My Australian perspective . . .
We had a trip to New Zealand planned for 2020, and that would normally return some 10,000 images and a couple of hours of video. Cancelled :-(
I would have taken the E-M1 II plus 12-100mm for general landscape work and most of the videos.
The Canon 7D Mk II would have gone along for birding with the EF100-400mm II, or even the 300mm F2.8 II this time
And the Canon 5DIII (or IV) with 70-200mm F2.8, 24-105mm F4 and 16-35mm F2.8 for most of the landscape stuff.
It seems like a lot of gear, but we like to rent a 4x4 and drive around doing lots of photography in the mountains and river valleys, plus it’s only a 3.5 hr flight from Sydney and with extra carry-on allowance in Business Class it usually works out well.
But our Australian border has been closed for a year now. Staged vaccinations are starting next week, and I expect NZ will be doing theirs soon as well, so maybe this year but probably 2022, we’ll get back to NZ :-D
COVID has infected some 30,000 Australians and taken around 1000 lives, mainly elderly in care homes. Tragic numbers for us, but nothing near what Europe and the Americas have suffered.
Most of our major cites have been subjected to strict lockdowns (on and off) to control outbreaks - supported by the vast majority of Australians. That we now have community spread cases numbering in single digits per day (and mostly zero) tells me that our strict approach has worked very well.
We just need to improve bio security in our border quarantine processes to keep these new viral strains in better check, and then we should have an easy run though the long vaccination stages ahead.
Peter
