Camera half cases, why fit them?.

Hi eveyone,

I’ve come to like camera half cases as can be seen in my previous post fitted to my Olympus OM-D E-M5 II and PEN-F camera models. I now have three, shortly to be four, of them fitted to my various camera models. For one, they add some extra protection from bumps, knocks and scuffs to the camera body as well as having a pop fastening flap for the battery compartment which proved very useful on one occasion in particular when the battery door broke on one of my cameras and I feel that they also improve the grip on the camera somewhat. They do also add a nice bit of retro styling to the camera which I like but that’s not the principal reason why I chose to fit them. I’ve also added Tile lost and found QR Code labels to the bottom of the cases as there’s nowhere on the camera bodies to attach them to. One can pick up the faux-leather ones for most models of camera on the likes of Ebay etc. and they’re quite inexpensive as camera accessories go.

If one values one’s gear, and what photographer doesn’t?, I think that fitting these is a “no-brainer” as my American friends say. Bash one of these and you can throw it away and cheaply replace it. Bash your camera body and that’s a totally different proposition with the considerable expense, inconvenience and hassle of getting it fixed always assuming that one can with out of production camera models, there’s more than a strong probability that it wouldn’t be cost-effective. At best you’ll reduce any re-sale value, at the very worst it could be a write off.

Kind regards

Leigh

Horses for my courses.

September 29, 2024 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment and tagged camera, cameras, olympus, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I am constantly revising and giving a lot of thought to my gear choices, partly based on experience and, unfortunately, ever-increasingly as dictated by my physical health. Below are three of my current favourite Olympus camera and lens combinations and my personal rationale for each.

Firstly, for travel, of the three, the middle weight combination my Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mk II camera and M.Zuiko 14-150mm II “super zoom” lens. Both are weather sealed with an excellent all-round focal length range without weighing me down too much. I’ve taken this camera and lens on lengthier travels and, like my other Olympus gear, they’ve performed faultlessly.

Next the lightest of my chosen camera and lens combinations, great for shorter stays and days out where I want to travel as light as possible whilst retaining as much versatility and image quality as possible, my Olympus PEN E-PL8, electronic viewfinder and M.Zuiko 12-45mm PRO f/4 constant aperture lens. Weather-sealed lens but not camera body but you probably won’t be surprised to hear that I have a suitable rain cover. 🙂 This lens also has the useful added advantage of a very close focussing distance.

Lastly the heaviest of the three camera and lens combos my Olympus PEN-F camera and M.Zuiko 12-40mm PRO f/2.8 constant aperture lens, a lens which has achieved pretty much legendary status amongst Olympus Micro Four Thirds users. I’m a huge fan of this retro looking stylish camera with its 20MP sensor and the lens is the bigger and faster sibling to the 12-45mm lens and shares its build quality, weather sealing as well as having a manual-focus clutch mechanism and lens function button. Again, the body isn’t weather-sealed but I can use a rain cover if needs must. It was amongst the first MFT lenses that I bought and I used to use this lens a lot more on my travels but, although it remains a great lens, it is the heaviest of the three. Nowadays this combination is mostly reserved for “special occasions” and/or for when I feel I’m up to carrying the extra weight for any length of time.

Kind regards

Leigh

Adding a rubber lens hood to my M.Zuiko 12-45mm Pro lens.

April 18, 2024 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged Photography, reviews | 2 Comments

Fully Retracted

Fully extended

Hi,

I’ve had a couple of these screw on 58mm fit three-stage collapsible rubber lens hoods laying around for ages, so long in fact that I can’t remember what I bought them for. 🙂 I thought I’d try one with my M.Zuiko 12-45mm zoom lens. The advantages over the proprietary lens hood for me are two-fold. First it enables me to easily rotate the attached slim-fit CPL filter with a hood attached and secondly it works very well in conjunction with my camera rain cover which has an elasticated fitting at the lens end. I tested and, importantly, when fully collapsed, it doesn’t vignette at the wide angle end of the zoom range. Purely to save space in my bag whilst travelling I’ve left my Olympus hood attached in the reversed position at least temporarily, to act as a backup hood should I get any issues with the rubber hood. It won’t last forever but, at about £3-4 UK it’s cheap to replace when I need to and I already have a spare. I’ve tested it out on a couple of recent outings and it works well.

I paid about £17 UK new for this rain cover on Ebay a few years back. They’re made by a UK company that also make all sorts of rain covers for baby buggies etc.. So I thought they’d know more than a bit about keeping things dry and if they can keep someone’s baby dry from the rain then they can keep my “baby” dry 🙂 and it does so. It’s turned out to be the best I ever used, very quick to fit with an elasticated front end which stretches over the hood to fit and can’t slip off and a draw string at the camera body end. Roomy enough to take my longest lenses and very easy to turn a zoom ring through the fabric, sometimes the simplest things work the best. Having a weather-sealed camera and lens isn’t reason enough to get it soaking wet if one has the means to keep it dry. I regard camera weather-sealing a secondary line of defence against water ingress and not a primary one.

By-the-way the camera half-case, stylish as it is, isn’t there purely for cosmetic reasons. It adds a bit more grip and protection to the camera and, having had a broken latch on the hinged battery access cover in the past before I replaced it, the flap with side fastening popper holds the battery snuggly in place should it ever fail again. Lastly, the base of the camera has a push-fit rubber cover which covers the contacts for the optional grip when not fitted. Although not overly prone to doing so it cannot fall off and get lost with the half-case fitted.

Kind regards

Leigh

Rain Gear

April 11, 2024 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Photography and tagged backpacking, gear, Photography, rain, Travel | 2 Comments

Hi everyone,

Along with my self-confessed obsession with lightweight camera gear goes my, borderline paranoia about keeping everything, including myself, dry in inclement weather. Okay so I guess my motto could be “be prepared” although I was never a Scout which says considerably more about me than the Scouting movement, as Groucho Marx famously said “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member” 🙂 but, moving on. Rain protection is one of those things that you either have with you and the weather turns out beautiful and you’re stuck with carrying around all day or you trust to luck and leave at home and end up cursing having done so,

One doesn’t live in the UK without possessing at least one rainproof garment and, in my case, currently, three and last Winter and this Spring have been so wet it seems like it’s rained at some stage every day since about last October. Here comes the proverbial dilemma, unless it’s raining heavily when I set off I don’t want to be stuck wearing a bulky and, should the weather turn out to become nicer, uncomfortably hot rainproof jacket. Bare in mind that I’ll be on foot most of the time and therefore there’s nowhere else to store it but on my person or in my camera bag and, however small the compact pack-a-mac type things are they’re always somewhat bulky and hard to accommodate.

So here’s my solution, some while back I bought a pack of five of those disposable plastic rain ponchos. They’re sleeved with a draw string hood and elasticated cuffs so I don’t know why they describe them as ponchos. They certainly don’t bare the slightest resemblance to the kind worn by Clint Eastwood in the Spaghetti Western films. I can keep one of them in my camera bag along with my camera and bag rain covers and it doesn’t take up any appreciable space nor add any weight. That way I have everything with me to keep myself and my gear dry if caught out by the weather, The only downside is that they make one look like a real complete and utter prat but, when it comes to such things, I have no shame! and my trendy clothing days are, I’m sorry to say, well and truly behind me so I’d rather look like a dry prat than a drowned rat, 🙂

I love it when a plan comes together.

April 4, 2024 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged filters, Photography, reviews | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I’ve managed to solve a dilemma I’ve had for a while now. When I start thinking about travel landscapes, all that lovely blue Mediterranean water and skies and sunshine (whatever that is) :), bring it on! 🙂 I also start thinking about using one of my various CPL filters and just maybe occasionally an ND filter. What often deters me about using a CPL is that one has to tediously keep removing and re-fitting the lens hood on the go which doesn’t suit my walkabout style of working else it’s very fiddly as there’s not enough room inside the manufacturer’s lens hood to get one’s fingers in and turn it and even with my slimmest CPL filter it still vignettes at the 12mm (24mm equivalent) end of my zooms with the hood fitted. I’ve tried various after-market hoods to no avail and finally found one that works with my 12-60mm Lumix f/3.5-f/5.6 zoom lens which doesn’t cause vignetting at the 12mm end. As it turns out it was a humble metal screw in 58mm wide angle lens hood that I’ve had kicking around for years which I had somehow overlooked. This means I can leave my 58mm Marumi DHG Super CPL filter mounted and just turn the hood to adjust it, quick and effective, which was exactly what I wanted to achieve. 🙂 Trying to remember of course to turn it clockwise else it’ll be a case of “it came away in mi ‘and guvnor!” 🙂

Happy Days 🙂

Best wishes,

Leigh

Long time, no see.

March 28, 2024 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Corfu, Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged camera, cameras, lenses, Photography, Travel | 4 Comments

Hi everyone, hope you’re keeping well,

Well, it’s been quite a while since my last post. I just haven’t been able to get out and get any shots. Firstly my health hasn’t been that good, then there’s the weather which, with relatively few exceptions, seems like its been raining every day for months. We’ve also had and are still repeatedly having very high winds and we’ve had local flooding. I’m also reliant on public transport which is few and far between in this part of the World and financially it’s been a tough time. So, putting it all together, there have been very few days when I’m feeling up to it, the weather’s been sufficiently favourable and I’ve had the funds, usually one, the other, but rarely all at the same time. Notwithstanding all of this, we’ve booked a much-needed short holiday return visit to the beautiful Greek island of Corfu which we’re both very much looking forward to after last year’s disastrous week-long trip to Malaga Spain which saw me confined to our hotel room for days on end with a nasty bout of food poisoning resulting in very few opportunities to get any shots or, for that matter, do pretty much anything else.

Pontikonisi, Corfu – Olympus OM-D E-M1 I and M.Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8 lens.

Naturally my thoughts have recently turned to which gear to pack. I considered taking my smallest, lightest camera, my PEN E-PL8 but decided that, for a few extra ounces I’ll take my much-loved, much-travelled and much-trusted OM-D E-M5 II camera principally for it’s weather-sealing, faster maximum shutter speed (particularly useful in very bright conditions and when shooting HDR) and electronic shutter. The large eyepiece I fitted some years ago after my laser ops in both eyes that resulted in halos in bright light. Regarding lenses, I’m typically going to travel light with only two lenses, my Lumix 12-60mm f/3.5-f/5.6 (24mm to 120mm equivalent) weather-sealed lens for general shooting and my Lumix 20mm f/1.7 for low light/interior and evening use. Both of these lenses have great image quality and have travelled with me on several previous trips abroad as well as in the UK particularly my Lumix 12-60mm which has the useful bonus of extra telephoto reach, punches well above it’s cost and weight and is significantly lighter when compared to my other “standard” zooms. All of this along with a few small accessories: spare battery/s, rain cover, lens wipes and CPL filter in one of my very small Manfrotto camera bags, another of my best buys at £8.00 UK each. 🙂

I’ve only splashed out on one new item a new camera strap by Tarion (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0194X71JQ?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details) for which I paid the less than princely sum of £9.00 UK 🙂 seen here attached to my E-M5 II. The strap is pretty wide at approx. 1 3/4 inches, nicely made, it’s classic styling is esthetically pleasing and, most importantly of all, it should spread the weight and prove comfortable in usage. I’ve fitted my Peak Design type connectors and buckles to the strap enabling quick release. Worth noting that the strap does come with triangle rings which is a nice touch if one requires them. It’s funny how one’s tastes/needs in straps change over the years as one’s age, gear and physical condition changes, think neck and back pain 😦 . I did notice that they show a less secure method of attaching the strap than I’ve been using for years. For anyone wanting to adopt a more secure strap fastening method, if they don’t already, I suggest looking at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_paXysiGsxs&ab_channel=ShotKit I did contact their support and, to their credit, they responded quickly and positively,

I have so many different types of straps and for that matter camera bags, which have worked well for me at one time or another but not so now. I’m thinking I should have a stall in the local market selling used camera straps and bags. 🙂

Olympus OM-D E-M5 II camera, bottom-opening leather-like half case, Tarion strap, Panasonic Lumix 12-60mm and 20mm lenses. The 20mm has a 46mm to 58mm step up ring fitted to act as a lens hood and also allow my 58mm CPL filter to be fitted without adding very much bulk to a very small, compact, pancake design lens.

Take care, best wises,

Leigh

Camera accessories, you don’t have to pay a fortune

May 24, 2017 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged camera accessories, camera equipment, Photography | 1 Comment

hood

First off a lens hood for my M.Zuiko 12-40mm lens purchased from Amazon at £11.47 with free delivery. This lens actually comes with one for a change but the Olympus one costs a stagering £39.99 to replace!. The one I bought as shown above has the added advantage of having a small window that detaches to fascilitate turning a polariser filter. Over a period of time I have bought these after-market lens hoods for all of my lenses and the monetary saving has been considerable especially as nearly all my lenses are sold without an included lens hood.

Then there’s the lens cap for the same lens. I got a 62mm center-pinch one on e-bay for £0.99 with free delivery whereas the Olympus one costs an eye-watering £17.99!. Can you believe it?, it’s just a lens cap with a name on it!. In fact I always replace lens caps and camera straps with ones without the manufacture’s name emblazoned on them as a matter of course. Not because there’s anything radically wrong with them, although I have to say that I find the neoprene cushioned camera straps that I have are thinner and more comfortable to wear, but rather that I don’t like being an unpaid walking advert. The center-pinch caps are also much easier to remove and fit with a lens hood attached compared to the side-pinch types.

cap

Now for two more handy little items at bargain prices.

wrenches

A set of filter wrenches to fit 46-62mm filters. Not an essential item I grant you until you get two filters stuck together and they don’t take up any room or add any significant weight to my camera bag and at £3.22 inc. free delivery I could afford to splash out!

Then there’s these handy little battery storage boxes for my Olympus BLN-1 camera batteries, useful to keep them dry and protecting them from the risk of shorting in my camera bag or pocket. £1.99 each from e-bay with, yes, you’ve guessed it, free delivery 🙂 I also like to make sure that particularly when travelling by air with my gear there’s absolutely zero chance of battery contacts shorting out. Whilst on the subject of batteries I strongly object to paying £50 each for original batteries when there are much more reasonably priced after-market alternatives out there. I’d rather have five bateries that, from my experience, have just about the same performance for my £50. Additional: See this post for my self-adhesive battery charge indicator addition to these cases.

box

And last but not least I bought five neoprene lens cases from e-bay at £1.33 each, yes, you did read that right, £1.33 each!, with free delivery, heaven only knows what Olympus charge for their cases.

cases

Well not quite last 🙂 . Using a fraction of my savings on the above items I had a reckless rush of blood to my head and decided to really push the boat out and treat myself to –

filter pouch

A nifty neoprene dual compartment filter pouch thingy to hold my 25-77mm filters. Yes I know it was rash but at £4.33 from Amazon with gratis postage cost (note I didn’t say free delivery again , oh darn it I just did!) I simply couldn’t resist it. 🙂 . It’s also got a very handy hook clip on it. A word or two of advice, shop around on ebay and Amazon, you can generally find the same things on both sites but the prices can vary significantly. If you are happy waiting for postage from overseas eg. China on ebay then there are some good bargains to be found.

I’m not saying that items such as lens hoods, lens caps and pouches are of the exact same quality or design as the camera manufacture’s own items but, in my opinion, the savings are well worth it and from my experience none of the above items are shoddy, poorly made or designed. It’s not just the cost of buying it’s also the cost of replacing if lost or damaged. I for one would not be happy to loose or drop and damage £40’s worth of lens hood or £20’s worth of lens cap and I strongly suspect that you wouldn’t either.

So I bought one lens hood, one lens cap, one set of filter wrenches, five battery cases, five lens pouches and a filter pouch for less than the cost of the camera manufacture’s lens hood, makes you think doesn’t it. Oh, and, in case I didn’t mention it, all these came with free delivery. 🙂

Kind regards

leigh sig 2

Additional: If you’re looking for straps for your camera and/or camera bag I really like the straps by OP/TEC USA. I have two of their E-Z comfort straps on my cameras and an 0901312 S.O.S. Curve Strap on my camera bag. These straps are very comfortable and have a neoprene cushioned pad design which allows for a little stretch and moulds to one’s neck or shoulders and really helps to spread the load. I suffer from my neck and shoulder pain and these have helped a lot. I think that they’re also well built and pretty reasonably priced. Not the sexiest of accessories but, for me one of the most important ones and thoroughly worth it. All I want in a strap is that it is lightweight, strong and, above all, comfortable and these tick all the boxes for me.

optec1

optec2

The 0901312 strap as shown above with them fitted has detacheable clips which can be removed allowing the webbing to directly loop through D rings if preferred. I cannot overstate the value to me of this strap. The cushioned pad is large and quite wide and goes right over one’s shoulder. The camera straps are good when you have the camera around your neck but the camera bag strap ergonomics are more important as the bag is the thing that, in my case, has to be carried everywhere all day long with the combined weight of my gear and, like the camera strap the neoprene really does give good cushioning and spreads the load.

PS. I should just add that I have no association with the manufacturers of these items nor have I any axe to grind with Olympus, in fact I’m a huge fan of their gear. Other leading brands of camera manufacturer have just the same high pricing for their accessories.

New work: “Down by the riverside”

April 9, 2017 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in art, digital art, Fine Art, Photography and tagged art, Nature, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

My first new work for a while, a painterly view of the River Thames at Twickenham.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Kind regards

leigh sig 2

My competition entries – Voting deadline extended until 21st November.

November 3, 2016 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in art, digital art, Fine Art, photo, Photography, soft furnishings, Travel and tagged art, competition, Photography, photos, Travel | 2 Comments

Hi everyone hope you’re all keeping happy and well,

I’ve been a bit quiet recently and taking a short break. I’ve entered three of my works into a competition. I’d really appreciate it if you could spare a sec. to click on the photos below and like them on the Facebook like buttons on their website as it helps me with a chance in the competition or even better you might like to share the links and one of your friends might even like to buy one :).

I’ve never won anything in my life so maybe I’m in with a small chance in this one. One of my works did get shortlisted for the British Life Photography Awards earlier this year but that’s as far is it got.

Many thanks and kind regards

leigh sig 2

New work: “Low tide at Littlehampton”

August 29, 2016 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in digital art, Photography, Travel and tagged beach, Littlehampton, Monochrome, Photography | Leave a comment

Been very busy lately moving house. Seems like an age since I did a black and white work. The light on the beach was fantastic.

As I sit here looking at my modern digital cameras I’m reminded of my first camera and, in particular, the first photograph that I ever took. Nowadays we take cameras and camera technology pretty much for granted but when I was a child I can’t remember many photographs. The only time our camera saw the light of day, and it had to be the light of day, as there wasn’t a flash, was on a few family occasions, the usual thing, school sports days, birthdays, etc.. My interest in photography didn’t start until my grandfather “loaned” me his camera to take with me on a week-long school trip, sleeping under canvas, in Snowdonia, North Wales. It was a somewhat battered old twin-lens reflex camera in which one looked downwards in to the viewfinder when taking a photograph.

I remember being very excited at being entrusted with the family camera, film wasn’t cheap and I had very little to no idea how to use it. The experience must have made some kind of impression on me as, after all these years, I still remember taking my first photograph. The coach stopped en-route at Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill and it became the subject of my first photograph. Although, sadly, like my other photographs from the trip, it has long since disappeared, however, I really don’t need the photograph to remind me as the experience is indelibly etched on my mind. I wonder if this is perhaps where my interest in landscape photography stems from but that’s probably too much of an assumption. As far as I remember I was the only kid on the trip to have a camera, that’s how different things were, nowadays, just about everyone has a camera of some sort built in to their mobile phones. It also taught me to be disciplined to the point of being frugal when taking photographs as the trip was for one week and I only had a 12 exposure black and white film in the camera.

Some years later I really got the photography bug and bought my first camera, an Olympus OM-1 35 mm film camera and I went on to own their OM-2 and OM-4ti cameras and a range of lenses. Film was still pretty expensive considering I earned about £20 a week in my first job so I got in to developing and printing my own black and white and, later, colour films to help keep the costs down and make things more affordable. Not only did this experience teach me an awful lot about image-making start to finish, many of the techniques and skills that I learned in my makeshift darkroom, a small room adorned with genuine World War 2 blackout curtains fitted to keep out the light, another hand-me-down from my grandfather, these skills would re-surface and be invaluable some years later when I started working on processing my digital images.

I put myself through University as a mature student and I badly needed the money so I had to very reluctantly part with all my photographic equipment, but needs must. After I graduated I bought my first digital camera, a small fixed lens Kodak compact camera, reduced in a sale. It had, by today’s standards, a laughably small maximum image resolution of 640×480 pixels or, to put it another way, a stunning 0.4 Megapixels!. For all of this and further equipped with screw on wide angle and telephoto lens attachments, it proved to be a fabulous little camera which I took all over the place with me. Put simply, digital photography was a revelation, to me, no requirement for film, no real running costs and a lot of image capacity on a small memory card which I found absolutely liberating.

A few years before that I had discovered some free graphics editing software on the cover disk of a computer magazine and that started off my real passion for working with graphics and, ultimately, photo processing. So I then had all the tools I required to develop, pun intended and further, my interest in digital photography. Processing is where the magic starts for me, I am totally absorbed in and fascinated by the range of options that digital processing affords me. It encourages me, if, that is, I ever need encouragement, to constantly experiment with new styles, new techniques and is such an important part of my enjoyment and interest in photography.

I went on to own several DSLRs but, as I got older I began to find that they were simply too heavy and bulky. I switched over back in 2013 to Micro Four Thirds cameras and lenses. My choice of MFT system was heavily influenced by my experiences with my Olympus film cameras, maybe it was, in truth, part based on nostalgia that I decided on their OM-D system. As a landscape/travel photographer I have to carry my gear around all day and the weight and bulk saving is highly significant. I’ve been very impressed with the image quality of my Micro Four Thirds equipment, it has traveled with me extensively, never let me down and I have never had cause to question my decision to go over to that format.

So my 50-plus year photographic adventure has led me from twin-lens reflex and single-lens reflex film cameras to digital cameras, from stumbling around in a dimly-lit darkroom to working with my images on my computer. I’ve heard it said on occasions, including a comment I read some while back by a very famous photographer, that cameras being so much an every-day item now and available in mobile phones etc. devalues photography. I feel quite the opposite, I firmly believe that it empowers everyone with affordable technology to take photographs and enjoy photography and that, in my opinion, is fantastic. Although I’ve very much enjoyed my personal photographic journey I do confess to feeling a slight tinge of regret that the technology wasn’t available when I started out but one can’t put the clock back and I intend to keep on embracing all these great technological advancements, experimenting and enjoying my work.

Cameras:

Olympus: OM-D E-M5 Mk II (titanium) & HLD-8G grip, OM-D E-M1 Mk I (black) & HDL-7 grip, OM-D EM-5 Mk I (silver) & HDL-6 grip, PEN EPL-5, PEN EP-5 (silver) +VF-4, PEN E-PL8 (Silver) +VF4, Tough TG-5 (red), PEN-F (silver), Canon Powershot G10, Nikon Coolpix A100

Lenses:

Olympus: M.Zuiko: 12 mm f/2, 17 mm f/1.8, 25 mm f/1.8, 45 mm f/1.8, 30 mm f/3.5 macro, 9 mm f/8 body cap fisheye, 15 mm f/8 body cap, 9-18 mm, 12-50 mm, 12-40 mm f/2.8 PRO, 14-150 mm II, 40-150 mm II, 12-45mm f/4 PRO, MCON-P02.

Sigma: ART 60 mm f/2.8.

Samyang: Manual focus 7.5 mm f/3.5 fisheye.

TT Artisan: Manual focus 17mm f/1.4, 23mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.4.

Panasonic Lumix: 14 mm f/2.5, 20 mm f/1.7, 12-32 mm x2 (black and silver), 12-60 mm, 14-42 mm II, 35-100 mm, 45-150mm.

PEN E-P5, 9-18mm,12-32mm, 40-150mm II. A lightweight kit with virtually continuous coverage from 18mm wide angle to 300mm telephoto.

OM-D E-M1 I, 14-150mm II, 12-40mm PRO. . Heavier than my other kits but with complete weather-sealing. Coverage from 24mm wide angle to 300mm telephoto with some overlap for backup.

OM-D E-M5 II, 17mm, 35mm, 12-60mm. A balance of two fun manual focus lenses with a weather-sealed body and zoom lens.

PEN E-PL5, 9mm, 15mm, 25mm, 60mm, 12-50mm. Another lightweight fun kit with a zoom option.

TG-5, OM-D E-M5 mk1, 7.5mm, 12mm, 17mm, 45mm, 30mm macro. M-CON.

PEN-F, 14mm, 20mm, 12-32mm, 35-100mm. Probably my favourite lightweight day-to-day kit. Two fast primes and two zoom with almost continuous coverage from 24mm wide angle through to 200mm telephoto.

Software:

Corel: Paintshop Pro Elite 2020 & Video Studio 2019.

Skylum Software: Aurora HDR 2019, Luminar 4, Luminar AI and Luminar Neo.

DXO Labs: PhotoLab 5 Elite, Viewpoint 3, NIK Collection 6, Film Pack 5 and PureRAW.

Anthropics Technologies: Landscape Pro Studio 3 and Portrait Pro.

EyeQ: Perfectly Clear

Topaz Labs: Studio 2, Sharpen AI, A.I Gigapixel, AI Clear, AI Adjust, DeNoise AI and Various legacy plugins.

Adobe: Lightroom.

GreenScreenWizard Studio Pro.

Serif: Affinity Photo

Microsoft: Image Composite Editor (Free).

Darktable (Free).

Olympus: Olympus Capture, Olympus Workspace and Olympus Webcam (Free to Olympus owners).

Sony: Movie Studio Platinum.

Lighting Gear:

Godox TT350o flash, Godox X1T radio flash trigger, Godox Lux Junior flash, LED ring flash, GVM RGB LED light, Olympus MAL-1 Macro Arm Light. Two Godox LED36 lights, Godox Litemons LED6R light. Three Bowen studio flash heads, barndoors, honeycombes, umbrellas and flash meter.