Iceland - what lenses?

Hi all,

Planning a trip to Iceland in June 2009. Has anyone been? If so what lenses did you mostly use? Any photos to share?

What lenses should I be looking at? Bearing in mind there will be very little darkness at that time of year.

Don't want to carry anything too heavy - flying from Glasgow and hand luggage is going to be fairly limited on the plane.

Thanks

P.S. Don't want to spend a fortune either! Budget say, £750 total

scoot4nat said:

Hi all,

Planning a trip to Iceland in June 2009. Has anyone been? If so
what lenses did you mostly use?

Click to expand...

When I went a few years ago I had a film SLR with a very limited range of consumer lenses and to be honest they did a good job. If I was going again now with the 40D, I'd take a standard zoom (in my case Sigma 18-50/2.8), probably the 10-22 as it's easy to carry, and something longer because I would want to do something I missed out on last time - whale watching. I have a 300/4 IS but weight/space considerations might make the 70-200/4 plus 1.4x TC a wiser choice. Leaving the 300 behind would be very hard though! The Sigma focuses fairly close (1:3) so I could, reluctantly, leave my macro lens at home.

I know that doesn't take your budget into account, but it tells you the type of lens I would take - there are good options at various price points.

Ultrawide is a must, 17-40L is the bare minimum on crop camera or the Sigma 15-30.

I think you would be pretty safe with 17-40 and the 70-300.
If you are going birding bring a 400 mm lens.

If you have fullframe then 24-70 would probably stay on the camera around 90% of the time.

And definently bring a fast prime with you, at least either 35/2.0 or the 50/1.4.















--
KEG

I currently have non IS kit lens and 50mm 1.8 - would this prime be fast enough. What would it be best used for?

I plan to buy the 70-300 - do you think this will give me enough length for bird shots, notably puffins?

and will probably replace my kit lens with 17-85

10-22 is something i would certainly consider

Any others?

I took pictures of terns with only 70-200, so 70-300 should be doable, puffins are big and don't move too quickly.

Where are you planning to go?

50/1.8 will do just fine. For the kit lens, I am not sure, never used it personally, it would probably do fine at around f/8.0.

--
KEG

In July went to Iceland - Reykjavík - Hveragerði - Skógar - Dyrhólaey - Kirkjubæjarklaustur - Skaftafell - Jökulsárlón - Landmannalaugar - Þórsmörk - Gullfoss - Þingvellir - Akureyri - Lake Mývatn - Faxafloi (whale waching)

Took with itself a following set of lenses - 10-22, 17-55/2.8, 70-200/2.8
All lenses have been very demanded!

--
White Mouse
http://WhiteMouse.RU/photo/
http://WhiteMouse.PhotoSight.RU/

Iceland is at the top of my travel list as well...

I will be taking:

1dsm2
40d
17-40
24-105
501.4
70-300 DO

Other essentials will include

singh-ray blue/gold, vari ND, color combo pol.
RRS pano gear
tripod etc.

Have a great trip!

I shoot landscapes, both urban and natural, plus of course "family snap shots".

I took 5D with 24mm 1.4L, 35mm 2.0 and 50mm 1.8.

The Icelandic landscape is on a grand scale, with Fjords that are miles across, and for most of these scenes I found that the 35mm field of view felt very natural and captured the scene as I saw it. In urban settings the 24mm was a really good focal length and it's a very sharp performer even at wide apertures - but it feels very heavy after walking for a while. 50mm feels almost like a mild telephoto by comparison and was good to pull things in just a bit.

I took a 77mm pola with appropriate step down rings but only occasionally used it due to often overcast conditions. Also took Gitzo GM5541 monopod which I used quite a lot on walking trips as it's nice and light but provides very worthwhile support.

At the last minute before departing I bought a GPS data logger (i-Blue 747) which I configured to record position every 5 seconds. I set the camera clock to UTC so it'd be in sync with the GPS signals, charged it every night and easily got a very full day with it on. Now that I'm home my PC has been crunching RAW files applying lat/long and place names to the EXIF and generating KML files so that I can display the routes we took each day along with thumbnails of the pictures taken. It's early yet but the process seems to have worked well, and solves the problem of trying to remember where a picture was taken!

I hope you enjoy your trip, we certainly did. Iceland is a stunning place with wonderful people, though it certainly seems expensive to people traveling with the US Peso

Kevin

Hey, Iceland is now only the 4th most expensive country in Europe!

But on the other hand much less expensive for those with GBPs or Euros!

--
KEG

After one lunch ashore we stuck to going back on board QE2 for mid day meals when visiting Norway. $82 US for 2 open face sandwiches, a small pizza, 2 soft drinks and a coffee! Admittedly all of very good quality, but $82 US!! A German group at a table near ours commented over dinner that for them it's "expensive, very expensive, and Norway".

Kevin

Well I'm from Glasgow so the expense may not be such a shock to the system.

We will be staying in Rekavijk, but will try and get around as much as possible

There's some incredible scenery around Rekyavik, much of it accessible only with 4 wheel drive and great big balloon tyres. Amazing hot springs and geo-thermal power stations just outside town too.

You should try fermented shark just to say you have, it's revolting and tastes strongly of ammonia. The "hard fish" or dried fish is quite good, a bit like a fishy version of pork scratchings. Hot dog stands in the center of town are quite good too, and the night life doesn't start til late, late at night. Unfortunately the Cathedral is under repair, as is the road leading up to it, so you loose a few photo opportunities there.

Dress as if for a Scottish summer, which is to say plenty of water proofs! It's great country with fantastic people, I think you'll have a good trip.

Kevin

Or just rent a car, pretty expensive though, but worth it, most of the interresting locations are in around 200 km radius from the city.

--
KEG