"His choice to take that many bodies might suggest that as an OM rep he had
doubts about their capability to handle dust, vibration and lots of use, but he
writes that he only had trouble with one body. Apparently he worked out a
routine of carrying one wide angle equipped camera around his neck with another
sporting the tripod mounted 85-250 over his shoulder. That makes quite a bit of
sense, but I can't for the life of me fathom why he felt that he needed so many
very similar wide and super-wide angle lenses to start with."
One of the reasons he took so much stuff was that he could. When I worked for
Bendix Field Engineering, I carried an OM-1, plus eight lenses and a motordrive
and flash in a camera case that was smaller than a shoebox! The very
compactness of OM-system components encourages taking as much as you can.
There are also practical reasons for "loading up," the most-important of which
is having backups. Even "reliable" cameras fail under abusive conditions (and
walking across Australia falls into that category). Several years ago a
photographer came to my apartment to photograph me for Time Digital. The
shutter on one his Nikon broke in the middle of the shoot, but he had a spare
body.
Why both the 18/3.5 and 21/2? The latter is almost two stops faster, and will
get pictures in dim light the former won't.
Consider the length of the trip and the need to "absolutely, positively" come
back with great pictures, I don't see anything "excessive" about the quantity
or variety of equipment he carried.
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