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Peak Design Slide Lite Camera Strap

Although the OM-1 II is a fairly compact camera and can be easily carried on the smaller Peak Design Camera Leash, I prefer using the Peak Design Slide Lite with my OM-1 II as it is more substantial, is wider and so more comfortable to carry for longer periods and with enough strength to hold even my heaviest OM System lenses like the 100-400mm II. It features a one-hand adjustment so can be fitted to taste although I must be a bit useless as I find I have to adjust it with two hands.

What really sets it apart is the Anchor Link system. Once you’ve used it, it’s hard to go back to threading straps through metal lugs. You attach the Anchors to your camera lugs and then simply clip the camera strap in to those. It’s really secure, means that you can remove the strap quickly when you want to and if like me, you have more than one camera, you can simply move the strap between multiple camera bodies when needed.

I’ve owned mine for several years now and used it heavily through heat and dust in Asia to wind and rain here in Scotland. It’s coped with all that use and still shows hardly any signs of wear.

If you often shoot your OM-1 II with smaller lenses like the f/4 zooms or 1.8 primes then you may prefer the Peak Design Camera Leash as it’s smaller, thinner and is easier to stuff in your pocket when not in use. It also features one-handed adjustment (which I can actually use one-handed) the same Anchor mounting system and is easily strong enough to carry the OM-1 II with all but the heaviest of lenses.

The ideal situation is to own both straps and simply swap between them depending on what lens you plan to use on a given day. That’s exactly what I do.

Peak Design Capture Clip

If you want instant access to your camera but don’t like having a camera strap around your neck then the Peak design Capture Clip is a fantastic carrying solution for anyone like me, who hikes with their OM-1 II.

It’s a metal mount that attaches to any backpack or bag shoulder strap with a plate that attaches to the tripod mount of your camera. You can then simply slide the clip (with camera attached) into the mount and remove it with the press of a quick release button.

For any hikes, where I want the camera instantly accessible but also want the ability to keep both hands free, the Capture Clip has become my favourite way to carry the OM-1 II. It frees up your hands and unlike a camera strap, the camera remains in place without swinging or feeling awkward. I use the Capture Clip with a variety of cameras up to the Nikon Z8 with 24-120mm f/4s lens attached so it easily copes with the weight of the OM System OM-1 II + 12-40mm f/2.8 pro or similar sized setups.

It’s made from high grade metal, has been out in all weathers with me and shows no sign of rust. Its mounting plate is also inter-changeable with the Peak Design Travel tripod so switching between the two is quick and easy for those rare times when I use a tripod with the OM-1 II.

I’d go as far as saying that it’s the best way to carry the OM-1 II if you’re heading out for long walks with the camera. I have mine permanently attached to my hiking backpack and use it constantly.

Keeping the OM-1 II clean

The OM-1 II is the kind of camera that I take anywhere, in any weather. Sometimes I put it on the ground when I’m stopped, it gets wet, it gets muddy and it keeps going. With that kind of use, it’s only right to ensure I at least have the ability to clean it off when I get home as well as giving it a little bit of extra protection.

Expert Shield Screen Protector

I’ve tried many different screen protectors over the years but I’ve settled on using Expert Shield versions due to their easy application, strong protection and clarity. This is the one area where you can offer the OM-1 II a little extra protection to protect the important rear LCD screen and for less than the price of a coffee and slice of cake.

Camera Cleaning Kit

After a rough day in the field, I am meticulous about cleaning the camera down to ensure it’s ready for its next outing. If it’s covered in mud or gunk then the OM-1 II is so well sealed that I’ve seen people literally rinsing it off under the tap. I don’t do that but I do use the camera cleaning kit below which includes everything that you need to remove mud splashes, grass seeds, dirt and dust. I normally wipe the camera off with a microfibre cloth to get it reaonably dry, once dried I blow off all the remaining dust with the included rocket blower.

The best Memory cards for the OM System OM-1 II

The Om-1 II is a fast camera, with its stacked sensor and fast burst shooting rates. To ensure that my memory cards can keep up I use two different kinds, but always from Sandisk. The reason is that in my 20 years of photography, I have never had a Sandisk card fail on me, unlike other brands. I find that a 256gb card is about the perfect size before they start becoming too expensive, while giving plenty of capacity for thousands of photos.

For normal photography use, I have lots of affordable Sandisk Extreme Pro SD cards which are rugged, reliable and plenty fast enough for landscapes, family and general use. They work perfectly well even with the OM-1 II’s Hi-res files. For wildlife shooting, you will need a faster card or the camera will slow down as soon as you fill the buffer. For that I recommend the latest Sandisk Extreme Pro V-90 cards.

Power

The OM-1 II has decent battery life but even so, computational modes, IBIS and a 5.6 million dot EVF consume battery power. I no longer recommend buying loads of batteries for each camera that you own as theyre not cheap and now that almost every camera has the ability to be charged by USB-C it just makes more sense to spend that money on a powerbank that can also be used to power other devices or multiple cameras. I’d recommend getting one genuine OM System BLX-1 battery for your camera and then investing in an Anker powerbank. That’s exactly what I have now settled on after using multiple different third party batteries for my OM-1 II and not being happy with their performance.

I use an Anker Nano Powerbank when I am just out for a day or two and need the ability to quickly top up the camera. It has enough power to fully charge the camera’s battery multiple times and has an integrated cable which means I’m never scrambling around to find wires. It’s also small enough that I never begrudge carrying it. This is my everyday carry and the exact one that I use.

For more power, when I’m staying out longer, have multiple devices to charge or am away on trips, I use another Anker powerbank with an integrated USB-C cable that has 20,000 mAh of power which is plenty to charge up multip camera batteries, my phone and my Ipad Pro. This is the exact one that I use:

The OM System OM-1 II is an incredibly versatile camera that is built to be taken everywhere and do everything. It’s the only camera that offers an IP weather resistance rating, the only one that I’ve ever seen washed under faucets to be cleaned. It can basically stand up to anything that you throw at it while being capable of virtually any type of photography you can dream of. It doesn’t require a lot of accessories to make it complete, just a few well chosen ones that work seemlessly and make the experience of owning the OM-1 II even better.

Last week, I wrote about dealing with a creative rut—something most creatives have to deal with at some point or another. In that piece, I touched on how using smaller cameras often helps me push through those stagnant patches. They act as a mental crutch to relieve self-induced pressure, encourage me to simply get outside, and offer a vast array of computational modes to make experimenting with photography much easier.

This weekend gave me a chance to put that exact philosophy into practice, using the OM System OM-1 Mark II on a routine evening walk.

Low-Friction Wandering

Right next to where we live in Perthshire, we’ve gotten into a wonderful habit of taking our elderly neighbours’ dogs out. It’s a beautiful little walk on the local country estate, it helps out people who can no longer take their dogs for anything more than a quick toilet break outside, and it provides a completely low-friction way for me to get out with a camera.

This time, I decided to pair the OM-1 Mark II with the OM System 25mm f/1.2 PRO lens. When I am in a creative rut, using a zoom lens gives me far too many options and quickly overwhelms my brain. The simplicity of a prime—and specifically one of my all-time favourites across any system—was designed to remove that friction and get my creative juices flowing. I keep my setup as simple as possible and only add a few essential accessories which I went through in another article.

It was early evening with the sun dropping low in the sky. As we picked up Teddy and Poppy, my mum and my eldest daughter Sofia took the dogs ahead, while I wandered slowly down the estate’s path with the camera in hand.

Working the Path

As patches of light began breaking through the huge Scots pine trees lining either side of the path, I raised the camera and fired off a few test frames. A few observations immediately stood out:

• Speed & Computational Power: I played around with the OM-1 Mark II’s handheld High-Res mode, which is dramatically more usable than on the Mark I thanks to its much faster processing speeds.
• Depth & Sharpness: Thanks to the Micro Four Thirds sensor naturally yielding a deeper depth of field for a given aperture, I was happy shooting anywhere from wide-open at f/1.2 down to f/5.6, consistently getting tack-sharp photos with plenty of depth.
• Ergonomics & Viewfinder: The camera is exceptionally quick to operate and comfortable in my hands. In the high-contrast, bright patches of the evening, the 5.6-million-dot viewfinder made composition effortless.
• IBIS Confidence: In the dimmer sections of the path sandwiched between towering trees, I reminded myself of the camera’s brilliant image stabilization. It allowed me to consciously drop the ISO to base level, shooting at slow shutter speeds that would be impossible on most other systems.

I didn’t get any keepers along that initial stretch of the path, but the strict constraints of the prime lens combined with the lightweight, intuitive nature of the OM-1 Mark II did their job. I started feeling comfortable enough to actually look and see potential images again.

The Shot Through the Trees

As we walked further in, the path opened up to fields on both sides—tonight filled with sheep and their rather large lambs bleating away after some had been separated to have their coats sheared. The light was now raking across the landscape beautifully.

That’s when I spotted a stunning view: looking through the last couple of trees out to the fields beyond, with evening light casting long shadows, the hazy mountains of the lower Scottish Highlands in the distance, and crepuscular rays piercing through the sky.

I set up the composition to create a sense of depth, using the closest trees to frame the shot and create the feeling of peering through to witness the landscape beyond. Deciding this view was worthy of the camera’s High-Res mode, I grabbed a handheld 50-megapixel file before hurrying along to catch up with Sofia, Mum, and the dogs.

Walking toward the lake, I felt a little lighter than I have lately. The fresh air, gorgeous light, and seeing Sofia in good spirits playing with Poppy and Teddy were the perfect antidote to the stress occupying my mind. We sat for a little while to enjoy the warm evening and give the dogs a few treats before heading back up the path, returning the dogs, and heading home.

Bringing It Together in Lightroom

Back at home, I uploaded the photos to my iPad—which has become my preferred editing tool, as the Apple Pencil makes working in Lightroom incredibly intuitive. I waited until the next day to look through them.

Most were average at best, but one stood out: the shot through the trees.

It wasn’t quite right straight out of the camera. I cropped it into a 16:9 aspect ratio to remove a fence at the bottom of the image. The fence added nothing; in fact, it acted as a visual barrier, stopping you from immersing yourself in the scene.

Interestingly, I had been shooting the previous night almost exclusively in black and white—largely because I’ve been so impressed with the OM-3’s monochrome output and wanted to keep things simple. While the black-and-white SOOC jpeg was genuinely lovely with great contrast and atmosphere, the warm colors of the evening demanded a color edit using the parallel RAW file.

To get it looking how the landscape actually felt:

• I gently reduced the saturation of the green channel (as OM System files can sometimes make greens a bit too garish for my taste).
• I slightly increased the orange channel and generally warmed the image up.
• I pulled down the highlights in the sky to reveal subtle detail without killing the scene’s brightness.
• I used local masks for dodging and burning to build contrast in the foreground and deepen the sense of spatial depth.

I am genuinely happy with the result. It’s the first photo in a while that made me wish I had a printer set up. (My Canon PRO-4100 was one of the casualties of our move back from the Philippines, but if I ever get another large-format printer, this on a fine cotton rag paper will look fantastic.)

Seeing Light at the End of the Tunnel

The OM-1 Mark II didn’t just help me capture a shot I felt good about; it helped me push through a creative rut by removing friction from the process.

I could easily have sat at home, letting the recent dark clouds completely take over. But by stripping away complexity, getting outside, and observing the world again with a camera that doesn’t demand a fight, I finally found some light at the end of the tunnel.

Tonight, Sofia and I are travelling 2 hours to go and view some puppies, as she has been longing for a little furry friend for some time now. If we end up bringing one home with us soon, he or she will be coming out on a lot of adventures with us, and no doubt, will inspire me to continue getting outside and taking more photos.

Last updated: May 20th 2026
This article was updated on May 20th 2026.

I had planned to go out today with my long lenses and scout a location that looks promising for photographing mad March hares. It’s not far from where I live, and on a local walk last week I spotted several hares in fairly close proximity to each other. It immediately struck me as a place worth returning to with a camera.

Today’s weather had other ideas.

This morning I woke up to a text from Sofia’s school letting parents know that the car park had flooded after heavy rain. It’s also been very windy here lately. As we sat in the car, the wind buffeting it quite strongly, I still had the urge to go and scout the location. But in weather like this I’m unlikely to get any usable photographs.

That’s when my thoughts turned to the OM System OM-1 Mark II. The OM System OM-1 Mark II carries an IP53 weather-sealing rating, meaning it’s designed to keep working in heavy rain, dust and cold conditions — exactly the kind of weather you often find here in Scotland.

I’ve been shooting with Olympus — and now OM System — cameras for years. I’ve had them out in monsoon rains and Hebridean storms, they’re about as rugged and weather sealed as cameras come.

Combined with its light weight and easy handling — even with gloves on (actually better than the original OM-1 in my opinion) — it makes for the perfect grab-and-go camera on a walk like this.

I wasn’t heading out with a bag full of gear. This was just a short local stroll in some pretty miserable weather, with the camera slung over my shoulder on a Peak Design Slide Lite strap.

I walked out of my house and headed up a small country lane towards some nearby farmland and a narrow path that winds through several wide, open fields.

I’d already put on my walking gear, waterproof jacket and boots before stepping outside, as the rain was still lashing down and the wind was ripping across the fields. This particular path has a few old trees lining it, with patches of dense bushes between the path and the surrounding farmland — exactly the kind of cover where I hoped to see the hares again.

It could be a fantastic location. The fields offer open views, while the bushes provide just enough natural camouflage to approach quietly.

By the time I reached the path my boots were already coated in mud. It had rained throughout the night and there was no sign of it easing. It seemed I was the only person out walking today. Maybe I’m a little crazy, but I love this kind of weather — as long as I’ve got the right outdoor gear on.

The trees were being pushed around by strong gusts of wind as the rain continued to lash down. I swung the camera around and unclipped it from the strap. It was already covered in rain, but as I’ve always found with OM System cameras, the OM-1 Mark II paired with the 12–40mm f/2.8 PRO II didn’t bat an eyelid.

I switched it on and took a few photos along the way.

Within ten minutes, a couple of hares in a field to my left suddenly bolted. They had spotted me before I even noticed them. I slowed my pace and continued more carefully as I neared the area where I hoped to photograph them.

As I turned the corner, a small hedgerow hiding my approach, I saw them.

Sheltering in the lee of a line of hedges were three more hares, hunkered down together trying to escape the worst of the wind and rain.

They were quite close to each other and well within range of both my OM System 100-400mm II and my Nikon Z wildlife kit. This particular spot looks really promising for dawn and dusk shoots. It’s close enough to my house that I can return several times a week, and it offers natural patches of cover from which to photograph the hares without disturbing them.

I sat and watched them quietly for five minutes before moving on, not wanting to force them out into the wind and rain.

As I continued along the track the wind increased, shaking the bushes that lined the path, sometimes violently. I struggled to handhold shots below about 1/25 second, which for the OM-1 Mark II is unusual. The wind was simply ripping across the fields and buffeting me too hard.

One thing about the OM-1 Mark II’s weather sealing is that it simply works. It’s such a rugged little camera that I had no hesitation placing it down in the soaking wet grass when I wanted to frame a shot.

By now my jacket and trousers were well covered in rain, although the water was still beading nicely off the fabric. I cinched in the hood on my Keela Munro jacket and carried on a little further, the OM-1 Mark II in hand, ready if something caught my eye.

But today wasn’t really about getting photos.

It was about having the right gear that allows me to get out into nature, whatever the weather — and that includes having a camera I can rely on when Scotland decides to throw its worst at it.

For me, this is exactly where cameras like the OM-1 Mark II — and the OM-3 — really shine. Small enough to take anywhere, rugged enough to handle the worst Scottish weather, and capable enough to capture the moment if the opportunity appears.

When I woke up this morning and saw the weather, I almost immediately knew I’d be taking the OM-1 Mark II out with me. It’s a camera whose weather sealing I trust to handle just about anything Scotland can throw at it — whether that’s rain, snow or sand.

On the walk back I was wrapped up in a hat, fleece, waterproof jacket and trousers, along with gloves. The little OM-1 Mark II was simply hanging from the camera strap or sitting in my hand ready to shoot. It never complained once. No issues, no faults, no problems.

When I got back to the house I just wiped it down and put it on the table next to me as I started writing this article. It looks exactly as it did before I left — although I really should clean the lens properly after having to wipe it with my gloves out in the rain.

As for the hares, I’ll be returning to that spot often over the coming months, following their lives and hopefully photographing and filming them along the way.

OM System OM-1 Mark II Weather Sealing FAQ