With this preference in the back of my mind, I selected the NEX with kit 16-50 to be my go-to setup for the vacation. I completely dismissed the thrashing this lens has received on the Internet.
I took the Olympus E-M5, too, and snapped on the reg43 70-300 for long shots. You will see in boat, yacht, and schooner images below why a reach of 300mm (600mm equivalent when mounted on an Olympus) is beneficial. The Olympus reg43 70-300 is a very useful lens, as it not only has a long reach but excellent close-up capabilities.
These pictures demonstrate the 70-300's flexibility. (I don't know if the same is true for the Olympus m43 75-300.) That being said, it is very slow and noisy to focus on the E-M5.
Olympus E-M5 with reg43 70-300
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| Coneflower shot at 149mm (298mm equiv.) |
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| Focus was on the eyes. Shot at 202mm (404mm equiv.) |
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| Crab spider stalking prey. 149mm (248mm equiv.) |
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| Shot at 158mm focal length (316mm equiv.) |
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| Shot at 300mm (600mm equiv.) |
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| Shot at 239mm (478mm equiv.) |
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| Shot at 239mm (478 equiv.) |
Sony NEX-6 with kit 16-50mm
As I wrote at the top of the post, the NEX-6 and kit lens was my go-to combo. Other than the few shots above with the Olympus, the NEX was used for all the usual travel and landscape stuff. I am very happy with the much maligned 16-50 E-mount zoom, though admittedly all but one or two will never be printed. To me, if just viewing on a HD TV or computer screen is all you are looking for, just about any lens made today will be sufficient.
The 16-50 turned out to be a perfect range 3x zoom for my travel needs. 25% of my images were taken fully zoomed in at 16mm (24mm-equiv) and 25% were taken fully zoomed out at 50mm (75mm-equiv). Everything else was spread out pretty equally throughout the range.
[If I could design a 5x zoom it would be a 16-80. Others might prefer a wider angle instead of more telephoto capabilities, but I think a little bit of extra reach (60-80mm range) would be good for all the candid portraits I like to do of my grandchildren. I am actually very excited about the newly announced (expensive) Zeiss 16-70 F4.]
Below are samples of the kind of compositions you get at 16mm (24mm equiv) and 50mm (75mm equivalent). Note that I tend to compose "loosely", which requires a bit of more exacting cropping in post-processing.
16mm (24mm equiv.)
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| Bass Harbor Lighthouse |
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| Castine, Maine Post Office |
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| Near Surrey, Maine |
50mm (75mm equiv.)
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| The 16-50 performs nicely for closeups at 50mm. Do you see the caterpillar camouflaged against the lichen on the rock? |
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