Seven Countries and 20,000 Captures Later…

2024 is rapidly coming to a close, and I really had some great opportunities for photography this year. I especially enjoyed getting to meet many of my clients as we traveled the world together!

January took me to San Diego, California for my annual Birds in Flight photo safari. We had great weather as we photographed pelicans, cormorants, and the local marine mammals. I used my Olympus OM-1 body and the Olympus 100-400mm f/5-6.3 lens and got plenty of keepers. It has an effective focal length range of 200-800mm in 35mm format. That’s plenty of reach!

In late February, I went with a group of friends to Cuba! I’ve always wanted to photograph Cuba, and it was an amazing trip. I grew up in Miami, and never imagined I’d actually visit Cuba. The colors, architecture, and especially the people there were amazing. Despite some challenges with the Cuban power grid, we came home with some incredible memories. I had a very simple kit with me in Cuba: The OM System OM-1 and the Olympus 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens. That lens is a 24-200mm FF equivalent and is simply tack-sharp all around.

In April, I went down to south Florida to lead a photo workshop at two of the most productive birding spots down there: Wakodahatchee and Green Cay wetlands. These spots are just full of birds and the perfect place to perfect your techniques for bird photography. I also managed to get my hands on the new OM System OM-1 Mark 2 camera body, which has some big improvements over the original model for bird and people photography. Again, I relied on the small but surprisingly good Olympus 100-400mm f/5-6.3 zoom lens here.

May brought me to the California redwoods and southern Oregon coast for a photo safari with my Image Doctors podcast co-host, Rick Walker. We had a great group, and photographed everything from sunbeams through the giant trees to the sea stacks along the coast. Plus we had the added bonus of encountering some big banana slugs in the wild! I’m taking a group to a different part of Oregon again in 2025 with Rick. I paired my OM-1 Mark 2 with the 12-100 f/4 PRO and the 8-25mm f/4 PRO (a 16-50mm FF equivalent, and quite versatile zoom range).

I then set off for South Dakota, where I led an infrared workshop in Badlands National Park and the surrounding areas. The badlands are a pretty surreal place to begin with, but capturing them in infrared is even more so! I also had the chance to try out my Kolari solid ND filters, which work with both the visible and infrared spectra. I picked up a used Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II body and had it converted to full-spectrum infrared, and I used Kolari Vision IR filters on the Olympus 14-150mm f/4.0-5.6 lens, a 28-300mm equivalent. I tested all of my Olympus/OM System lenses and found this one to be quite good in IR.

In June, I made a scouting trip to Long Island, NY, where I met up with a friend and we photographed the shorebirds on Nickerson Beach. What a great spot for birding it was! Every summer, oystercatchers, terns, and skimmers nest right on the sand, and it was incredibly cool to watch them and their chicks. I’ll be leading a photo workshop there in July of 2025!

Things took an international turn later this summer. In August, I was the co-leader of an intense photo safari in the Faroe Islands. Located in the north Atlantic roughly due North of Scotland, we photographed landscapes, sod houses, and of course, the ever-so photogenic Atlantic puffins. By this time, I’d added the OM System 150-400mm f/4.5 TC lens to my arsenal, and wow, is it killer. It’s ridiculously sharp, and has an incredible stabilization system which, when used on an OM-1 body, gives up to 8-stops of shake resistance! Moreover, it’s the equivalent of a 300-800mm (1000mm with TC) lens and weighs in at a “svelte” 4 lbs. Hand-holding this lens is a breeze! Side note: I didn’t miss lugging my old 600mm f/4 around and the monster Gitzo tripod it required at all. For the rest of the trip, I relied on the stellar 8-25mm f/4 and 12-100mm f/4 Olympus lenses, which gave me an effective 16-200mm range on the OM-1 Mk2.

As a side-trip, I spent a couple of nights in Reykjavik, Iceland on my way to the Faroes. I’ve put together an incredible 12-night Iceland Ring Road tour for September 2025 that should be epic!

September took me to Ireland. I started off in Northern Ireland visiting family, then took the train to Dublin to meet my clients for an 8-night private tour. We had our own driver and van, and we went everywhere from Dublin to the Cliffs of Moher and back. On this trip, I went really light. I paired my OM-1 Mk2 body with two TINY lenses: the Olympus 9-18mm f/4-5.6 and the Olympus 14-150mm f/4-5.6. While these lenses aren’t quite as good optically as some of the “pro” lenses I have, they are more than capable travel lenses (no complaints here) and weigh in at a combined… wait for it… 439 GRAMS (that’s just under 1 pound)! Those two lenses also have the benefit of working well in infrared, and I’d packed my IR-camera for that purpose.

Lastly, I flew to Panama City, Panama, where I met another wonderful group of clients in mid-October. After two days in Panama City, we flew to the town of Bocas del Toro on the Caribbean coast, just a few miles from the Costa Rican border. We were picked up at the airport where we were transferred by boat to the Tranquilo Bay Eco Adventure Lodge on Isla Bastimentos. Once we settled in, we immediately found migrating warblers, hummingbirds, and sloths right on the grounds! The highlight of the trip was a boat trip up a canal bordered by rainforest on either side. The OM-1 Mark 2 and 150-400mm lens were the perfect kit for that spot. We saw toucans, sloths, and even some poison dart frogs! For the tiny frogs, I used the Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro lens, a diminutive piece of kit that’s equivalent to a 120mm lens on full-frame bodies. Paired with a small Godox flash, I got some great shots of the colorful frogs. I’ve already secured a reservation to go back in October of 2025 (TBA).

Now that the year is just about over, I’m already looking forward to 2025. I’ve put together a photo gallery of my favorite shots from this year, and my 2025 workshops are starting to fill up.

Thanks again for visiting my site, and I hope to see you in person someday!