Micro Four Thirds(GX7 GX8) and Travel Photography

Hi all, I want to share some pictures of my recent travel to New Zealand that were taken using MFT gear, specifically the Panasonic GX8 coupled with either Pan 12-35 2.8 or Pan 14-140 3.5-5.6 and Panasonic GX7 coupled with either Oly 9-18 4-5.6 or Pan 35-100 4-5.6.

This set of photos really made me appreciate my MFT gears as the perfect travel camera system. Years ago, I couldn't cover much with my Canon gear without bringing all the bulky heavy lenses which quickly occupy the 7kg + personal bag carry on limit quickly.

This time I can bring everything in my bag, including a YongNuo flash YN560IV with a set of transceivers as well as extra batteries for about 4kg if I stuff everything in the bag. However, I usually leave some lenses behind when I don't need them, so my bag is about 2-3kg most of the time, which isn't too bad.

Most of the time me and my friends were at the Southern Island, covering Christchurch, Queenstown, Mt Cook, Te Anau, Milford Sound. But we also spent some time on the North Island too, mostly on the city of Auckland.

All of the pictures were processed using Lightroom only, except the Milky Way picture, which was processed using Lightroom, Photoshop, and Nix Collection. Enjoy the pictures!

Lake Tekapo, GX7 with 9-18mm

Aoraki, GX8 and 14-140

My friend shot this picture of me, while I have another friend holding a flash on camera left to light me, Strobist style.

GX7 and Oly 9-18

Aoraki, GX7 and 9-18

Heli ride. GX7 and 9-18

Heli ride, GX8 and 14-140

GX7 and 9-18

Me posing, a friend took the shot while another friend held the flash, strobist style. GX8 and 14-140

Milky Way at Aoraki, GX7 and 9-18. Too much noise! Intense post processing was needed. I wish I had the Laowa 7.5mm when I photographed this picture but the lens didn't arrive here where I live at that time.

Clay Cliff, GX7 and 9-18

Me posing, a friend took the shot, and another friend held the flash. GX8 and 12-35

Queenstown, GX7 and 9-18

Queenstown, GX8 14-140

Queenstown, GX7 and 9-18

Skippers Canyon, GX7 9-18

Milford Sound cruise, strobist style(taken by a friend, while another friend held the flash), GX8 12-35

Milford Sound cruise

Mirror Lake(if not mistaken), GX7 9-18

Auckland, GX8 12-35

Hobbiton, GX7 and 9-18

Excellent images and good to see how many were captured with the little Oly 9-18.

Very nice Gary, and well composed.  Thank you for sharing them.

Yes, from the selection you showed, it seems you could have made the trip with just the GX7 and the 9-18 and saved some weight. I use this combo myself a lot and consider it one of the most versatile set-ups you can have. (If you can bear to sacrifice the wide end, the Panny 12-32 is even smaller.)

You have to play the percentages with travel gear and try not to take a large lens which you will maybe use 5% of the time.

Some excellent shots that make me want to go out with my 9-18mm more! Only the one shot of Hobbiton though? I'd like to see more from there!

Isacas, Ranlee, Brian, Blokeyknockers, thank you all for the kind words!

Yes, the Oly 9-18 played a huge role in capturing the landscape scenes during the trip. It was the one lens to rule them all in this case. However, there are many other photos that I did not share here that employed the 12-35 2.8, 14-140 and the 9-18. Here are the statistics:

The GX8 + 12-35/14-140 produced about 240 final results out of 1465 photos.

The GX7 + 9-18 produced about 112 final results out of 769 photos.

I had both cameras with me almost all the time except in the Northern Island where I only took the GX7 to the Hobbiton.

Blokeyknockers, I had a few more pictures from the Hobbiton but unfortunately some of them had very dull sky that I don't really like thus I didn't share. However, the Hobbiton tour was fantastic!

EDIT: Just for fun I want to add statistic of pictures taken with my phone too, LG V20.

The LG V20 with both its normal lens and wide lens produced about 54 final results out of 422 photos.

The 9-18 is a wonderful lens for how compact it is and for its focal length range.

However, I really hope Olympus will update it at some point with better optics and a constant f/4 aperture, even if that would cause a new version to be slightly larger.

LexMi,

I agree, the Olympus is a wonderful little lens that really needs an update.

However, I now have the Laowa 7.5mm though and will begin testing and torturing the Laowa rigorously on another travel soon. If the Laowa delivers the optical quality that I expect from it, the Oly 9-18 will be sold.

Awesome images.  Look like a great trip!

Hurtsme thank you,

Indeed it was a real nice trip with my friends. 12 days went by way too fast! I want to go back there again and spend more time around Queenstown area as well as Te Anau and explore more sceneries for more landscape pictures.

7.5mm is a bit too wide for me, but I do see how for some people this little Laowa lens might work as a full replacement for the Olympus 9-18. That's similar to what i did with my Fuji kit, where I have the Samyang 12mm as my small ultra wide lens, and then the 18-55, 55-200, 23 and 56 for everything else. In my Olympus kit I do have the Olympus 7-14, but I find it a bit too large. Who knows, might decide to give the Laowa a shot, or simply move to Panasonic and get their 7-14.

wiryawan wrote:

LexMi,

I agree, the Olympus is a wonderful little lens that really needs an update.

However, I now have the Laowa 7.5mm though and will begin testing and torturing the Laowa rigorously on another travel soon. If the Laowa delivers the optical quality that I expect from it, the Oly 9-18 will be sold.

I actually have the Pan 7-14 which I much prefer than the 9-18 because I love the wider FL and use it much more than the somewhat narrower 9mm. However, I stupidly didn't carry the 7-14 on the trip, I forgot to pack it in my bag, so I was left with the 9-18 which was supposed to only be a backup for the 7-14 haha. The 9-18 while was proven good for the trip, it was frequently not wide enough for what I want to capture.

I have the Laowa now, if at f/2.8 it creates images as sharp as the Pan 7-14 at f/4, then both the Pan 7-14 and Oly 9-18 will be sold.

Nice setup with the Fuji there LexMi, the Samyang at 12mm reminds me of an old Tokina 12-24mm f/4 for my crop Canon back then which at 12mm has a similar FOV with Oly 9-18. The Oly 7-14 was my dream lens until I saw the price tag and how big/heavy it was. Yeah definitely give the Pan 7-14 or Laowa or both a try, they might offer something that you may need.

LexMi wrote:

7.5mm is a bit too wide for me, but I do see how for some people this little Laowa lens might work as a full replacement for the Olympus 9-18. That's similar to what i did with my Fuji kit, where I have the Samyang 12mm as my small ultra wide lens, and then the 18-55, 55-200, 23 and 56 for everything else. In my Olympus kit I do have the Olympus 7-14, but I find it a bit too large. Who knows, might decide to give the Laowa a shot, or simply move to Panasonic and get their 7-14.

A very nice set of images.  Thank you for sharing these.

I have the GX-8, so it is good to see what this camera and its predecessor can do.

Nice set of photos.   I like the 9-18 lens.

Sorry to ask, but what is strobist? Software?

Regards,

Hung

Hi Roger, thank you for the kind comment. Yes, the GX7 and GX8 are so good that I don't see myself upgrading to any of the newer offerings from both Pana and Oly anytime soon. It's gotta be a few more years until something with a significant set of upgrades come out in the MFT(maybe a GX9 haha!)

Hung Low thank you for the comment. Strobist is some sort of technique where you use off camera flash(not on the hot shoe of the camera, hidden from the frame, triggered using either radio or wireless) to lit part of a scene in your photograph. The pictures where I mentioned strobist usually mean that there was a friend of mine holding a wireless flash aimed at me from an angle to give me some sort of lighting effect.

What happened during making the strobist pictures that I shared may look like this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWpdqckfR1o (thanks Bernie, if you ever read this post)

But instead of having a light-stand, I had a friend who held the flash for me.

Great pictures. I almost convinced myself that once I get a nice zoom that starts with 12mm, that would be wide enough for me.
After seeing your pictures, I feel like I definitely need to get something wider. Oly 9-18mm is bumped up in my watch list.

Ki Jin, thank you for the kind comment.

I have to confess that I am more of a wide-angle-ey kind of guy rather than a telephoto kind of guy. I found that I tend to gravitate towards shorter focal length whenever possible and only use normal FL(18 or 25 mm in MFT) when I have to.

That said, New Zealand provided me with these excellent sceneries that work best with my tendencies to employ wide angle lens. The 9-18mm performed fantastic during the trip, but there were times I wish I had something even shorter than 9mm.

Anyway, try to spend more time with 12mm and also borrow or rent the 9-18mm for some time before buying it or using it on a trip, and see if you can get comfortable with the 9-18. I rarely saw anybody during the trip that carries UWA lens on any format, most of the tourists that I met were using 24-70 equivalent or superzooms on their cameras, with the exception of one or two that brought a 70-200 equivalent, so you might be fine with your 12mm. Happy shooting

Great images the only real mistake you have made is not spending time on the West Coast of the SI thats where the real magic is

Pocoloco, Coasting, thank you for the kind words!

Coasting, that means I have an excuse to go for another NZ adventure in the future then! Haha