Sizing it up

Wildlife photographer Rob Cottle uses a hastily arranged trip to Japan as a perfect opportunity to test out the Olympus OM-D E-M1X

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An email landed on my electronic doorstep. A quick peruse woke me from my morning malaise and a moment’s paralysis almost made the Rich Tea stay in my mug too long (only almost, I hasten to add). It read ‘can you go to Japan within the month?’ Blimey! Being brought up to be well-mannered, I thought I better had. The commission was to photograph and write about Eastern Hokkaido’s National Parks in the summer. Hokkaido is the northernmost main island of Japan and wildlife photographers will be more aware of this area as a winter destination for red-crowned cranes and Steller’s sea eagles, but as I found out it is a hidden gem all year round.

After reading the brief, I could see this was more about capturing nature and travel rather than specifically wildlife. So I found myself adding unusually squat-looking lenses into my backpack, along with a few dusty filters and extremely reluctantly, the three-legged equipment ‘that shall not be named’. The first thing in the bag was my trusty Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II and whereas on an assignment I would normally reach for another, I thought this would be a great opportunity to use the new OM-D E-M1X that fortuitously I had been trialling. I had a hunch it would be the right tool for the job owing to some neat new features that could lend themselves to the task at hand.