I'm really enjoying the new lens. Well, both of the new Olympus lenses. In each category they are small and light while being first rate imaging tools. I kept the Panasonic GH5ii with the Olympus 12-45mm Pro lens on the passenger's seat of my amazingly wonderful Subaru Forester for my entire two day trip to Santa Fe a couple of weeks ago. If I saw something I liked I pulled off the two lane highway onto a wide shoulder and took the shot. The 12/45 is pretty much the perfect range for me when shooting casually. It's the Ff equiv. of a 24 - 90mm lens and that just about covers everything I want in a walk around lens.
It's sharp at its widest aperture and seems to handle diffraction well to at least f11. The increasing depth of field probably compensates psychologically for any loss of ultra fine detail...
It also makes for a small and light package which is low profile. And I think that becomes more important as cameras in general start to disappear entirely from most Americans public lives. The 12-45mm is on sale right now for chump change at most Olympus dealers. This week, at least, it's $100 bucks off the usual price. If I didn't have at the moment I'd probably go out and buy one.
Funny quick tale about my car. I traded a two year old Subaru Forester (also white) for the latest model at my dealer last year. I paid a very small difference to upgrade. When I got back from my road trip last week I idly looked up the value of my newer Forester. If I do the math I paid something like $26,000 total to own this one. But the new pricing on the used models at the dealer is now over $30,000 for a same model and year but with 15,000 more miles on it than mine. I can sell the car right now for more money that I paid for it brand new. I'd consider selling or trading again but, at least in Austin, there are very few new cars to choose from right now. Still, I think the ramp up in prices is weird, perplexing and hopefully transitory. Cars. So silly. Right?
Ah. Site seeing in West Texas. This is THE view for dozens and dozens and dozens of miles...
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As you undoubtedly noticed, Cline's Corners is essentially a large convenience store. However, it's at a junction of I-40 that sends cars north to Santa Fe and then Denver, etc., or west to Albuquerque (and on to Arizona and California.) So, there are "Cline's Corners" directional signs and mileage signs all over the place, on Interstates and other highways, as though it were a sizable city...when in fact it fits in a parking lot.
It reminds me of a New Mexican version of the old Stuckey's chain. Now being replaced by Buckees...
Greetings Kirk -
Glad you like the Olympus 12-45mm Pro lens. If I were to add another Olympus camera - say if they came out with a newer Pen-F version that fixes the flaws of the first version - the 12-45 would be a perfect companion to that kit.
Chris in Wisconsin
You've mentioned driving with a camera on the passenger seat several times. I used to do that quite a bit, until the time I had to do an emergency stop and my D700 catapulted into the dashboard. I wasn't all that worried about the camera (it was fine), but was a bit worried about the dash and windshield. Since that time I typically place my camera on the passenger floorboard folded into an old but fluffy towel for padding. The towel also conceals the camera if I need to leave the car without it.
There's a dearth of new cars due to the chip shortage (still going on). Hence the spike in used car prices.
Subaru Foresters are in a kind of weird state right now.
I bought a Forester in 2016 (Premium trim level including the Eyesight feature that can monitor your driving and traffic around you). Just for grins, the car I had before was a Honda Element, which I recall you had back in the day. Generally, all of us like the Forester, and my wife/adult daughter had problems with the Element.
A few months ago, we decided to get a car for my wife. When we first started looking around, my wife decided she liked the Forester and we went back to the closest Subaru dealer, and signed up for another Premium trim level Forester. We didn't even look at other car makers.
Unfortunately Subaru has been hit by the global chip shortage. I read that Subaru had to stop production for a few days of the Forester because they couldn't get the chips in. And Foresters are evidently only made in Japan. The Ascent, and the North America versions of the Outback, Legacy, and Impreza are built in Lafayette, Indiana. This means in addition to chip problems, it could also be problematical with global shipping.
So it was time for plan B. Instead of picking out the color trim and such that we wanted, we would buy the car off of the lot. However, due to the shortage, I had to go online to see what dealers had stock. In calling to the dealers, even cars that were on the ships were already listed as being potentially sold. We went to one dealer to find the one Forester Premium they had listed had been sold and the front office staff wasn't aware of this.
But we eventually found one Forester at the dealer with our trim level. We went to the dealer and somebody was test driving it when we got there. Fortunately, that person wasn't ready to buy. And after a small test drive, we bought the car immediately.
This is a long way of saying that right now, given the shortage of new Foresters, that the two year old Foresters have shot up in value.
I'm happy to hear of someone else using a new gear purchase to renegade their photography, rather than a tool to make their buddies feel inferior. I did the same, I'll relate my experience.
About 25-30 years ago, I was preparing for my third or fourth trip to Italy. I was suffering severe burnout in my freelance business, and I wanted to inject something into the upcoming trip. So I bought a Hasselblad xPan with normal and short Tele lenses. It was like discovering art photography for the first time. It gave me a new way of looking at things, and it was a pleasure to use.
Before a subsequent trip abroad, I got the 30mm WA, but didn't get the same result.
So doing this requires a bit more thought than just getting whatever the internet blather recommends. Thinking then moving is better than just being manipulated.
You're gonna' do what you're gonna' do and that's fine, but I'll just say that I recently flew across the country for a several day stay and then back and if I had to do it again, I'd drive. Yes, it's a miracle that you can get into a multi-ton thing and be 3,000 miles away in a day but everything about it, beginning with the on-line purchase of your ticket, is frustrating, humiliating, and uncomfortable in the highest degree. Maybe my problem is that I'm old enough to remember when flying was a pleasure, and if I got myself to the airport twenty minutes before departure, I had time to stop for a coffee on my way to the gate. Maybe my other problem is that I wasn't quite ready for the plane of mostly unmasked travelers and staff, the policy having changed just three days earlier.
Greg, I've been looking into various charters. Not practical financially for long trips but for jaunts to New Orleans or Santa Fe from Austin a two engine prop charter can be rationalized...if barely. If you were taking a small crew (say five other people) to Santa Fe and figuring $1250 per hour for the flight you are at $3750 each way. Divide by 6 and you get $625 per person which, if you consider not having to go through TSA lines, waiting to board, boarding with a multitude of some dicey passengers, and a repeat at the other end, it is not very hard to justify the cost.
Much cheaper even than business class tickets. I am so over flying commercial...
If you are in a hurry you can actually charter small jet aircraft for about $2400 to $3600 per flight hour. Obviously you'd want a payday that covers the cost. But if you had enough money in the bank and wanted to travel unimpeded by everyone else it's still tempting.
Yes to charters if someone else is willing to pay the bill. Then you have a different kind of photo opportunity than the highways offer.
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