My husband and I would go on the trip of our lifetime, to the Antarctic, in december, and I went to photo training, bought books, took the camera on several vacations to prepare, and I was generally unhappy with the camera. Too heavy, to bulky, to difficult to understand for an old woman.
Then, on our first travel day, on our stop over in Buenos Aires, the backpack which contained the camera was stolen. I was devastated: all this training for nothing! How could I make pictures now? And secretly a bit relieved that I did not have to carry the camera.
On board of the cruise ship there was a Norwegian ships-photographer. I asked whether I could still join his photo excursions, while I only had a borrowed compact camera available to me now. He heard my story and he said that he had a brand new M5MK3, with the same 12-100 PRO lens, on loan from Olympus, which I could use during the 2 excursions I would like to attend. He himself had a M1Mk2, which he used for hiking in Norway, while clipped to the outside of his backpack. Then, in the evening, when the camera could be all dirty and wet, he would just put it under the shower to clean it.
A weight fell of, literally and figuratively. The camera is just so much lighter that it is OK to carry around and the functionality is the same, apart from things I do not need, such as 2 SD cards. The photographer learned me the tricks I needed for our excursion, and the best photo's I made were with this camera. Later he borrowed me an old Nikon because he needed the M5MK3 for his work. It was truly a great trip.
Back home it took me quite a while to convince the insurance company that I had not been reckless with the camera and that I deserved to be paid. When they did, I bought a M5MK3 with again a 12-100mm PRO lens. But with no trip to prepare for and the pandemic rolling over us, I was wondering whether I wanted to keep taking pictures at all. Maybe I could learn some more and get some idea's by looking at YouTube video's, I thought. and I certainly did! Thank you Rob Trek, I will buy you a coffee.
One of the few things we can do here in Holland during lock down is to bicycle around. For that the camera with the 12-100 PRO lens is rather heavy around my neck. I learned from the lens discussions that non-PRO lenses are also really good and that some are watersealed. Therefore I bought a watersealed 14-150 lens: half the weight and one third of the price! I am really happy to go out now with this combo and take pictures of the Dutch landscape.
I hope to learn more and thank you for reading.
P.S. My husband cannot imagine a day without soup! Maybe you can post some of your mothers recipe's?
Hendrica
