My Photography Gear

I’m going to be writing about photography projects I’m giving myself and my progress with improving my photography, but first I figured I’d write a little bit about what gear I use.

As we all know, it’s not the gear that makes a photo great, but it’s still somewhat important. As you will see, I don’t have high-end gear, but what’s most important is that whatever gear you use, you learn to use it well, and learn best how to utilize its important features.

The Cameras

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II

The camera I am currently shooting with is the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II. The name alone could have been a full blog post. I bought this camera last summer, it replaced my Olympus OM-D E-M10, which was my first mirrorless camera. I fell in love with mirrorless after using Canon DSLRs for a number of years, for all the obvious reasons….the smaller size, the lighter weight, the more affordable lenses, but also the awesome looks! I really love the look of the Olympus cameras.

I didn’t have the E-M10 for too long before I upgraded to the E-M5 II. I’m very good at coming up with justifications for purchases. My main reason for the upgrade was that I wanted to eliminate one of my big excuses for not going out and taking pictures. Weather.

The E-M5 II is weatherproof, so no more saying to myself, it’s raining, or it might rain, or what if it does rain? Not to mention snow.

But, one important point, while the camera may be weather proof, the lenses I had for my E-M10 were not. So, I used the same justification, of course, to buy weatherproof lenses!

Olympus Tough TG-4

I bought this camera to replace my former rugged camera before going to Iceland, which was a Canon PowerShot D20. The TG-4 has numerous benefits over that camera, main one is that it shoots RAW images, I believe the only rugged camera that does.

Olympus Tough TG-Tracker

This is Olympus’s answer to the GoPro. Since I already have a lot of Olympus equipment, I figured I would go with their action cam, rather than a GoPro. One thing I like about this one compared to the GoPro cameras is that this one tracks a lot of data automatically, things like barometric pressure, temperature, and altitude. And there is a specific app which allows you to view all this information in real time while watching the footage.

Lenses

I had a couple of prime lenses that I used with my E-M10, but they aren’t weatherproof, so I rectified that by purchasing a few of the Olympus PRO lenses which are waterproof!

Olympus M.Zuiko 7-14mm f2.8 PRO

I bought this lens (along with the 40-150) specifically for my recent trip to Iceland. I had never really used an ultra wide angle lens, it takes a bit of getting used to with the exaggerated perspective. In addition to its obvious use for landscapes, I’m looking forward to using it on the streets, especially for architecture lookup shots.

Olympus M.Zuiko 12-40mm f2.8 PRO

This was my first ever weatherproof lens! It’s the most general-purpose lens, great for every day use, walking around, when I’m not really out shooting anything in particular.

Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 PRO

Another one of the lenses I purchased specifically for the Iceland trip I recently returned from. By far the largest lens I’ve ever owned, but still much smaller than its equivalent full frame counterpart.

Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f1.8

My favourite type of photography is street photography, and this is the lens I pretty much exclusively use for it. Assuming it’s not raining or snowing, of course.

Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm f1.8

Honestly, I’ve barely used this lens. It’s often described as a portrait lens, and I pretty much never do portrait photography. That is an area I would like to improve, so there will definitely be some portrait photography projects in my future!

Summary

So that’s my photo gear, and what will be used for most of the pictures I post here, unless I post an iPhone shot or any of my old photos taken before I got this camera.

What camera do you use? Did you make the switch from DLSR to mirrorless like I did?