Fodor's Travel Talk Forums

Fodor's Travel Talk Forums (https://www.fodors.com/community/)
-   Europe (https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/)
-   -   Macro lens in London: for the serious photographers on this list: would you leave a favorite lens at home to make your camera bag lighter? (https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/macro-lens-in-london-for-the-serious-photographers-on-this-list-would-you-leave-a-favorite-lens-at-home-to-make-your-camera-bag-lighter-528118/)

HowardR May 16th, 2005 12:49 PM

Good luck sunny 16......And remember, it's the photographer, not the equipment, that's the most important ingredient in creating good pictures!

Jim_Tardio May 19th, 2005 07:01 PM

Pentax makes a great 16-45/4 lens that I think would be far more useful in your travels. You might consider that in place of the 28-75, since on a digital, it's not really a midrange anymore.

What focal length is your macro? With the 1.5 crop of the Pentax, that may be all you need for a telephoto...especially if it's a 90mm or longer.

I make a part of my living shooting travel stock and can verify that less really is more. Be sure to leave some room for a polarising filter, an ND grad filter, a small flash, and a table-top tripod.

Have a look at my site. Most of the shots include lens information.

http://www.jimtardio.com

Have a great trip!

MD May 19th, 2005 07:14 PM

I'll support that last post.

My digitals have 35-xxx zooms. I also did London with a 35-105 35mm snapshot. I find that a lot of the venues are very cramped; you want a decent shot, a wider angle is desirable.

It's difficult to get the whole building, from across a narrow street. If you back off too far in front of St. Pauls, for example, you start to get street lamps and the building beside you intruding.

Not sure what good a fisheye is, especially cropped - I'd leve that at home.

I would also suggest (from experience) that a small digital handheld (Mine's a Canon A80 - 4Mp) can probably do as good a job with someone who knows how to work the controls - which I expect you could if you operate a fancy SLR. They are as fully programmable, right down to manual setting mode.

But of course, it goes no wider than 35mm so I did feel cramped. But, it does do macro up to a few cm without extra lenses. (Got some good bee close-ups).

Oh, and take a little table-top tripod so you can brace it against walls or pew backs for those indoor shots where real tripods aren't allowed.


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 03:08 PM.