Cape crusade

AP Editor Nigel Atherton took an OM System OM-5 to South Africa to find out if it is the perfect travel camera

At a glance

£1199 body only

£1499 with 12-45mm F4 PRO lens

• 20.4MP Four Thirds sensor
• ISO 200-6400 (extended: L64-25,600)
• 30fps shooting
• 4K 30p video
• 2.36m-dot EVF
• 3in, 1.04m-dot vari-angle LCD

Last November my wife and I spent two weeks in Cape Town, South Africa, on our first holiday since 2018. It wasn’t her first choice destination but, knowing me very well, and suspecting that Cape Town would be ludicrously photogenic, she agreed to go there subject to certain terms and conditions. Aware of all the hours of boredom I have subjected her to over the years for my art, I agreed. The small print basically went thus:

• This would be a holiday, not a photographic expedition.
• We would be doing a lot of walking and some climbing so I had to travel light – a camera and no more than two lenses.
• No tripod allowed, apart from a tabletop one.
• No getting her up at the crack of dawn for photo opportunities.
• A maximum waiting time of three minutes for me to take a picture.

It’s traditional at AP that if someone is going somewhere interesting and photogenic, they take with them a recently launched camera that they haven’t used before and write a more personal, experiential feature about it to complement the lab test. Like this one. When I scanned the list of potential cameras to take along on my holiday, and remembered my contractual obligations, there was one camera that stood out as the obvious companion.