Fall 2019 Road Trip Wrap Up; My Photo Gear; How Did It Work For Me? Should I Have Taken Different Gear?

Nubble Lighthouse, York Harbor, Maine (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II; 12-100mm f/4 Pro lens @ 12mm; 0.4 sec. @ f/9; ISO 200

The road trip is over.  It is always nice to be back home once again.  But after a week or so at home, I'm ready for another adventure!  I love traveling, exploring and discovering new places as well as meeting new people.  The reality is, however, I can't do it as often as I would like so I travel when I can.

So, did I take the right camera, lenses and accessories on this trip?  In hindsight, should I have taken something else?  Any regrets?  In this post, I talked about what gear I planned to take.  However, how well did the gear I take serve my photographic needs?

Pemaquid Lighthouse (click to enlarge)
12mm; 1/400th s3d. @ f/10; ISO 200

When planning for this extended road trip, I had the choice of taking a full frame Nikon Z7 mirrorless camera with over 47mp of resolution, more than 14 stops of dynamic range, clean high ISOs and a variety of sharp Nikon lenses—both old F Mount and new Z Mount.  The other alternative was to take my Olympus E-M1 Mark II, which has 20mp, a bit less dynamic range as well as a bit less flexibility when it comes to using very high ISOs.  

After carefully considering the kinds of light and subjects I was most likely to encounter, I chose the m4/3 kit as a) photography was not the main objective of the road trip, but secondary and b) since photography wasn't the main objective, I wanted to go as light and less bulky as possible but still retain versatility and very high image quality.  In other words, a small and lightweight kit would allow me to pick up my gear whenever I was out and not be tempted to leave it behind because of its size, bulk and weight.  Also, I wanted to preserve my ability to make large, sharp prints to display on a wall in our home if some images that I made were worthy of that.



Here is what gear I actually took:

-Olympus E-M1 Mark II 
-Panasonic G9 
-Olympus 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens 
-Panasonic 8-18mm f/2.8-4 lens 
-Olympus 17mm f/1.8 lens
-72mm 6X ND, 10X ND and Polarizing filters plus a step down ring for the 8-18
-4 extra Olympus batteries and 2 battery chargers
-battery charger for the G9
-Several SDXC UHSII memory cards
-A backup card reader to supplement the card reader in my laptop
-Several lens cloths, several packets of Zeiss Lens Wipes and a Giottos Rocket Blower

Finally, I took my 25 year old Gitzo Traveler medium sized carbon fiber tripod with my equally old Markins ball head.

All of the gear fits in an old Domke olive green canvas messenger bag (shown here) that I've had for about 25 years.  It is relatively small, made of lightweight canvas and doesn't attract attention.  I wore it with the strap across my my shoulders.

Oh!  At the last minute a friend of mine asked if I wanted to take along his Panasonic/Leica 100-400mm f/4-6.3 lens just to try it out.  Since, he also has the Olympus 300mm f/4 lens and he said he could spare it for a few weeks.  Really?  Sure, I'll try it.  Thank you George!

Now, the questions are:

Did this gear work for me?  

Absolutely.  I found the three lenses served all of my photographic purposes perfectly;  extreme wide angle to moderate telephoto to low light to close-up.  I would consider these lenses a perfect lightweight, high quality travel kit that can cover almost all normal travel photographic needs.

Canadian Pacific Railroad #2317 built in June, 1923 at Steamtown. (click to enlarge)
Panasonic 8-18mm f/2.8-4 @ 12mm; 1/13th sec. @ f/8; ISO 6400

What focal lengths did you actually use?  

The widest focal length I used was 8mm and the longest 100mm or the 35mm field of view equivalent of a 16mm to 200mm lens.  The Panasonic 8-18 along with the Olympus 12-100mm f/4 lens covered everything I wanted to photograph.  I didn't encounter a situation where I needed another lens.

(Note:  I did use my friend's Panasonic 100-400mm f/4-6.3 lens to photograph a Great Blue Heron watching a man fish from a dock.  I didn't need to use it for those images as I could just have walked a bit closer, but the road trip was almost over and I hadn't yet used the 100-400.  I had been looking to find a situation where I could use it, just to try it out.  I will say that the lens performed admirably.  It was easily hand holdable, the IS worked well and it wasn't too large or heave and produced very sharp images.  I would seriously consider buying this lens if I had a need for it.  But the fact remains, I really didn't actually need it on this trip.  (Going out to the Rocky Mountains would be another story.)

Presque Isle Lighthouse (click to enlarge)
21mm; 1/1000th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 200

Do I wish I would have taken a camera with a larger sensor?  

No.  The M4/3 gear served all of my needs perfectly.  I didn't find a single situation where a larger sensor or more pixels would have improved my results.  As I have written in the past, m4/3 is just fine for all but the extremes in photography.  I think the Nikon kit would have deterred me from taking a camera everywhere.  Although the camera is about the same size as my Olympus, the full frame lenses are larger and heavier.   Larger, heavier and bulkier is a deterrent from taking your gear with you at all times.

What is the highest ISO I needed to use?  

ISO 6400.  In fact, I made about 35 images at ISOs above 3200.  Using the high ISO did not cause me any concern or pose a problem.  

When you edited those ISO 6400 images, was noise a problem?  

Not at all.  I'll tell you my new secret.  The great equalizer where noise is concerned is the new Topaz Lab's plug-in AI DeNoise (AI Clear is a part of it and it, too, is amazing).  I find it amazing as I can shoot at ISO 6400, remove the objectionable noise but keep detail.  It now is the best noise reduction program I've found and I've tried and tested most of them (not all, however).  If you plan to check out AI DeNoise, check out Topaz Lab's AI Sharpen as well.  Another amazing plug-in.  I am not sponsored nor do I get anything free from Topaz.  I've just been a believer and user of their plug-ins for many years.  The new machine learning (I hesitate to say artificial intelligence despite the name) seems to bring a new level of capability to plug-ins.

61mm; 1/500th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 200

What about dynamic range?  Did the M4/3 gear cover those conditions where the dynamic range was extreme?  

Yes.  In several instances, when I thought the dynamic range of the scene before me exceeded the capability of the Olympus sensor, mainly strong backlit scenes, I engaged auto exposure bracketing.  

(The Olympus makes this extremely fast and easy.  I reached up, pushed the button on the top left of the camera, rotated the front main dial three clicks.  That puts the camera in my chosen setting of 3 exposures, 2 stops apart.  The camera also automatically goes into high speed frame advance so it takes about 1/3 second to fire off the three exposures.  Press the button once more, rotate the front dial back three clicks and you are back where you started.  It can't get any easier than that.  You don't even have to take your eye away from the viewfinder.)

Later when editing my images I found that even though I had that insurance policy of three bracketed exposures, I was able to choose one and edit that successfully.  The Olympus sensor and algorithms handled a single exposure just fine.  This was an unexpected revelation to me.

I can't think of anything more at this time except to say I made the right gear decisions and have no regrets nor think I should have brought something additional along.  If you have any other questions, please leave a comment and I'll reply.

After returning home, I sold the Panasonic G9.  (I bought it from a friend specifically for a backup camera for this trip.)  Don't get me wrong.  The G9 is one terrific camera.  I wanted to love it.  In fact, I loved its image quality and features, however, when I used it on the road trip I found its buttons, menus and features so different from what I'm used to with my Olympus gear, that I knew the camera and I just weren't going to get along.  Furthermore, I really don't want to take the time nor make the effort to learn another detailed camera and menu system.  I guess I might be a bit lazy but it is what it is.  I found the image quality as good if not better than my Olympus E-M1 Mark II and it has some features that the M1.2 doesn't have, which I thought were very attractive.  But....  So, on the EBay block it went.

Stonington Lobster Pots (click to enlarge)
70mm; 1/320th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200

Road Trip Stats

In reference to the road trip, we drove 4018 miles (6466 km) and visited 9 states plus 2 Canadian Provinces.  My road trip vehicle, a 2012 Honda Odyssey van (which I bought just for road trips and has turned out to be the best road trip vehicle I've ever owned!) averaged 28.9 miles per gallon (12.2 km/liter0).  The van is large, quiet, smooth riding and the fuel mileage is pretty good for its size.  The nice thing about the van is that I can transport 8 passengers when needed, easily sleep in it in an emergency and haul a lot of "stuff" in the back.  As I said, it is the best long road trip vehicle we've owned.  The van has over 100,000 miles, has only required routine maintenance and seems bulletproof.  Most of the 100,000 miles are "road" miles with the minority of miles in city driving.  I've driven it across the U.S. and back several times now and the only thing I wish it had was all-wheel drive.

What's Really Important? 

More importantly than the photo gear and images I made, my wife and I made some lifelong memories on this trip.  We met some really wonderful people, saw things we had never before seen and experienced places that will remain with us—and we ate some really good food!  For me, the highlight of the journey was holding the large moon rock.  That was so unexpected and amazing.  For my wife, she tells me that visiting the wide ranging lighthouses in Maine, Nova Scotia and Pennsylvania was her favorite part of our trip.  (I will be replacing three existing hanging prints in our home with lighthouse prints in the near future!)

That is about it for the Fall 2019 Road Trip series.  Again, if you have any questions about gear, places we've visited or otherwise, just leave a comment or go to my website where you can find my email address and email privately.

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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