Choosing the Right Lens for Traveling with a Digital SLR Camera
A client asked me recently for some photo tips about lens decisions for a digital camera — what to carry along on her trip to Asia. She was nervous about not only weight but having to do too much changing of lenses while photographing.
Airline limitations have made the task of paring your carry-on gear into a complicated mess. It used to be that if you had the strength, you might bring the kitchen sink along if you could lift it. No more. While in the States, the TSA will allow photographers a camera bag/pack as Well as a purse/PC bag and a conventional carry-on, many airlines pretend not to have heard this.
Once you venture onto a long-distance flight, it’s still the Wild West — some airlines have liberal carry-on allowances, but others are more restrictive. Therefore it pays a photographer, whether amateur or professional, to carry the minimum amount of equipment critical to get the job done.
A common error photographers make is to carry too many zoom lenses of overlapping focal lengths: for instance, an 18-55, 70-300, and a 28-80. Ideally, you want as little overlap as feasible so you are not always delving into the pack for a new lens & thus miss the photo. I utilise a Canon 24-105 lens as my main ‘walking ‘ lens, shooting on either my Canon 5D MKII or 7D (the 7D has a sensor size similar to the Canon Rebel). My other wide angle zoom is a 16-35. If you need a telephoto to photograph wildlife, for example, simply add a 100-400mm or similar-sized lens.
The point is to have a lens that covers 90% of the eventualities you’ll encounter so you do not have to think about changing lenses or carry two cameras. That having been said, with less lenses, you may learn efficiently the best way to pre-visualize a shot with less options. It just means you have to be more clever at repositioning yourself prior to the shot!
Although having a digital camera with a non-interchangeable lens like the Nikon Coolpix can be an advantage size, weight and unobtrusive-wise, these smaller cameras lack the degree of control of the ‘standard SLRs’. One thing that you’ve got to watch out for is shutter lag, where there’s a delay (even of 1 or 2 tenths of a second) between pressing the shutter and the image taken. This can kill any ‘capture the instant ‘ type pictures.
Most smaller camera do not have through the lens viewing or even any viewfinder at all, but rather depend on employing an LCD screen to compose & shoot. This kills any chance of accurate composition or capturing subtle movements or expressions, as you simply can’t see the details clearly enough. If you’re in bright sunlight, this is particularly true.
An SLR gives you an undistracted, clear view of the scene. It also, correctly operated, allows for much more sophisticated control of where you focus in the scene — vital for ‘street ‘ photography of people (& wildlife, for what it’s worth).
As you can see, I’m enthusiastic about the SLR as a digital camera for major photo work, though come to consider it, I’ve had a lot of fun with my iPhone camera of late! Talk about traveling light!
Randy Green is a photographer and naturalist who leads wildlife tours around the world. He enjoys sharing photography tips in the field.