If the sun happens to come out, both on the beaches and in the forest you will encounter lighting scenarios with a high dynamic range. This is the number one problem I encounter shooting in the forest on a sunny day. If you haven't practiced multiple exposure HDR recently it would be beneficial to review the process before your trip. Get it down to a habitual routine so you don't have to stop and think about it when you're on location. You're camera settings for HDR can be stored as an alternative configuration so you can quickly switch from HDR to you're normal shooting mode.

It really slows you down on location to have to fiddle with menus and settings. When the light is changing rapidly you don't want to be wasting minutes getting set up for a shot.

Kalaloch Beach 4 is also worth visiting. Back in the day I was shooting rock formations upclose wide-angle abstractions inspired by the work of Minor White. You could easily spend the whole day at one beach. But we didn't do that. A couple of hours at each and then move on. We didn't even go to the rain forest, been there already. Decades ago I chased cattle all day in the rain forest with Gary Peterson, the grandson of Mini Peterson who was one of the iron women of the Hoh, she ran a pack train up towards Mount Olympus. The cattle operation was shut down and replaced with a tourist trap call Peak six right next to Mini Peterson Park.

Some rock formations at Ruby Beach, not sure how the beaches or tagged now. It's been eons since I was out there. Shot some rolls of Tri-x at the numbered beaches back in the dark ages. The first two or three beaches at the north end of the strip we're worth visiting. Don't recall finding anything at the south end. I'm sure you already know this is tripod required shooting.

Have a mini rain forest right my neighborhood. On the brightest of bright days the light level is sufficient at ISO 400 to shoot hand held with my OMD-EM5. 3 to 4 stops worth of stabilization. This serious guys I see there are always toting Gitzo set ups, cost more than my camera.

There are many tiny rain forests what might referred to as a microclimates all around Puget Sound. For example, the trail to Little-Si where you pass through the lower area between MT SI and LITTLE SI. That space is very wet that looks very much like the Ho rain forest. Seahurst Park has several these microclimates. Very small and very wet. Cougar Mountain Coal Creek Area has a number of these. The network of trails can be accessed from Red town trailhead. Be sure to take a map. They used to hand them out at the trailhead noticeboard. I got lost in there once came out after dark 10 miles by road from my car.

What to wear on your feet? I wear Vasque Clarions but I don't recommend them for swamps. They are notoriously slippery on wet rocks and logs. Your boots are going to get wet. Places like REI sell some strap on devices inspired by crampons but not the same. Might be worth checking them out.

I agree with the above. Gray cards don't do anything useful in today's world. Assuming that you're camera has a decent histogram all you have to do to set exposure is open up until the highlights start blocking and back off a third or half stop. Color balance is very subjective. What lightroom considers a neutral color balance looks very blue to me and I never use it. I pay no attention to color balance when I'm shooting. It doesn't matter if I'm shooting under a cloudy sky with the camera set to tungsten.

40 years ago working at ProLab Seattle we would start the day by printing a Shirley on each enlarger. The color caller Dave who was also my supervisor would read the target patch on the Shirley tell us what to dial-in for our daily correction on each enlarger. Back in those days it made sense to have an accurate gray card when you were shooting. Back then expecting correct negatives from professional portrait photographers was wishful thinking. I think maybe 25% of the negatives we're correctly exposed. Some of our clients learned to shoot without light meters. I remember one studio who had total control over their lighting and every negative was perfectly exposed. I remember them because they were atypical of the general work that came in the door. On the other extreme was the studio which over exposed every negative a minimum of three stops. The other lab in the neighborhood Pacific Color would send suggestions back to the photographers about their exposure. Prolab did not do that. We printed what came in the door without comment. Pacific Color was the lab I used for my own work. The studio used half a dozen different labs. Maxed out credit at one lab and move to the next.

My infatuation with film photography was fairly short-lived. I started in summer of 1970 and by 1980 it was overwith. I have noticed in retrospect that my preoccupation with aquiring equipment increased toward the end. I was captivated by the fallacy that having one more telephoto would get me back to 1970-72. It didn't work. From 1980-2005 I didn't own a camera. Took not one photograph for 25 years.

In 2005 I started dabbling in postprocessing digital scans of transparencies from the film days. Having logged countless hours in the 70s working in studio darkrooms and ProLab in Seattle, I was captivated by the flexibility and potential of Photoshop. It was so painless by comparison to working in a darkroom.

Couple of years later found myself headed toward photo gear acquisition fever once again. It was mostly about lenses. I started pixel peeking and became preoccupied with optical performance. Unloaded my kit lenses and picked up two decent 4/3 Zuiko units. About the time I started shooting micro 4/3 a friend dumped all his 1970s Pentax gear on me. There are high-performance lenses made specifically for micro 4/3, I don't have even one of them. Every time I see someone selling the Zuiko 75mm f1.8 for half price, I mount up my Pentax 85mm f2 and take it out for some shooting. There's no comparison between these lenses. The Pentax is soft as melted butter at F2. I like it. Think of Sally Mann or Jack Spencer. You can get that look with post processing or you can get it with an old lens wide-open. The Post processing approach begins to look all the same after a while. Actual lens faults have a characteristic that's difficult to duplicate artificially.

I have an old friend Kathy Hastings[1] (fine art using photography as scrap, aka raw materials) who has made use of both the Lumix FZxxx cameras and Canon 5DMKII. For a number of years she was shooting exclusively with Lumix FZxxx cameras. After several years of continual badgered by myself and others she accepted a gift camera from a photographer who was updating his gear, the set up included 5DMKII with the two zooms used by every wedding photographer. It took her a while to used to the bulk and mass 5DMKII + 70-200 f2.8. Her finished work now measures up to 40 to 50 inches wide, which she never would've attempted using the the point-and-shoot camera.

I don't shoot anything but 4/3 and don't attempt to make my images look like they were taken with a 50mp FX. When I was shooting Tri-X in my Nikon in the early 70s I wasn't trying to compete with Ansel Adams. Back then I did studio work with 4x5" and 60mm roll film. 35mm film was a different medium with a different look. Recently I've been trying to reproduce the look of Kodak 35mm recording film 2475, I'm working with LR4 with ON1 Effects 10.5 b&w filters with an occasional sidetrip to the NiK B&W filters that Google is giving away.

Set your objectives upfront and choose the equipment that is suitable for your objectives.

[1]http://www.kathyhastings.com/kathyhastings.com/Waterlines.html

This is my first post. I've been shooting for over six years with vintage Pentax glass on Micro 4/3 bodies starting with the Panasonic G2 and now with the EM-5. The pixel density on the E-M5 is pretty extreme. I also shoot adapted Zuiko 4/3 lenses the 14-54mm f2.8-3.5, 50mm F2 MICRO, 50-200MM Ff2.8-3.5.

Several of my Pentax lenses are M42 mounts. The 50mm F1.8 once the default lens with the Pentax S1A. I suspect at this lens is one of the radioactive glass units. The Zuiko 4/3 lenses perform very well at all apertures. 50mm F2 MICRO, 50-200MM Ff2.8-3.5 are high grade lenses. I have done extensive testing comparing the Zuiko glass to the pentax primes.

Two of th 50/55mm Pentax lenses perform very well from F4-f8, beyond f8 diffraction is a problem on 4/3 sensors. The Pentax 50MM F2 that shipped with the K-1000 is the least desirable lens of that focal length. The Pentax 50MM F1.7 that shipped with the Super Program is superior to the F2, and slightly better than m42 55mm F1.8. All three are soft wide open which will be no surprise anyone who shot film with fast 50mm glass. The Zuiko 50mm F2 MICRO is much sharper in the the center and the corners at f2 then any of the vintage 50mm Pentax lenses. As you stop down the difference becomes less noticeable at f4-f5.6. Zuiko deals better what chromatic aberrations. I'm perfectly happy shooting in broad daylight with the Pentax 50mm f1.7 or 1.8. They're both lighter and smaller than Zuiko 50mm F2 MICRO. The Pentax glass is useful for soft portraits wide-open.

I also have Pentax-m 85mm, Super-Takumar 150mm f4, Pentax-m 200mm f4 Pentax telephotos. The Zuiko 50-200MM Ff2.8-3.5 outperformes everyone of them, there's no contest. However, the 85mm and 150mm are decent lenses at F5.6-F8. Pentax-m lenses we're not intended for professional use. They were light weight tourist glass intended to be mounted on ME-Super and K1000 bodies. Pentax-m 200mm f4 it is disappointing. I suspect the M42 Super-Takumar 200mm f4 would be much more satisfactory but I don't own one. It is difficult but possible to record tolerable images at F6.3 to f8. That lens stays in the closet. I prefer shooting with Super-Takumar 150mm f4 which is better wide-open than the 200mm at any aperture. The EM-5 stabilizes with all of the adaptable lenses. On the vintage class you need to specify the focal length.

The Pentax k mount 35mm f3.5 does not perform well on micro 4/3 bodies. I wouldn't recommend using that lense with that sensor. I tested it extensively but I could not produce acceptable results. The corner resolution was never acceptable any aperture. The resolution drops noticeably half way from the center to the corner at any aperture..

Focusing with adapted lenses it's fairly straightforward on the G2 & EM-5. It's actually a little bit easier with vintage glass because Zuiko 4/3 lenses are focus by wire which is pretty finicky by comparison to manual focus lenses. When you focus old lenses they remain focused between exposures. You can't count on that with focus by wire.