Early this morning I grabbed the camera gear and made the drive over to Ohiopyle state park for another of my half day hikes.  I was packing the E-M5 with a 12-50mm, 45-200m, 14mm, 20mm and 45mm.  For some extra light I brought along my newly acquired FL-300R and to block light I had an ND filter and a circular polarizer.  All of this went into the Domke F-5XB.   My Benro Travel Angel tripod went into it’s own bag slung over my shoulder.  Why am I telling you all about the gear I packed you ask?  Simply because I only used a single lens, the 12-50mm kit zoom.  Put the pitchforks away, I wanted to put it through its paces and see what it was capable of. The primes were for backup and the long telephoto was in case I saw some animals.  I learned a bit about this setup and definitely will make some changes next time I head out.  For now though, here are some pictures!

This guy was hanging out on a plant near my car and was the first picture I took.  I snapped the lens into the Macro position, put the FL-300R on the camera and fired a few off.  The first thing I learned today is that this lens can do a decent close up shot.  I won’t say Macro, since it’s not a true 1:1 ratio, but it’s good enough for my needs.

Moving on, I made a good pace to my first destination, Cascade Falls.  Of all the years I’ve been coming to Ohiopyle, I haven’t ever been there.  Thankfully, the area got dumped on the night before with rain, so the falls were flowing strong.

The Cascades were a great first place to shoot, but time was limited, so I had to move on.  Hiking back around the town, I ran into another insect.

Now this is a very heavy crop (almost 100%) of a dragonfly once again using the Macro functionality of the 12-50mm lens.  The detail is impressive considering I did this handheld and using a small on camera flash (FL-300R again).

No trip to Ohiopyle would be complete without stopping by the main falls right in town.  Here is the obligatory shot of that from this trip.

And the bridge for the biking trail.

That’s all the scenic pictures for now.  I mentioned something earlier about learning a few things, so here goes on that.

1. Domke shoulder bags are great for carrying gear around town, not so much for any serious hiking.  I need a sling bag with a tripod holder, which goes into learning factoid number 2…

2. Having a seperate shoulder bag for the tripod is a pain to deal with.

3. The 12-50mm really is a pretty good lens and very nice to have.

4. I need to work on my composition and post processing…

5. Using an ND filter and a circular polarizer that cost less than $10 each really is a bad idea and can cause some very odd color hue shifts (blue skies becoming almost purple).

That’s it for now, it’s late and I need some sleep.