I will use m4/3 in Nepal

I will soon find out how well the m4/3 gear works for travel.  A couple of days ago I bought plane tickets to go to Nepal for a month and will leave on 11/6.  I hope the new gear meets expectations.  To get an idea of the size difference take a look at these 2 travel camera bags:




The small one on the left is the one that I expect to take with me to Nepal and the one on the right is the one I have been using for the last few years for several trips (Egypt, Guatemala, Vietnam, Mexico, etc.).  Several years ago it took me awhile of looking around for a camera bag that had sufficient interior space while not being overly big on the outside.  Most camera bags have way too much thick padding that I don't need for my uses that causes the bags to be very bulky.  I just want something that has a bit of padding and interior dividers to prevent lenses and bodies from knocking together.  Actually, I would like something more like that bag, but smaller, for my m4/3 travel bag but I haven't found one.  The one I have will work though.  It is the bag I bought in 2002 to use with my Minolta D7i.

I put the following in the bigger bag when I took it on travels:

Sony A700 + 2 batteries + charger
Sony 18-250mm f3.5-6.3 + UV filter + polarizer filter + lens hood
Sony 11-18mm f4.5-5.6 + UV filter + lens hood
Sigma 24mm f2.8 + UV filter + lens hood
Minolta 50mm f1.7 + UV filter
Sony F36AM flash + 4 AA nimh batteries
several CF memory cards
several SD memory cards
lens cleaning kit

I also carried the following separate from the camera bag:

Sony A100 + battery (backup body)
Canon A590IS digicam + 2 AA nimh batteries
AA nimh battery charger

This is what I expect to put in the bag for Nepal:

Olympus E-M5 + 3 batteries + charger
Olympus 14-150mm f4-5.6 + UV filter + polarizer filter + lens hood
Olympus 9-18mm f4-5.6 + UV filter + lens hood
Panasonic 14mm f2.5 + UV filter + lens hood
Panasonic 20mm f1.7 + UV filter
Olympus FL-300R flash + 2 nimh AAA batteries
several SD memory cards
lens cleaning kit

I will also carry the following separate from the camera bag:

Panasonic G3 + battery + charger (backup body)
Canon S95 digicam + battery + charger

You can see the size difference.  I would estimate that the new gear is about 1/3 the weight.  Of course, I don't carry the camera bag around with me when I am out and about.  I just carry a subset of the stuff with me.  This is also where the smaller/lighter gear will be nice since that subset of gear I have with me almost all the time.

B&W West Papua New Guinea photos

I have created a new B&W photo album of some of my photos from West Papua New Guinea that I took when I was trekking there in 1995. Please take a look if you are interested.

http://www.bakubo.com/Galleries%202/index.html

By the way, I have a trip report that I wrote in 1995 right after getting home from this most amazing trip:

http://www.bakubo.com/Irian%20Jaya/ij-report.htm

Digital is cheap compared to film

Not including various digicams, these are the digital cameras I have owned since 2002 (camera: buy date buy price, sell date sell price):

Minolta D7i: 2002/5 $1000, 2004/4 $400
Canon 300D: 2003/10 $900, 2006/5 $400 (should have sold it earlier for more money, but KM 7D was a lemon so kept this one too)
KM 7D: 2005/2 $1500, 2006/9 $1500 (2 KM 7D bodies, 1st an unfixable lemon, KM replaced, 2nd also an unfixable lemon, Sony finally gave me full refund)
Canon 30D: 2006/9 $1180, 2008/7 $650
Sony A100: 2007/1 $640, not sold, maybe unsellable?
Sony A700: 2008/2 $1230, not sold, maybe unsellable?
Canon 60D: 2010/11 $930, 2012/7 $670
Panasonic G3: 2012/4
Olympus E-M5: 2012/5

Except for KM and Sony my experience is that digital cameras are very cheap compared to film cameras. I buy them, use them, and then sell them. All my photos are pretty much free. I recall that in 1993 on a trip I used 100 rolls of 36-exposure slide film and the film + processing + taxes was about $1500 ($2392 in 2012 dollars). Also, think about how big/heavy 100 rolls of film is compared to a couple of SD cards!

Keeping all these digital files safe requires some effort and somehow I have lost a couple of dozen photos that I have taken since 2000, but most I still have. After I die though they will probably all disappear. Or maybe much earlier if I don't keep up with transferring them to new media. Oh well.

B&W Japan

I have made a new photo album called B&W Japan that has some of my black & white photos of Japan from 1985 to 2012. Please take a look if your are interested:

http://www.bakubo.com/Galleries%202/index.html

I have lived in Japan several times over the years and also have traveled there many times.