, which measures 15 meters high and 46 meters long and resides in a confined space. This made using my 50mm equivalent lens...challenging. Straight out of camera JPEG cropped slightly to taste. ISO 400, 1/125 sec, F1.2. |
As anyone who shoots mostly prime lenses knows, familiarity with a focal length often allows you to 'see' pictures that will work before the camera is even to your eye. Given my unfamiliarity with the 50mm focal length, I found myself working a lot harder on my compositions than I anticipated.
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| I found that for general photography in Thailand, including landscapes and basic 'I was here' images, 50mm was difficult to adjust to. ISO 200, 1/1250 sec, F4. |
To state the exceedingly obvious, there are times to experiment with new gear and times to stick with what's familiar. It wasn't long into our time in Bangkok that I began to second-guess my decision to bring this single lens.
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| Sometimes, the 50mm field of view was an asset, allowing me some more working distance than I was used to. Other times, it was constricting. ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F2.8. |
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| Spongebob says, 'Buy me. You know you want to.' ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F2.8. |
But as we made our way from Bangkok to the Krabi province in southern Thailand, I had other things to worry about than my framing and compositions.
The rain
Shortly into our time in the Krabi province, southern Thailand was ravaged by unseasonably strong rain and winds (the rainy season is supposed to end in November). The result was large-scale flooding affecting around 700,000 people and resulting in dozens of lives lost.
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| The beginning of the storms roll in to Koh Phi Phi. 1/100 sec, ISO 6400, F4. |
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| Rain begins to fall on tourists and locals on Koh Phi Phi. ISO 640, 1/125 sec, F1.2. |
Though the rains did their part to keep me from taking as many photographs as I would have otherwise, the E-M1 II's purportedly extreme weather sealing meant that I was comfortable having the camera with me much of the time. So while I was taking fewer photographs, the point is that I was still taking them.
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| Flooding continued in the town of Krabi even after rains had ceased, forced multiple reroutings of traffic on and off Route 4 to the airport. ISO 1250, 1/125 sec, F1.2. |
The final region we visited in Thailand was Chiang Mai, in which we planned a visit to the Elephant Nature Park. Here, all elephants in residence are rescues and not subject to rides, tricks or shows. Instead, visitors are able to experience an elephant's life in a more natural, simple and tranquil setting.
As far as the relative simplicity of shooting with only a 50mm equivalent lens throughout my trip, it ended up being a positive experience despite my earlier hesitations. While my images weren't exactly how I had envisioned them, I found that wasn't a bad thing. Most importantly, I struggled a bit and found some enjoyment in the challenge of shooting different subject matter with a different selection of gear than I'm accustomed to. It might sound strange to challenge one's self on a 'vacation,' but I guess I'm a bit weird like that.
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| Forcing myself to work with the 50mm focal length was a challenge that often forced me to see scenes in front of me a little differently than I would with a wider lens. ISO 200, 1/1000 sec, F2. |
Samples Gallery
All images were shot in Raw + JPEG with a 3:2 crop as personal preference. Many of the edited Raws were differently cropped, and were produced using a beta version of Adobe Camera Raw. Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter / magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page).
We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing (in conjunction with this review), we do so in good faith, please don't abuse it. Unless otherwise noted images taken with no particular settings at full resolution.
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