Travel lens discussion

[Scuttlebutt]

I'm going to Ireland in a week. Hitting mostly tourist traps with a few off the beaten path stops.

I'll me toting my M43 gear, but will ask my question in FF terms to collect a general set of responses.

What is the range of focal lengths you would recommend taking (again in FF terms).

If there was a sweet spot range between the high and low, what would that be?

Thanks,

Dan

 

[clewis010]

Depends on where you are going in Ireland and the kind of photography you want to do. My most used lens is a 24-70mm because I do a lot of urban/street photography. The other lens I usually take is my 80-400mm.

 

[Serge]

The easiest thing to do is to choose something from this range depending on the type of shooting (landscape, urban, .... ): 14-24, 24-70. 70-200
I often use the 24-105 as the most versatile range.

 

[fotosean]

FF? a UWA zoom and a 24-70/75mm f/4 zoom will get u the travel/street needs and the landscapes out of the way.
I've left UWA home enough times and regretted it to know enough that just having a separate body with an UWA zoom perma-attached just for landscapes and wide angle street is worth packing the extra weight.

 

[georgehudetz]

For travel with others, I'd normally choose some kind of zoom with an extended range, as I really dislike changing lenses, particularly when I'm not alone. I'm partial to my 24-105 (L-mount). If I was shooting u4/3rds I'd probably have the 12-100.

On the other hand, I could also see carrying nothing but a 35. Knowing me, I'd probably take both and use them on alternating days.

But then I recall one weekend photographing San Francisco with nothing but a 16-35, and loving it.

So I guess I'm not much help, LOL.

 

[grsnovi]

These days the 28-200 lives on my FF Sony and it's my generic travel rig.

 

[clewis010]

I suppose a lot depends on the type of travel you are doing. We like to do cruises so I generally take a lot of gear to the ship but then only take what I need, based on the port we are in, on a daily basis.

We are doing a river cruise down the Rhine in July so I've been thinking what gear to take. I'll probably be doing quite a lot of urban/street/tourist type photography in the towns and cities we visit but I'll also be wanting to do more long range and scenic photography from the ship. So I'm probably going to take my Z7ii with the 24-70 f/2.8 lens for the 'walking about;' photography but I'll also take my D500 with both the 80-400mm and the 500mm pf for the longer range stuff. Then there is the beanbag and the tripod. It's a heavy load but only really from home to the airport and airport to the ship and back. It's not like I'll be carrying it all around every day while we are touring.

 

[Pete_W]

I'm going to Ireland in a week. Hitting mostly tourist traps with a few off the beaten path stops.

I'll me toting my M43 gear, but will ask my question in FF terms to collect a general set of responses.

What is the range of focal lengths you would recommend taking (again in FF terms).

If there was a sweet spot range between the high and low, what would that be?

Dan - for me, the sweet spot when I was shooting MFT was the 12-60mm range. Now I am shooting FF, the lens I use the most is 24-105mm. This wide-angle to mid-tele seems to cover most of what I want to shoot without having to swap lenses.

In the latter days of my use of MFT, I began using the Panasonic 12-35mm and 35-100mm f.28 lenses. Both wonderful, but I found myself swapping between them frequently.

 

[Stephen3]

I'm going to Ireland in a week. Hitting mostly tourist traps with a few off the beaten path stops.

I'll me toting my M43 gear, but will ask my question in FF terms to collect a general set of responses.

What is the range of focal lengths you would recommend taking (again in FF terms).

If there was a sweet spot range between the high and low, what would that be?

Thanks,

Dan

The 12-100mm m43rds lens would do it for me - so 24-200mm FF field of view. If you do wider than 24mm FF then you will already know that.

 

[Travis Butler]

I agree with the others on the 12-100; it's a great do-it-most lens. If you have a larger body; I find it very hard to use on the Pen-F, but it works well on the E-M1 II. If you've got a smaller body and/or size and weight are at a premium, the Panny 35-100/4-5.6 is optically pretty good and amazingly small/light.

I'd also add at least one fast prime, focal length depending on what you're wanting to shoot. I love the Panny 15/1.7 and 20/1.7, and like the Olympus 17/1.8. I've used and like the Panny 30mm macro (although it isn't really 'fast' like the others). The Panny 42.5/1.7 and Oly 45/1.8 are both good lenses in the mid-ranges. No experience with the longer primes. (Also no experience with the pro-level primes from either Panny or Oly; but for travel, I'd say the smaller/lighter non-pro lenses are plenty good enough, unless there's some once-in-a-lifetime situation where you have to have the absolute best IQ.)

If you need something longer, I've used both the Panny 45-175 and the Oly 75-300 II; I wouldn't call either "great", but they're both decent and worth a look if long tele isn't a high priority. I haven't used any of the high-end long tele's, so can't really speak to them.

I've rented both the Panny 12-60 and the PanLeica 12-60; I'd call the 'standard' 12-60 decent, and the PanLeica a couple of notches above that (mostly for more vivid color and better subtle tonal rendering). I'd rate the PanLeica a bit better than the 12-100 in pure IQ, for the same color/tonal reasons. But while it's also somewhat smaller/lighter than the 12-100, that extra 40mm with the 12-100 is a killer. I have to give it to the 12-100.