Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 does Costa Rica

Nice shots of your trip!

My trip to Costa Rica was it that nudged me towards m43. Realising that Nikon was never going to build a D400, and longing for the same build quality, I bought the em1 before my next roadtrip.

@trevor : it's safe to travel by yourselves. Just rent a car, and you can travel across the whole country. There are some places were you may need to ditch the car for a while ( like Torteguero ). Travelin out of season will safe you a lot money, you can stay for half the price in hotels.

These are just wonderful. I will go to Costa Rica next July and want to take an EM-1 and some standard, non-weathersealed lenses (Ply 9-18 and Oly 45,1,7 and 40-150 (cheap one). Do you think weathersealing really makes  a big difference in terms of lenses ? Of course the glass will be protected by a filter. But what can happen to a lens if it gets a little wet ? I understand that a body should be weatherproof but for the lens I cannot imagine what could happen in the mist/humidity. What do you think ? Is it really mandatory to bring weathersealed lenses ?

Kind regards,

Stefan

Decent pics, but as a 40-150 user, no surprises in your review.

What did surprise me is that you didn't make use of the 1.4 - since you clearly did a fair bit of closeup work, I would have thought this would have been useful, giving you either tighter framing or a more comfortable working distance. But perhaps the loss of a stop was prohibitive in the available light.

Stefandreas wrote:

These are just wonderful. I will go to Costa Rica next July and want to take an EM-1 and some standard, non-weathersealed lenses (Ply 9-18 and Oly 45,1,7 and 40-150 (cheap one). Do you think weathersealing really makes a big difference in terms of lenses ? Of course the glass will be protected by a filter. But what can happen to a lens if it gets a little wet ? I understand that a body should be weatherproof but for the lens I cannot imagine what could happen in the mist/humidity. What do you think ? Is it really mandatory to bring weathersealed lenses ?

Kind regards,

Stefan

TAKE A WEATHER SEALED LENS! It's said Costa Rica has two seasons, the wet season and the wetter season. Not only you're getting a weather sealed combo but also a 2.8 zoom which is crucial shooting in the rain forest.

Back to the OP: Nice shots especially in a difficult photography environment. I went to Costa Rica, Arenal last year in the wetter season and it was a very challenging shooting conditions. Next year I'm thinking of going to Madagascar.

C Sean wrote:

Stefandreas wrote:

Do you think weathersealing really makes a big difference in terms of lenses ? Of course the glass will be protected by a filter.

TAKE A WEATHER SEALED LENS! It's said Costa Rica has two seasons, the wet season and the wetter season. Not only you're getting a weather sealed combo but also a 2.8 zoom which is crucial shooting in the rain forest.

Agree!

You can get lucky, I only got caught in the rain a couple of times, but weather sealed equipment is very very useful!

tkelly11 wrote:

pocoloco wrote:

C Sean wrote:

Stefandreas wrote:

Do you think weathersealing really makes a big difference in terms of lenses ? Of course the glass will be protected by a filter.

TAKE A WEATHER SEALED LENS! It's said Costa Rica has two seasons, the wet season and the wetter season. Not only you're getting a weather sealed combo but also a 2.8 zoom which is crucial shooting in the rain forest.

Agree!

You can get lucky, I only got caught in the rain a couple of times, but weather sealed equipment is very very useful!

Agreed! There were enough times where it was absolutely pouring that it was nice to have a lens where you didnt have to worry too much. At one point I took my Nikon with 24-85mm which i don't believe is weathersealed and it is amazing how paranoid you get about how much water is hitting the lens! The other benefit is that with the rain, comes limited light so the 2.8 definitely helps!

I took with me my Panasonic Lieca 45mm 2.8 Macro lens and thanks to the rain I hardly used the lens. The only time I took the lens out of the safe when the group was visiting an animal rescue centre and i would highly recommend going to one while out there. The rain was so bad when the group went out into the forest for frog hunting, I didn't bring my 45mm due to the heavy downpour. Instead I had to use the 35-100mm 2.8 to get the shots. One lady decided to keep on shooting with her compact because she didn't realise my camera was weather sealed and she thought if I could shoot in the rain then so could she. It didn't take long for her camera to break and I kept putting the GH3 back under my rain coat to minmise the risk.

For anyone interested here is someone who shoot M43 in Costa Rica, Arenal.

http://www.eventbee.com/v/costaricaphotoworkshop

It shows what M43 is capable of in 'good weather.'

I went to Costa Rica, Arenal last October and while I going my photos to put online I came across my Costa Ricans which I haven't touch since October. Going through them I remember the problems I had but in general my photos were s***. Some of it down to difficult shooting conditions. However most of the blame need to be directed at me for random shooting and trying to get the shot.