On the road with two little cameras

Camera One:  Olympus Pen EP-1

Camera Two:  Apple iPhone, with a useful selection of photo apps

Additional Accessories:  spare juice (batteries and international charger), spare memory card, small carrying cases, lensbaby stuff

I left my big camera at home for my latest trip to the UK this spring.  I used only the equipment above, which is ever so much lighter and easier to travel with.  It also turns out that it was also a lot more fun.  I saved my working arm, from shoulder to fingertips, the pain of lugging around a camera heavy enough to be used as a lethal weapon.   I was able to take creative images on my iPhone using clever photography applications, and to upload them to the web immediately so that my friends and family had an ongoing, visual journal of my adventures.   

 

The image above was taken with my iPhone, using Hipstamatic (such a fun app!), and then instantly uploaded to Facebook (I had purchased a well priced international data plan before my trip, fortunately) , whereupon my friends in many time zones were able to share my delight in being out on my own in the late afternoon London sun.  I would have enjoyed being there with no technology in my hands, but it was even more fun knowing I could share my experiences on the road in this manner, and to receive feedback and delight in return.

 

Even from the top of the ruins of Ludlow Castle in Shropshire, England, I was able to fuse 5 images together in an automated panoramic application, crop it to size, and then upload it in mere moments for all the world to behold!  I find this quite thrilling.  When I began my lifelong interest in photography, and worked in darkrooms and scrimped and saved to buy film and developing equipment, I never could have imagined this complete transformation in the art.   Some folks still embrace the old ways, and I can understand that completely.  I however, have run into the digital photography world full tilt and have hardly looked back.  

The Olympus camera was chosen when I needed higher resolution and greater control.   I missed not being able to share the images immediately, I must say!  Maybe I'm hooked to that aspect of it, for now.  But I was also having great fun with the Pen, sometimes slipping away from manual shooting and utilizing some of its integrated creative settings, and I always use it shooting under more challenging lighting conditions, such as this early morning sunrise on May Day in Somerset.

After so many years of lugging around big bags full of lenses, batteries, rolls of film and more, I am very much enjoying traveling light, and being able to do so much.  I'm just fortunate, now that my knees and shoulders aren't what they used to be, to do so much, with so little.  

Nice!