Two bodies or an extra lens for my upcoming trip to Rome?

kaphinga wrote:

redli0nswift wrote:

I guess I've never considered going wider. Is there really that much difference from 12mm (12-40) vs the 7mm Pany or 9mm Oly?

There is a noticeable difference between 9mm and 12mm.

Also, I sometimes shot panos with my iPhone to get a wider field of view.

Where besides the Pantheon would you have used a wider lens?

* Barberini Palace

* San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (actually, just about any church)

* Gallery Doria Pamphilj

...

I may have to look through my pictures and see what else I can come up with.

I'd concur - wider the better. If you haven't traveled in Italy (or for that matter Europe) before you may be surprised how densely packed old cities are, with alleyways only a few feet wide etc. It can be very hard to step back to get a shot of a building without a UWA. And while there are some large cathedrals which will be fine for your 12-40, some of the most interesting stuff will be found in much smaller buildings.

Normally I would advocate a 2nd body, but since you have overlap with your existing lenses, I'm not sure there's a lot of point. My ideal combo would be 2 bodies, 12-40 on one and 7-14 on the other.

Tripod ... I wouldn't bother - some places prohibit them anyway - but I would bring a bean bag - there's always somewhere you can put the camera on the bean bag for long exposures.

A longer lens is useful for picking out architectural details, but much else.

The last time I was in Italy was with Canon FF. In FF terms, the 17-40 was by far the most useful lens, followed by 24-105 (mostly for street portraits) and my 70-200 hardly made an appearance.

Your fast Pany may be handy, but not as much as you might think - the old buildings can be very dark, and you'll need support even with the fastest lens.