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Tips: How to take the best travel pictures with the Olympus PEN E-PL8

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If you like to travel you will want to take along your Olympus PEN E-PL8 for some epic shots of the locations you will be visiting. In this article I will write about my tips on how to take the best travel pictures with the Olympus PEN E-PL8

Olympus PEN E-PL8 – A good travel camera

The Olympus PEN E-PL8 is indeed with it’s great performance and compact body and lenses also a really good travel camera.
While the Olympus PEN E-PL8 is already a great camera with the pancake lens, there is so much more that can be done with other lenses mounted to the Olympus PEN E-PL8.
Whether you need a lens for a landscape picture, or a close-up action shot there is a lens in the M.Zuiko range to turn your photos into amazing. Let’s look at some of my favorites and how they can enhance your photography experience while traveling.

Tips: How to take the best travel pictures – Landscape

Perfect to take that ultimate landscape picture or when there is a lot that you want to get into that picture use the M.Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm. For example, you want to show how big this tree is next to you. You could probably get this effect with a normal lens but the wide angle lens is perfect for that. This lens is also incredibly lightweight and compact, it won’t weigh down on your photography bag while on the road.

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Tips: How to take the best travel pictures with the pancake lens

The pancake lens is the basic lens that comes with the Olympus PEN E-PL8. It is perfect when you don’t want to carry any other lens.
Fun fact : I am using the Olympus PEN since a while. At the beginning I did not like the pancake lens that much and used it only on rare occasion. One day I saw a friend of mine was using mostly the pancake lens for all her pictures. I loved her pictures and I asked her a tip. She told me “use it on M (manual) mode and you will see”. I did so and now it is one of my favorite lens as well.

Indeed it is totally worth it to study your camera a bit and know what to change on M (manual) mode to take out of the most of the picture. I know it is quite intimidating, I was terrified to use my camera on manual at the beginning but all you have to do is start and take your time while setting the camera. While on other mode, the camera sets up something for you, on manual you decide on everything : the aperture (do you want a blurry background or not), the ISO (in a dark situation you will want to have a higher ISO), but also on the shutter speed that will allow you to see a movement or not in your picture. There are cool tutorials on youtube if you need more tips on how to take pictures on manual mode.

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Tips: How to take the best travel pictures with a zoom lens

It’s inevitable in any vacation that you are going to come across a situation where you will have to zoom in and get a clear image without sacrificing on image quality.
For this you will need more that the pancake or wide angle lens. You might need a zoom.

A good alternative to zoom are lenses with fixed length. Indeed the shorter the length, the closer you are to what you want to photography.
I don’t have a zoom, so when I want to get closer to a subject that is too far for my pancake or my other lenses I use either my 45mm or my 75mm lens.
Both are great lens for portrait and product photography but also for nature and wildlife. Indeed, it allows me to come closer to the subject I want to photography and in case of wildlife or people without intruding.
Both lens have an aperture of 1:1.8. Which is also an advantage of these fixed lenses instead of zoom as they allow one to photography in darker places but also to create some blurry background to focus on the subject.
If you need to zoom more, there are many lens in the M.Zuiko range that will be perfect. For example, if you go on a safari, etc. Just have a look at what is available.


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Videos with the Olympus PEN E-PL8

While traveling I always try to capture some moments on video so that I can do a souvenir film afterwards that I share with the people that traveled travelled with me.

Those kind of films are so fun to watch afterwards.
Just like with photos, the Olympus PEN E-PL8 allows you to adjust the white balance, ISO, choose your focus point and so on. If you want your movie to have some special effects you can choose from the Fourteen Art Filters to expand your creativity. You can have some fun with art filters like the pop art, the watercolour, the partial color filters or get really arty with the vintage, soft focus, pale and light color filters.
With the rise of short films on social media, the Olympus PEN E-PL8 created a new function called Movie Clips that allows you to shoot very short movies and put them together in a film directly on the camera. You can even add a music to your video! With no need of video editing software, just your camera, and your phone 🙂

Read my other articles about my Olympus camera :

Review of the Olympus PEN E-PL8 and review of the newest Olympus PEN E-PL9

Review of the Olympus PEN E-PL9 Advanced Photo Mode

Review of the accessories for the Olympus PEN : a wild leather camera bag and a leather camera bag and pouches for the lenses. 

Why the Olympus PEN is the best camera for fashion bloggers and tips to take outfit pictures.

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