We are not affiliated with Olympus but we recommend their equipment because:

1) It’s a micro four thirds system so it’s smaller, lighter and easier to pack than any other brand.

2) The batteries last all day. This means we don’t have to buy a bunch of extras or tote a bunch of extras which adds weight and volume to your pack.

3) We like sunrise, sunset and starry night photo opps but we don’t like carrying a tripod. The Olympus starry night feature (in the more expensive models) works well for us and eliminates the need to carry a tripod.

4) Other brands may have more megapixels but then that means you need more memory cards and extra storage space to shoot and then store the images.

5) When you factor in the cheaper lenses (because there’s less glass), fewer batteries, fewer memory cards and storage devices, Olympus becomes the brand we recommend for long-term investment.

We understand that some think it’s blasphemous to travel without a tripod. But everyone has their preferences.

After 20 years of traveling with professional photographers, we can say that we’ve seen truly amazing images come from phones and crap cameras and truly terrible images come from top-of-the-line gear. It’s all about the light and the eye of the photographer. Also about the lenses you use and Olympus makes great lenses.

We most certainly marvel over perfect, tact sharp images photographers spend 5 hours creating. If you want to take a photography workshop that specializes in that kind of fine art, we can recommend several. That’s not what Focused Escapes are. We’re half way in between a real photography workshop and a travel writing tour that stops at all the coolest spots. For us, the ease and fun of gear that packs well, travels well and is fun/easy to use, outweighs the benefit of carrying a bunch of heavier gear.

Here’s exactly what we recommend if you’re in the market for something new…

Click here to go to our Amazon page where there are descriptions next to our favorite things.