For the last two years, I’ve been traveling with my Nikon kit: the Z6III and/or Zf, along with various lenses. I love this stuff. It’s rugged, the focusing is awesome, and the low-light sensitivity is fantastic. But for Peru, I’m returning to my Olympus gear.

The last major trip I took with the Olympus gear was to Southeast Asia at the end of 2019, just before the pandemic hit. By 2023, when we were ready to start traveling again, Olympus got out of the camera business and sold it to a private equity firm, which rebranded it as “OM System”. “OM” is a reference to the product names that Olympus used for many years, with their SLR cameras from the mid-20th century named things like OM-1, OM-2, etc. OM System is reusing those monikers, and I bought a new digital OM-1 Mark II (1) last year.

The reason for using the OM kit this time is the nature of the trip. In particular, it’s the lens set required for Peru. For our trips to Portugal and Morocco, the midrange zoom and a small prime lens were all I needed, and I have great Nikon lenses for that.

For Peru, we’re going to be in cities, towns and villages; we’re going to be in the Andes and Machu Picchu where landscape will be the major picture opportunity, and on the Amazon River there’s a chance for some wildlife. So a combination of a midrange zoom and a telephoto zoom is called for.

The kit is as follows:

• OM System OM-1 Mark II – their flagship model
• Olympus OM-D EM-5 Mark III – a tiny camera, completely compatible with all the lenses and accessories for the OM-1
• Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO – a midrange zoom, with a field of view equivalent to a full frame camera focal length of 24-80mm
• OM System 40-150mm f/4 PRO – a telephoto zoom, with with a field of view equivalent to a full frame camera focal length of 80-200mm
• Olympus 17mm f/1.8 – a tiny prime lens, equivalent to a 35mm lens

The equivalence comes about because the sensor in these cameras is about 1/2 the linear length and width of a standard full frame camera, like my Nikons. While the OM-1 body is only a little bit smaller (but noticeably) than my Nikons bodies, the lenses are much smaller than lenses that would give you an equivalent point of view.

To the core equipment, I added a handful of batteries, a charger for the OM-1 batteries (although both bodies will charge their battery directly), some straps and cleaning supplies.

A pretty lightweight kit: excluding the bags, all the gear weighs just over 6 lbs. I can carry the OM-1 and both zooms with only a small sling bag, which is what I did on this trip.