Autumn Colours, Olympus OM-2N, 50mm f/1.4

A question many a photographer will encounter deep in the hobby is what gear to bring to a vacation? There are several schools of thought; a small mirrorless camera with a standard prime or an all-purpose zoom, one body with a two primes, two bodies with two primes.. the list goes on and on. I ended up instead on shooting film on an Olympus OM-2N & Olympus OM-1N with a 28/3.5 and 50/1.4 as my two primes for this vacation with a backup Sony A7R IV + 24/1.4 GM as a low light astro digital setup.

Making the decision to shoot film on a vacation to Finland and Sweden wasn't one taken lightly, however I had the urge to shoot and create memories on a tangible analog format, recalling back to the days of yore of family vacation photos shot on film.

Taking film (18 rolls of expired Fuji Superia X-Tra 400) through airports and getting it all hand checked was the next hurdle, fortunately I can confirm that Melbourne, Hong Kong, Helsinki, Rovaniemi and Stockholm airports had no issue with hand checking film to my relief.

Between the leaves, Olympus OM-2N, 50mm f/1.4

Walking around Finland and Sweden with a film camera in hand was a welcome change as the past few years I had only been using digital. For regular vacation photos taken at a slower pace, I found that I didnt miss much of the digital conveniences. The more notable 'limitation' was mostly using a 50mm prime for the entire trip. The creative limitation that is placed on just using primarily one focal length meant that I was becoming intimately familiar with the 50mm field of view. This resulted in the ability to pre-visualise the frames before even raising the SLR to the eye and I believe ultimately giving me more considered photos.

Chairs, Olympus OM-2N, 50mm f/1.4

Astrom, Olympus OM-2N, 50mm f/1.4