Agreed. They are my go-to store for upgrades. Returns are easy also. The upgrade is easy to do and they have many videos showing the process.

Best Information is here :

https://www.nps.gov/natr/index.htm

The local bees discovered my cactus flowers blooming. Olympus OMD E-M1 Mk II, M.Zuiko 40-150 f2.8 zoom, FL-900R flash.

Shot: 64mm, 1/60 f2.8 ISO 200 flash fired.

I also recommend the OM-1 MkII and any of the pro level lenses. That system weaned me away from 45 years of Nikon with the image quality and lack of weight. Excellent system with 20.4 megapixel sensor.

Olympus has recently uploaded a firmware update that added lots of goodies.

Olympus TG-6. Excellent quality that will exceed expectations and has RAW capability . I use it for underwater video and stills and it compliments my EM-1 Mk2.

I give it (the TG) to my wife when she wants to take travel photos when I am not around.

Olympus TG-6. Excellent quality that will exceed expectations and has RAW capability . I use it for underwater video and stills and it compliments my EM-1 Mk2.

I give it (the TG) to my wife when she wants to take travel photos when I am not around.

Some things to be aware of:

That area is so amazing that planning anything in a timeline is not going to survive the first stop. Photo ops are literally everywhere.

The crown situation depends on where you happen to be and varies greatly . The interesting thing to note is that the crowds are mostly unwilling to walk any great distances so if you hike out a bit you will discover wilderness without huge crowds.

Some safety considerations :

First and foremost, do not wander far off the marked trails without proper gear like a GPS, compass and maybe a topo map. It is very easy in many locations to get disoriented and totally lost unless you are paying close attention to navigation.

Second: you are in high dessert plateaus or canyons. Take lots of water if hiking. Invest in some Camelback or equivalent hydration packs if you intend to walk anywhere. Take more water than you think you will need. Dehydration is rapid and not noticed because of low humidity there. That can turn a nice day hike into a deadly situation quickly.

Cellphones will not have a signal in many areas there. Never rely on them for emergency calling in the wilderness areas . Satellite phones or emergency rescue beacons are the only reliable possibility of rescue.

Slot canyons have a unique danger most hikers are unaware of: thunderstorms in the area can cause instant flash floods that have killed hikers caught in the canyons without a way to get clear quickly. The storms may not be close to the hiking areas and the first warning is the wall of water rushing at you with frightening speed . Pay close attention to area weather forecasts anytime you plan on hiking into a slot canyon. If any doubt, stay out.

Finally : if you meet the age requirement (65) purchase one of the national park lifetime passes. Since you will be touring multiple national parks in the area you will save a bunch of money on admissions.

Have a great trip and stay safe out there 👌

Mike all the above suggestions are correct. It is a great trip we have made multiple times at different times of the year. Fall is amazing with the colors blazing.

Take the widest lens you have and a polar filter.

The one suggestion I would make is to book the first class car at the rear of the train. Accommodations are outstanding and you have access to the rear platform for photos. You will also have a more comfortable ride when the temperature is cold and no coal ash in the face.

It also makes the best location for great shots of the entire train during several curves which are also over bridges. At one point there is a bridge where they do a boiler blow down letting a lot of steam out. Great shot of the engine at that point.

I would also suggest doing the two way train ride because the light changes during the day and is totally different from early morning northbound trips.

Many years ago in Cakmakli, Turkey (west of Istanbul about 25 miles) one Saturday morning the Turk tank battalion based near us decided to do a practice battle outside and around our compound. I grabbed my trusty Nikon Ftn and climbed the 60 feet up the water tower inside our compound to take photos with my 50-300mm zoom lens. After about ten minutes I hear a vehicle below me and discover a Turk officer of some kind climbing up the tower.

I quickly realized he would likely grab the film, so rapidly rewound it and put it in my pocket, replacing it with an unexposed roll in the camera. The officer got to the top and essentially told me not to photograph the activity of his tanks as it was "secret". I "rewound" the unexposed film and handed it to him which satisfied him and off he went as I climbed down the water tower.

I often wonder what happened after he reported that he had retrieved the offending"secret" film to his superiors. Especially if someone actually developed those slides !

I have some really nice Ektachrome shots of WWII surplus Sherman tanks the Turks were using that day :)

Welcome to the group. I was a 45 year Nikon user that got seduced by the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mk II last year. What an amazing camera system with the Pro series lenses, some of which have the Lens image stabilizers which also communicate with the in-body image stabilizer and allow for amazing hand-held images in low light long-exposure situations.

As recommended above, before you purchase anything, rent what you are considering. I highly recommend the Olympus system as it is much smaller, very light weight and takes amazing images both still and video. I recently spent three weeks in Italy and Greece and carried the camera with the 7-14mm and 12-100mm pro series zoom lenses and covered 98% of all the situations I wanted to photograph. I did not regret leaving the 40-150 zoom at home. This is an amazing, lightweight camera system that will last you a very long time. All this from a 45 year (former) Nikon system user.

I’m still trying to fathom his statement that the aperture of my MFT Olympus pro lenses is not what M.Zuiko says they are... 🤔

One thing that bites all new owners of the M.Zuiko lenses is that manual focus/clutch ring which is easily accidentally disengaged by having been pulled backward to the manual focus position in the heat of quick photography . You wonder why the autofocus is not working, causing missed/out of focus frames.

How to disable the lens clutch ring function:

Manual focus ring setting =

GEAR WHEEL —>A3–>MF CLUTCH—> ENABLE/DISABLE

How to disable the lens clutch ring:

Manual focus ring =

GEAR WHEEL —>A3–>MF CLUTCH—> ENABLE/DISABLE

I am a 45 year Nikon user that got converted 2 years ago to the E-M1 Mk 2 . Wow what a difference in weight for travel use.

The MFT format loses nothing to my Nikon D7000 and is seriously more advanced with capabilities I am still learning even after two years.

I recently returned from 3 weeks in Italy and Greece and carried the M1, the 12-100 -and 7-14 M.Zuiko Pro lenses. Compact, great images and much less weight than my Nikons. Yes, I am a happy convert !

P.S. - I recently purchased a Olympus Tough TG-5 and the underwater housing for scuba dive photography . The system makes great images and when the camera is not in the housing makes a great pocket camera. Key for me is that it takes raw images as well as jpeg . Olympus put the IBIS system in this camera and it is as good as the M1. I love my Olympus camera systems !

Here is a quick reference I look at occasionally :


OLYMPUS CAMERA SETTING NOTES

BACK BUTTON FOCUS (it takes two settings to enable this)
————————————————
Menu —>gear wheel—>A1—>AEL/AFL——>(SAF/CAF/MF) —->Mode 3 IS BBF ON.
Part 2:
FUNCTION BUTTON ASSIGNMENT for BBF:
——————————-
OK—>gear wheel—->select Fn button —> scroll to set function.
*NOTE: AFL/AEL FUNCTION IS SECOND PART OF ENABLING BBF



BEEP DISABLE:
———————

Menu—>gear wheel—->D4–> speaker icon—>ON/OFF—->OK


Manual focus ring = gear wheel —>A3–>MF CLUTCH—> ENABLE/DISABLE


Lens Function button setup:


Go into the setup menu (cog symbol), sub-menu B (Button/Dial/Lever) and select the top item (Button Function). Scroll down until you get to the last option, which controls the function of the L-Fn button. Go into that and select what you'd like it to do. I have it set to AEL/AFL which in conjunction with AEL/AFL mode 3 means it acts as an AF-on button.