Lens choices for Iceland

[dhachey]

Dave,
I can only share my experience in Iceland... I shot a lot of photos with my 100-400 (birds and arctic foxes). My 24-70 was also heavily used. My 24 TSE and 17-40 were only used for a dozen of shots. I was using with 1D bodies.

If I had to do it again, I would take my 24-70, my 70-200 (+ 1.4x extender). This covers 90% of my usage (with a full-frame camera body). I'd add the 17-40 if I had room to spare. I must also say that I rarely use very wide lenses.

How about asking Daniel Bergmann?

Thanks Francois;

    My list was selected at Daniel's suggestion from about twice the number of lenses I mentioned.  I would like to leave the 300 mm lens at home because it's so heavy and my copy doesn't work well with the 1.4 extender, but otherwise it's very sharp.  I suspect the only use it would receive is shooting puffins.  Would the 70-200 mm F4IS on 40D be a good alternative to the 300 mm on a 5D MkII?  The FOV is about the same, but the 5D MkII is such a sweet camera.  Alternatively I could crop the 5D MkII images and still come out somewhat ahead of the 40D + 70-200 combination.

    Like you, my two favorite lenses are the 24-105 and the 70-200, followed by the 35 mm F1.4.  I don't normally shoot very long (>300 mm) or very wide (<24 mm).  I have a Tokina 11-16 mm F2.8 lens that is much better than my Canon 17-40 F4, but I doubt I would use it very much on this trip.  

    Normally I'm not so indecisive about gear choices because my wife helps out a bit with transportation (she's a good Sherpa <grin>), but not on this trip.  Another option is a rolling hard case that I could lock and check at the gate.  

Cheers, ...Dave

[Mark F]

Hi Dave,

We each have our own way of seeing and that influences the lenses we choose to use.  For me, Iceland had many grand vistas of wide open spaces and I chose to use my 16-35 and 28-70 lenses much more often that I ordinarily do. That said, I went back to the LR2 statistics and to my surprise found that I only used these lenses for about 1/3 the shots taken. I used my 70-200 about 40% of the time, although I'd bet that most of those were at the wider end.

The rest were with my 400 with and without the extender. I shoot with a full frame body and found that for many of the puffin shots this was required to fill the frame.  For other puffin shots the 70-200 was fine as the puffins are very tame and allowed me to get quite close. These shots include more of the background setting. The hardest part was dealing with the strong winds and making sure I wasn't blown off the cliffs. A little exaggeration but not that much.  If you plan to use your 40D for birds / wildlife then your 70-200 with extender should do just fine.  For a full frame body I would bring your 300 with the extender.  [Edit - I also used my macro for tiny wildflower photography. That was one late afternoon when we decided to camp at a specific spot to wait for the sunset that never came.]

On the wide end I can only give you my experience, which is that I would have missed not having my 16-35.

I'm kind of slow in post-processing - still relatively new to digital and am trying to improve my LR2 skills.  But I will post photos sooner or later, hopefully sooner.

Iceland is a beautiful country and the people are very friendly and helpful. Have a great trip and if there is anything specific you wish to ask, feel free to do so.

Mark

[dhachey]

Hi Dave,

We each have our own way of seeing and that influences the lenses we choose to use.  

Snip, Snip


Mark

Hi Mark;

    Thanks for your advice.  I'll probably take everything mentioned earlier.  I'd really hate to miss a good photo op.  Let us all know when you are ready to post your work.

Cheers, ...Dave