Hello! As many of you know, I've absolutely fallen in love with my Olympus OM-D mirrorless micro four-thirds camera system. I've been shooting with my full-frame Nikon D3S and the fast Nikon zooms and primes for years now, but the OM-D system has found a permanent place in my camera kit for travel, portraits, and family get-togethers.

People often ask me what a "nice" camera is that they should get (for a trip, honeymoon, etc), and I've typically referred them to something like the Nikon D3300 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens. Now that I've gotten into the Olympus system, I've never hesitated to recommend it as camera for photography enthusiasts. It's as simple or as complex as you want it to be, and makes for a great transition either "up" from a point-and-shoot, or as a lighter option for a pro who's accustomed to a heavier full-size digital SLR.

Last year I took a Fuji X100 to the Netherlands - this year I had my Olympus OM-D EM-5 for a similar trip. Last year I edited the raw photos in Lightroom at home - this year, I wanted to show off the amazing combination that the Olympus OM-D EM-5, an EyeFi Mobi SD card, and Google's Snapseed photo editing software (free for iOS and Android) are. All the photos below were shot in RAW+JPEG on the Olympus; the JPG was then transferred to my iPhone 5 via the EyeFi Mobi and EyeFi's app (also free for iOS and Android), and received a quick edit in Snapseed. (I did use Lightroom 5 to resize the images for the web, but didn't apply any sharpening).

Lenses used in the set below include the Olympus 12mm f/2, 17mm f/1.8, 25mm f/1.8, 45mm f/1.8, and 75mm f/1.8, as well as the Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 fisheye lens. I also had the new Olympus MCON-PO2 macro converter for some of the flower close-ups. I was really impressed with that nifty tool - it gives close-focus ability to any of my 12mm, 17mm, 25mm, or 45mm lenses, at a fraction of the cost of the 60mm f/2.8 macro (which is a pretty awesome lens that I still want to get).

Anyway... enjoy the photos. Hit me up in the comments if you have any questions.

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I recently had the opportunity to visit Holland/The Netherlands ("…then who are the Dutch?"). I wasn't too keen on lugging around my big heavy camera gear, so I borrowed a just-right-sized Fuji X100 for the trip. The lens has a fixed effective focal length of ~35mm, and you can choose from several shooting modes from full-auto to aperture-priority to full-manual. Most of the time I used aperture-priority with varying levels of EV compensation (-2 to +2). Another big win for the X100… it shoots in RAW (uncompressed) format and performs very well in low-light conditions.

I had just a couple minor gripes about the X100 ("OK/Menu" button size, menu navigation a bit clumsy, auto-focus unpredictable), but I understand the new X100S addresses most, if not all, of my concerns. At any rate, I got used to the camera pretty quickly, and by the end of my very brief adventure I felt like we were getting along pretty well.

Alright, enough text… time for photos. As you can see, the camera handles full sun and crazy fog very well. All the photos have been processed in Lightroom 4 (no Photoshop).

Afternoon and evening in Amsterdam - beautiful city!

A few days later I journeyed to Keukenhof, recognized as the world's largest flower garden. Problem was, the tulips were blooming late this year, so I got to tour a park filled with not-quite-bloomed tulips and a TON of fog. Oh, well... I still had a good time. I got some cool (if not kinda creepy) photos of the park that was, for all intents and purposes, devoid of tourists:

I don't really know how to conclude a gear review... maybe a score? 8/10, would recommend.

See ya!

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Amsterdam | TRAVEL

Exploring The Netherlands with the Fuji X100